Adam Levy

We're taking a short break as we prepare a snazzy new way to deliver the booze news. Like, longer than it takes to make a round of Ramos Gin Fizzes for the entire crowd at a Jerry Thomas look-alike fan convention – twice. Don’t worry – if you’ve missed anything or care to revisit an old favorite article, we are bringing all of our previous content with us, and you should be able to search for it fairly easily. Please excuse us if we go dark or you come up with a cryptic error message as we finalize the process.

Kevin Gibson is a Louisville, Ky.-based free-lance writer who writes about everything from food to music to beer to bourbon to professional football. He is author of "Louisville Beer: Derby City History on Draft" (2014, History Press). He published his first novel, "The Liberation of Crystal Hill" (Bearhead Publishing), in 2011; he also published "Crohn's Disease: A Memoir from the Toilet" in January 2015 and his currently working on two more book projects. But when he isn't running around town chasing stories or poised at his trusty laptop writing, you can often find him at one of the local breweries and being thankful for the life he lives.

Now they are doing the same thing with a fabulous full-service rooftop space with a cocktail emphasis atop their gorgeous Butchertown neighborhood distillery – What we are trying to do is provide an elevated (literally and metaphorically) Copper & Kings experience,” says proprietor Joe Heron. We are essentially a brandy bar – and brandy’s place in the classic cocktail canon will be quite forcefully illustrated from Sazeracs to Old Fashioneds and Sidecars,” says Heron. We will also uniquely provide a gin experience of imagination and variety, using our different gins for G&T’s, to Spanish style GinTonics to GinGin Mules.”

In August, as I’m basting in the New York City heat and humidity, I can’t imagine sipping anything that can’t take an ice cube. Luckily that leaves many choices, but one of my recent  favorites is actually a bit of a reacquaintance, a refreshing sipper I first met in my wine retail days, Pineau des Charentes. Pineau des Charentes is the result of fresh grape juice added to Cognac eau-de-vie (both share the same territory along the Atlantic Coast of France). By the early 20th century, the Charentais gave PdC the same focus and skill as that of Cognac, with enough producers stepping up the quality such that it obtained Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée status by 1945.