For beginner wine enthusiasts, hosting their first wine tasting party can become a bit overwhelming. But to help, remember these 3 basic factors:

1. Wine Pairing
2. Wine Grades
3. Wine Reviews

These can be researched online, and maybe even have 3×5 cards placed on your wine tasting tables with such information.

For years wine pairing has been established as the best way to enjoy both the meal and the wine. The pairing can be a pleasurable experience and although many opinions and rules exist on which wines go best with what foods, I hold it to be a very personal decision.

It ultimately is measured by your taste buds.

As far as th wine grades, this will help you organize your table and categorize by different wine grades.

These can be categorized as Supreme, Pure, and Value grades.

Last, but not least, you can include on those info cards, the different reviews you have researched online. You can even include blank cards to have some of your guests provide their own reviews of the wines provided.

Now, whether our reasons for hosting a wine tasting party are to help with pairing, grading, or reviewing, or purely romantic, it is certainly the best to enjoy life’s greatest pleasure!

Why do I ask? Because if your house is set up like mine, your bar may well be either near or in your kitchen. And if it is, I think I’ve found one of the better spots to help spruce up that kitchen to at least look like you know what to do in it.

I just finished renovating the kitchen and in the center an island, of course. Over head, a pot rack! Not just any pot rack an Eclume pot rack!

These pot racks are meant to put some luxury and shine in the kitchen, and around the bar. Along with the pot rack, we purchased the wine and accessories rack to accompany it on the bar. Looks great!

Enclume racks (pronounced “Ahn-Kloom”) feature signature hanging arms supporting the main rim rather than the typical lightweight chain hooked through a thin rim. Their hammered steel forged up to twice as thick, is recognized as the standard in cookware rack finishes and construction. Meant to last a lifetime, your Enclume cookware rack will become a treasured heirloom to be passed on through the generations.

If interested, check them out! We like what we saw and have.

I know, we usually share drink recipes, but today we wanted to share an awesome Alaskan king crab legs recipe and wine pairing. We were able to take some time, finally, to spend with some family friends and enjoy a great time with food and drinks. Hosting the party, of course I was the tender. Margaritas, Mojitos, and Lemon Drop shots everywhere.

The main course were Alaskan king crab legs…. man, were they good! You almost have to eat them with metal gloves, but they’re worth it.

We were able to find and follow a recipe from the Foodnetwork.com.

Drunken Alaskan King Crab Legs

3 bottles premium ale
3 lemons, cut in 1/2
1 head garlic, split in 1/2
3 pounds Alaskan king crab legs, split
Drawn butter, for serving

To a large stockpot with a steamer insert, add beer, lemons and garlic and bring to a boil. Add crab legs and cover. Steam for 5 minutes or until crab is cooked through. Serve with drawn butter.

But to finish it just right, a nice Reisling wine.

Whew, enjoy!

Planning on moving to Boston and want to know the best of the best? First of all, if you are planning to move to ol’ Beantown, the best Boston Moving Company is Humboldt. Years of experience and if you do not want your liquor or wine bottles coming back to you in a hefty bag, well, trust me, Humboldt, the best Boston Moving Company.

Now, over at our colleagues blog at DrinkBoston.com, we hear that Hendrick’s Gin have chosen five finalists to compete in the Beantown Bartender Battle at Green Street, this past Tuesday.

We want to take the time to congratulate the finalists, who are:

We can tell you what our recipe for the best margarita is, but then we will have to kill you. Over the last year or so, we have posted many drink recipes, but none so popular as the margarita recipes. Now, what we neglected to mention or include, is the frozen margarita. Although the drink recipes stay the same, the difference of course is the crushed ice.

Now what do you need exactly to make the perfect FROZEN margarita?? The perfect blender.

You cannot use just any type of blenders. Either the ice is crushed so much that it is practically liquefied, or not enough and the result is a chunky monkey margarita…. hmmm, nice drink name.

The blenders are what provide the perfect texture for the frozen margarita. After some research, we have found that a blender that will provide you with the consistency needed will be in the price range of $20 - $98. Broad range, we know, but we consider different budgets without losing much quality.

The one we found best was the Hamilton Beach 50754 WaveStation 10 Speed and at a reasonable of price of just $35.

A good comparison site to view the list of the top blenders for margaritas can be found here ->.

Hope this was informative…. keep tending!

Most homeowners have a bar setup and usually have the typical nuts or pretzels in a bowl to offer their guests. Last month as we visited a friend, we noticed a bowl of jelly beans…. hmmm! They were addicting, especially went well with the margaritas served.

I wasn’t sure if my hangover the next day was due to the alcohol or the sugar.

I asked where it was purchased from and the homeowner mentioned he bought in bulk online.

After some search I had to share a great online store, Oh Nuts!. Their bulk jelly beans prices has been the best I have found till date.

We wanted to share this, as this idea can be a great compliment to your bar. Or, you may even purchase bulk jelly beans and include it in your gift giving baskets.

Some ideas may even include packaging it together with a margarita mix and a bottle of tequila. the sour of the salt and lime in a margarita coupled with the sweetness of a Baja-Margarita Jelly bean, mmmmm. Give it a try, it’s just an idea we had here.

The bartender speaks up and says “Hey what the hell are you doing?”

The blind man says, “Just taking a look around..”

The man says, “Set me up with seven whiskey shots and make them doubles.” The bartender does this and watches the man slug one down, then the next, then the next, and so on until all seven are gone almost as quickly as they were served. Staring in disbelief, the bartender asks why he’s doing all this drinking.

“You’d drink them this fast too if you had what I have.”

The bartender hastily asks, “What do you have pal?”

The man quickly replies, “I have a dollar.”

“You should be ashamed of yourself young man! Drinking is a Sin! Alcohol is the blood of the devil!”

Now John gets pretty annoyed about this, and goes on the offensive.

“How do you know this, Sister?”

“My Mother Superior told me so.”

“But have you ever had a drink yourself? How can you be sure that what you are saying is right?”

“Don’t be ridiculous–of course I have never taken alcohol myself”

“Then let me buy you a drink - if you still believe afterwards that it is evil I will give up drink for life”

“How could I, a Nun, sit outside this public house drinking?!”

“I’ll get the barman to put it in a teacup for you, then no one will ever know.”

The Nun reluctantly agrees, so John goes inside to the bar.

“Another pint for me, and a triple vodka on the rocks”, then he lowers his voice and says to the barman “and could you put the vodka in a teacup?”

“Oh no! It’s not that Nun again is it?”

Then, the guy on the television closed his eyes and threw himself off the bridge. The second guy hands the first guy the money.

“I can’t take your money,” said the first guy. “I cheated you. The same story was on the five o’clock news.” “No, no. Take it,” said the second guy. “I saw the five o’clock news too. I just didn’t think the guy was dumb enough to jump again!”