In 2014, homebrewers Macy Moore and Matt Hill were part of a social bike riding club in Fort Worth. During a ride on a near-freezing evening, a discussion of what kind of brewery they would open if they could became the catalyst for HopFusion Ale Works’ founding. Not long after…
I’m a busy girl. For that reason, I enjoy multitasking. Alex Fletcher’s recent creation for Atwater Alley, the Cubano Daiquiri, helps me do just that — it’s an expertly portioned daiquiri with a little something extra: cigar smoke-infused rum. Since it’s doing double duty, this cocktail packs a wallop, so take…
Matt Ragan has done amazing things at Victor Tangos. Not only is the Henderson Avenue locale still a hot spot serving unique and delicious food and drink after eight years of business — a miracle in a market like Dallas — but they continue to keep things interesting. An impetus…
Craft beer has been a booming industry in Dallas for a number of years, but Fort Worth may soon rival Dallas’ lineup, with several breweries planning to open before the end of the year. In 2014, the Collective Brewing Project first came onto the North Texas craft beer scene after renting…
Get ready, beer fans: The Dallas Observer’s sixth annual BrewFest, sponsored by Whole Foods Market, will take over the Dallas Farmers Market on Saturday, September 10. The outdoor beer sampling event features more than 400 beers from around the globe, plus live music and local food vendors. The ticket price for…
Eating the recommended daily amount of fruit seems easier for kids. Between bananas in lunch bags, apples and peanut butter after school and orange slices at half time during soccer games (let’s not even talk about the Capri Suns), kids are pretty fruit flush. Adults seem to buy fruit and…
For the third year in a row, beloved local rock band the Toadies have teamed up with Martin House Brewing in Fort Worth to brew something they can crush on stage. And indeed, the sudsy hits keep coming as the two beers released on Sunday, Hell Below, a strong black…
The men behind Pilot Point’s Western Sons Distillery expanded their sphere of influence as the booze barons of Denton County by launching Whistle Post Brewing Company on Saturday right next door. John Straits and Evan Batt have added another wing to the “Old Panty Factory” building in central Pilot Point (hard…
Right now, we all want one thing: A/C. OK, actually we want two things: A/C and cold drinks. Victor Tangos has some serious A/C blasting, and their Cool Like That cocktail by Andrew Stofko satisfies the latter. We’ve never considered radicchio for a cocktail, but we’re glad that Stofko did…
Balcones Distillery in Waco last week released a small batch of Texas rum that the distillery says will slowly makes its way onto Texas shelves — and then quickly disappear. This particular batch of rum, Balcones’ third, started with Barbados-style and blackstrap molasses and was put away to mature in…
The folks behind Fort Worth’s newest brewery, Wild Acre Brewing Co., aren’t screwing around. It’s true, they might be the seventh brewing operation in a three-mile radius centered roughly on the Sundance Square area, but Wild Acre is coming in hot, already having built up a cache of cans of…
A relative to tequila has been showing up of late on cocktail menus all over Dallas. Mezcal is a spirit made from agave, but with some seriously smoky notes. For the uninitiated, Abacus’ Smoke on the Water is the perfect gateway drink to the smoky spirit, thanks to tequila infused with…
Deep Ellum venues on Main Street open their doors every third Thursday evening for Wine Walk. This event is perfect for the art-lover whose resveratrol levels could use a little pick-me-up. For $10 you get a specially designed wine glass which will be topped off as you meander through participating…
It’s Negroni Week, which is a lot like Christmas if Christmas were a week-long celebration of aperitifs. Basically, you drink a lot of them and, for each negroni purchased at participating bars, the bar will donate $1 to their chosen charity. That means every bar from Mesquite to Saginaw will…
Dallas does a boozy brunch pretty well. It’s basically a way of life around here. Who was it that said “a brunch without alcohol is just a sad, late breakfast”? An omniscient Sunday bruncher, that’s who. When Houston transplant Max’s Wine Dive opened its brunch-friendly, chicken-fried doors in West Village without…
Bacon. Brisket. Butter. Avocados. Pork belly. Fatty things are better things — even when it comes to booze. Bars across DFW are putting that theory to the test with fat-washed cocktails. Sounds scary, no? Have no fear, it just means that they’re infusing a liquid with fatty flavor using oils…
A group of visionary Oklahomans made their inaugural appearance at the Untapped Festival last year, gripping attendees’ attention with a self-assured style honed in a hostile environment. This year, for the Fort Worth edition of the cool beer/good music festival, our neighbor to the north has gifted DFW with a…
An old world beer is being born anew in the ever-evolving craft beer scene. This one will go perfect with your beach towel and snorkel this summer. And so that you can be ahead of the game, gose is pronounced /go-zah/. According to the German Beer Institute, gose is a…
If ever there was a time to treat yourself to FT33’s $15 cask-aged Agave Negroni, June 6-12 is it. Negroni Week is back, with bars around DFW serving up classic and modern takes on the classic gin-vermouth-Campari cocktail, and a portion of sales from every negroni sold go to a…
Woodshed Smokehouse, chef Tim Love’s rustic restaurant complete with an expansive patio, is the perfect respite for us “city folk” when we visit our friends to the west. The barbecue is on point, the cocktails follow suit and the location overlooking the Trinity River will let you hit “refresh” without having…
New breweries turn up on North Texas taps every month, but not many come carrying the same legacy as Big Bend Brewing. Founded deep in the heart of the Lone Star State’s last frontier by the punk rock godfather of independent Texas brewing, Big Bend bottles (or rather cans) the…
On the first day, God made … what was it again? Well on the last day, he made bacon. And the day after that, he made bourbon. Nickel and Rye put them together and made something heavenly. Nickel and Rye’s Maple Bacon Manhattan is an incredibly simple yet flavorful way…
