Month: November 2015
Review: Beale Street Dynasty
Beale Street Dynasty: Sex, Song, and the Struggle for the Soul of Memphis Preston Lauterbach W. Norton and Company Street: 03.30 Beale Street Dynasty is an essential and engaging book that goes into great depth about the glory, success and power of the black community of Memphis, Tennessee. Preston Lauterbach weaves a remarkable tale of
Review: Prompt Me
Prompt Me W.P. Kimball Self-Released Street: 09.01 Prompt Me is an excellent example of the proliferation of flash fiction in the Internet age—this being loosely defined as any story under 1,000 words—and W.P. Kimball is one of the better writers in this form that I’ve come across in my limited experience. Kimball focuses most of her
Review: Bitters Lab
Bitters Lab Small Batch Bitters, 4-oz. bottles bitterslab.com Bitters Lab is moving up in the local cocktail ingredients scene, and their bitters add dimension to even the simplest Old Fashioned. Their Aromatic bitters include cherries, and the overall mix exudes almost a lavender scent, but it also tastes sweeter than the good ol’ Angostura. The Charred
Review: Bottle & Bee Artisan Syrups
Bottle & Bee Artisan Syrups Artisan Syrups, 8-oz. bottles bottleandbee.com Bottle & Bee Artisan Syrups allow the aspiring home bartender to take their cocktail-making to the next level—not to mention that their syrups are super tasty. I tested their grenadine, gum, orgeat and peach syrups, which delighted my palate and helped me perfect a couple
Review: Garwood’s Ginger Beer
Garwood’s Ginger Beer Ginger Beer, 12-oz. bottles facebook.com/garwoodsgingerbeer Thomas Garwood and Ashlee House Kickstarted the market in Salt Lake for fresh, organic ginger beer in early 2015, and have been the valley’s sole local supplier of the gingery, effervescent beverage ever since. Garwood’s flagship ginger beer is a mouthwatering concoction—made from a potent amount of
Review: Stanley Classic and Adventure Series Drinking Vessels
Stanley Classic and Adventure Series Drinking Vessels stanley-pmi.com In June of this year, I praised Portland Growler Co.’s ceramic Sprocket growler, but after trying Stanley’s Classic Vacuum Growler, I’m glad that the ceramic behemoth fell off my refrigerator and exploded into a thousand pieces on my kitchen floor. Stanley’s steel growler is more durable, lighter,
Review: Aspire Eyewear
Aspire Eyewear Creative Lens aspireeyewear.com Maybe you’re a trendy glasses connoisseur, maybe you’re just one of the unfortunate nerds (like me) who is afflicted with bad eyesight and needs a sturdy pair of specs. Either way, you’re in luck, because these glasses from Aspire are both extremely wearable, and extremely durable. These specs revolutionize and
Review: Euclidean
Euclidean Alpha Wave Entertainment / AAD Productions Reviewed on: PC (exclusive) Street: 09.25 Don’t get me wrong—I love the fact that Euclidean is a VR-enabled exploration of Lovecraftian insanity-horror. It looks beautiful, the narration is batshit crazy, and it excels at impressing a feeling of claustrophobic dread upon the player. As a piece of immersive
Review: Overruled!
Overruled! Dlala Studios Reviewed on: PS4 Also on: PC, Xbox One Street: 09.15 Overruled! is a multi-player brawler that is best enjoyed with a group of friends. It also has a single player mode that is basically a bunch of mini-games, but it’s really not any fun. The multi-player battle mode is absolutely frantic and
Review: Fermentation Without Representation
Fermentation Without Representation pours an extremely dark-brown color with a small, tan head. The nose is huge with pumpkin, squash, ginger, cinnamon, chocolate, roasted malt, clove and caramel. The taste is just as big, with chocolate, roasted malt, pumpkin, caramel, cinnamon, ginger, light coffee, clove and spices. … read more