#regional-beverages

#regional-beverages

The list of nominees is dominated by a new class of ambitious DC restaurants serving cuisines from Africa and the African diaspora in the Caribbean, including Elmina, Isla, and Marcus DC.

"We've spent the last six years building a farm and homestead from scratch here, which has become home to a restaurant, guesthouse, and brewery, chickens, ducks, two donkeys, and a small flock of dairy sheep."

'We wanted to keep things relatively neutral, using earth tones, wood, live plants, and tile to bring forward colors and textures found in nature,' Atmos Coffee Founder Zach Burkhart said.

Humbe's music is a blend of R&B, pop, and traditional Latin influences, creating a sound that transcends time and cultural boundaries.

"I think wine at its best is something that brings people together. It's part of a meal. I like the idea of our wines being part of that."

A lot of things come together for the perfect pour, including temperature and the cleanliness of lines. Bottom line? Yes, it's all better in Ireland. However, that's not to say there aren't some outstanding Irish pubs in the U.S., because there are.

After getting engaged in 2013, we started kicking around a wild idea: What if we moved back and revived the prohibition-era distillery his family had owned three generations back? The family business had been passed down for decades until it closed in 1919 due to prohibition. In particular, we had on our hearts Andy's dad, who died of cancer in 2010, but had always said, 'Don't move home unless you have a real good reason to.' This felt like it just might be that real good reason.

Along with the challenges of operating any new business, making good bourbon takes time and expert craftsmanship. It's for this reason that many new "distilleries" aren't distilleries at all (non-distilling producers, blenders, rectifiers). Instead, they source bourbon and then sell it as their own. That's not inherently a bad thing, as some expertly blend whiskey or add extra maturation to create a genuinely impressive bourbon, but there is a clear difference.

The expense, return on investment, and volume of investors needed to make it a reality did not make sense. I thought, 'maybe it's time to do something new.' The amount of money you need to run a restaurant in Brooklyn or Manhattan at this point is so crazy. If you fail, the loss is massive. Here, we were able to do a major renovation, we have a 100 bottle wine list, and we can use the ingredients we want and serve them at a decent price point because our overhead is not as bad.

It's been wonderful to watch our industry blossom and come into its own. We started out with a handful of small cocktail-focused bars sprinkled throughout different pockets of the city that were trying to stand out among longstanding dive bars and bustling restaurant bars. But they've now burst onto the national map. My favorite thing, though, is that all of this growth still has something very beautifully Philadelphia to it.

The U.S. spirits landscape has evolved far beyond the recognition of simply being the birthplace of bourbon. In recent years, we've seen a transformation in both the quality and individuality that the country's craft distilleries have been able to produce. While previous decades were dominated by the big-name distilleries, far more awards are going to craft distillers who have mastered the art of producing high-quality whiskeys, rums, gins, and more.

Country of origin labeling became mandatory on all international products entering the United States in 2009. The goal was to ensure American consumers knew where the products they were buying came from, enabling shoppers to make informed buying decisions. These products include everything from Mexican avocados to French wine to pasta from Italy, with the latter thankfully safe from recent U.S. tariffs. However, does the location a product comes from actually matter?

"Five to ten years ago, sustainability was often limited to buzzwords or isolated practices," he says. "Today, it is holistic, intentional, and deeply embedded into every aspect of the visitor experience."

As an editor and writer who regularly covers the world of nonalcoholic drinks, I have tasted more than my fair share of booze-free wines. Much like with regular wine, the results have been mixed some are bitter or super sour, or even worse, smell like nothing. But I've also had the pleasure of drinking alcohol-free wines that scratched the same itch as a top-notch riesling or champagne.

Food trends are changing and evolving constantly, with yesterday's textures, flavors, and ingredients moving aside or inspiring the ones we expect to see in 2026. We expect the upcoming year to be influenced by health trends, as well as politics, and the need for comfort in our food offerings. People's ever-expanding palates and health needs are also colliding with their budgets, but that doesn't mean they plan to sacrifice their food experiences.

No trip to the brewery is complete without sampling the wares. Even if it's a place you visit regularly, you'll likely want to sample most of what it has to offer at least once. But while a greater variety may seem more enticing, it can also signal a potential red flag. Every kind of beer they have on tap means another tap that needs to be maintained. The more tap lines they have, the more likely it is that maintenance or cleaning gets neglected.