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Rewind a few years, and vodka and gin were in the ascendancy in style bars across the country. Cocktails such as the cosmopolitan were de rigueur, and vodka in particular was seen as the base spirit of choice for creative bartenders. Meanwhile, poor old rum had a rough image: a relic from the past century, with the odd pirate gag never too far away. But now, rum is beginning to shake off these connotations and is gaining the respect from bartenders - and more importantly, consumers - that it quite clearly deserves. And it should
be said that while it's easy to poke fun at the maritime connections, these only exist because they played a crucial role in the history of rum itself.
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Daily Mail wine columnist Matthew Jukes has teamed up with whisky writer Dave Broom for two new tasting games.
The Wine and Whisky Tasting Party packs, from Blue Tree, will be available in Sainsbury's. Both versions contain four miniature bottles plus a CD containing questions plus a tutored tasting.
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Australian wine exports are continuing to increase - reaching 676 million litres for the year to the end of August, according to the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation, although the average price per litre is cotinunig to fall.
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South Africa's Cathy van Zyl has become the third new Master of Wine of 2005 - and the first MW to be resident in South Africa.
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The Langton's Classification of Australian Wine, which has recently been published in its fourth edition, has grown to be three times longer than the original 1991 version but will
be fixed at its present total of 101 wines, Langton's auctioneer Andrew Caillard MW has told Harpers.
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Jancis Robinson MW OBE, herself a past WSET student, officially opened the International Wine & Spirit Centre, the new home of the Wine & Spirit Education Trust, on 29 September.
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Alex Anson, it seems, didn't have your usual boyhood ambition: there were, for him, no dreams of lifting the World Cup, landing on Mars or saving the world; he never saw the appeal of being a fireman or a train driver. The young Anson had other ideas. What he wanted to be more than anything else in the world was, of all things, a wine retailer.
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Edward Cavendish & Sons, KWV's UK subsidiary, has introduced the Golden Kaan range to the UK.
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How did your family come to own not just a hotel but also an island?
My parents purchased the island in 1973 with the intention of creating a hotel out of the main house. Initially, the idea was to run it as a hotel in summer and a religious retreat in the winter, because my father was a Church of Scotland minister. But at the end of the first year, after running the hotel for four months without a break, they decided the idea of the religious retreat wouldn't work and just kept it as a seasonal hotel. When they opened in 1973, every bedroom had its own bathroom, which was unusual for the time and meant they had a leg up on everyone else.
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Burgundy brand Blason de Bourgogne is to sponsor the 2005 French Film Festival UK, running 4-14 November. The festival takes place in a selection of leading independent cinemas, including the Riverside London, Edinburgh Film House, Glasgow Film Theatre and Cineworlds in Manchester and Birmingham.
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The Wine and Spirit Trades' Benevolent Society has announced the dates of its forthcoming events in 2006.
The Vintry Ball takes place on Thursday 9 March 2006 at the Dorchester in London, and the Benevolent Banquet will be at the Hilton on Park Lane on Tuesday 9 May 2006. The New Year's lunch has been scheduled for Friday 13 January.
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The Thresher Group has introduced a new online application and selection process to revolutionise' its branch-manager recruitment.
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Youngs pubs are running a month-long promotion of South African wine.
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The French Wines campaign is holding a trade tasting of French wines retailing at 8 and over at Vinopolis, London.
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Western Wines will no longer handle the distribution of the Bellingham and Douglas Green South African brands, following DGB's decision to open a UK office to handle distribution and marketing for these brands.
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Jeremy Beadles has been appointed to succeed Quentin Rappoport as Chief Executive of the Wine & Spirit Trade Association starting on 1st January 2006.
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William Grant & Sons has snapped up the French brandy company Raynal & Cie, thus adding the Three Barrels and Raynal brands to its portfolio.
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After many years of deliberation, a ruling has just been passed that the youngest eau de vie in a bottle of XO Cognac must be at least 10 years old, some four years older than the current minimum age, reports Stuart Peskett.
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Wine writer and former Virgin Wine merchandising director Chris Orr, is to head up a new wine service for Quintessentially, the 24-hour virtual concierge service favoured by the Sloane set'.
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Wine Intelligence, the leading research organisation specifically for the wine sector, is launching its first Leading Thinkers' Seminar, which will take place on Thursday 24 November at the Great Eastern Hotel in London.
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