Your daily dose of news and happenings from around the drink-o-sphere:
– The Los Angeles-based group, Beer Thugs, is one of several mostly Latino craft beer collectives that gather to showcase and share rare bottles.
– Tej, the fabled, 4th-century honey wine once reserved for nobility, is now one of Ethiopia’s most popular local drinks.
– Scotland’s BrewDog, Britain’s fastest-growing drinks company, aims to attract daytime customers with its latest coffee venture.
– The relatively recent emergence of the term “craft beer” to describe small breweries, formerly known as “micro-breweries,” has rhetorical implications.
– Outraged French vintners hijacked and drained two tankers transporting Spanish wine to protest the increasing number of wine imports in the country.
– Craft beer is on track to displace vodka as Russia’s drink of choice with over 1,000 microbreweries already in existence.
– Despite having earned a less-than-stellar reputation, sulfites are a naturally occurring byproduct of fermentation.
– The traditional Brazilian beverage, Catuaba, is making a comeback as brands release experimental iterations of the low-cost liquor.
– Finally, the title of a new book, Terroir and Other Myths of Winemaking, prompts debate over the deeper meaning behind the often-used term.
[Photo: Flickr/U.S. Department of Agriculture]