The Gourmez

Alley 26 320 East Chapel Hill St. Downtown Durham Website $9 to $12 per drink 4 pm to 2 am (May I take this moment to say I love a bar that posts a closing time?) To my disappointment, Alley 26, Durham’s newest upscale bar, is not located in an alley. It takes up actual [...]

Frosty’s Chocolate Orange Martini at the Washington Duke Inn For the month of December, you can order a cocktail of my very own creation at the Washington Duke Inn’s Fairview Dining Room and Bull Durham Bar. I won first place in their Blog Nog cocktail competition for my riff on a Terry’s chocolate orange. It’s [...]

I headed out of the restaurant after dinner on my first night in Minneapolis, only to find myself in the middle of a finish line! There were no signs of a race at all when we went inside, I swear! It was hilarious to suddenly have the whole street transformed. After a few minutes of [...]

Redwood Creek Pinot Noir 2009 Modesto, California, bottling of French grapes This pinot has a nose of blueberry, teriyaki, vanilla, and cardamom, and even though I don’t like blueberries, it smells like it’d be a great sauce for duck or a thick steak. When sipping, the element of spice is the most pronounced. The cardamom [...]