Browsing Tag

Maria Hunt

Real Aphrodisiacs for Valentine’s Day Drinks: Passionate Pomegranate

A red orb with all those juicy seeds inside, a pomegranate just suggests fertility and promise. It’s thought to be the tempting forbidden fruit that seduced Adam and Eve in the Bible. In the Greek myth, Persephone was forced to spend half the year in the Underworld after she was tricked into eating a few pomegranate seeds during a visit to Hades. All in all, these myths make the pomegranate a pretty fascinating and tasty fruit. We’ve all gotten word that pomegranates are chock full of healthy antioxidants, vitamins and minerals which scientific studies show can help reduce wrinkles, lower blood pressure and prevent heart disease. Pomegranate is also a great source of folic acid, which is an important nutrient for pregnant women. If you’re trying to get pregnant, it turns out pomegranate can help in that department too. A researcher at the University of California found that pomegranate is…
February 9, 2010
Bubbly Girl Drink of the Week: La Mattina Appassionata

I just did a fun Saturday morning radio interview with Mario Martnoli and Amy Strong of the “Food & Dining” show on KLAA AM 830 and are they ever Italo-philes! We talked about buying hand-blown champagne flutes in Venice, sipping cocktails made with Aperol and the Lemon Ice, a delicious digestif cocktail from The Bubbly Bar made with prosecco, vodka, lemon sorbet and fresh mint. Our conversation got me thinking about all the lovely sparkling wines and liqueurs that come from Italy. When I’m mixing a cocktail, probably the first wine I think of is prosecco, the sparkling wine from the Veneto. Wines made from the prosecco grape have such a delicate quality with soft bubbles and hints of green apple, minerals and white flowers. I recently received a sample of a new one called Passionne di Fiore.It’s a likable little wine, with lots of fresh green apple and hints…
November 14, 2009
Bubbly Events
Bubbles on Tour: Bubbly Bar Book Events

It’s been quite the whirlwind since my book The Bubbly Bar: Champagne & Sparkling Wine Cocktails (Clarkson Potter, $16.99) launched a few weeks ago. It’s amazing how many different skills it takes to be an author; not only do you need to know enough about a topic to write about it, once you’ve done so and had the incredible good fortune to get a book published, then you need to become an expert at marketing, event planning and logistics! All that is to say that with the help of some friends, I’ve put together some fun Bubbly Bar book events that will start happening around the country in a couple weeks. If you’re a Bubbly Girl – or even if you just like to have fun while tasting some sparkling wine cocktails and learning something new, then I hope you’ll come out to join the fun as I make my…
September 14, 2009
Bubbly Events
The Bubbly Bar: A book launch and a sparkling sangria recipe

It’s hard to believe it’s finally happening, but after three years of work and waiting, my book “The Bubbly Bar: Champagne & Sparkling Wine Cocktails for Every Occasion” is on sale today!! It’s a beautiful, fun and useful book, filled with great classic and original drinks that mix international sparkling wines like brut champagne, prosecco, cava with fine spirits, seasonal fruits and herbs and homemade syrups. Plus there’s a great guide to visiting California sparkling wineries and buying great bubbly in any price range. But don’t take my word for it; Washington Post spirits writer Jason Wilson wrote a great review on it and San Francisco based cocktail expert Camper English is featuring a Bubbly Bar book give-away on Alcademics. In case you’re in San Diego on Wednesday Aug. 26, there’s a book launch party and farm-to-bar cocktails mixer hosted by Hotel Solamar and Slow Food Urban San Diego from…
August 24, 2009
Bubbly Events
Bubbly Girl Drink of the Week: The Ginger Snap with Sparkling Sake

Just like most of us started out drinking cheap beer and sweet pink zinfandel, my early sake experiences were with awful stuff served warm so that I couldn’t tell how bad it was. Fortunately, there’s been something of a sake revolution going on in the U.S. and with events like the San Diego Japan Society’s Sake & Beer Festival on June 25, we’re being exposed to all the elegant and refined junmai ginjo and junmai daiginjo sakes that have all the complexity of a fine wine. (For an excellent and detail discussion of the different styles of sake, be sure to visit this sake tutorial on John Gauntner’s appreciation site Sake World.com.) But sparkling sake is still something of a mystery to many domestic sake drinkers. It’s relatively new in Japan too, dating back to the 1940s I’m told, as compared to nihonsu or traditional sake, which has been around…
June 19, 2009