Drinking. But not necessarily Scotch.

It's been a while since I've done one of these compilation posts.

This one is about some of the best General Liquor sites. Most of these are by amateur mixologists and professional bartenders. They are witty; have great information; and cover a variety of alcohol beverages.

You only drink Scotch?

Really?

Get a life.

These are the ones I read regularly. I know there are millions more. Some I've never been to; some I've never heard of; some just didn't capture my attention. Sorry if you aren't on this list...

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Jeffrey Morgenthaler

One of the best sites for outspoken commentary about bar-tending stupidity - as well as a great resource for sharpening your bar-tending skills. In addition this is one of the most attractive Blog sites out there...

Cocktails with Camper English

Camper is what we refer to as "a real writer". All over the place but funny and interesting. For extra non-alcohol credit, visit his "Hate Blog"

Days That End in Y

All roads lead to "Days". Good site with lots of good drinking info. But Damn, Mike . . . hire a freaking designer.

The Art of Drink

Unlike most Americans, I actually like Canadians. And though I've never met him, Darcy O'Neil is one of those Canadians I'd like. Serious about his craft, Darcy brings a seriousness to his site. Good stuff.

Martini Groove

Rick Dobbs covers the world of drinks from a drinker's perspective. Great variety of topics. Good stuff. (Formerly known as Martini-Lounge)

Liquor Snob

This is where I go to stay up with the latest releases and coolest drinking gear. Funny, Sarcastic, witty and I do the occasional guest stint there.

Of course I've talked about the wine Blogs I frequent: Dr. Vino & Basic Juice.

I don't read any Beer Blogs. Like the growing number of micro-brewery brands, with witty names and approaching double digit alcohol content, they are like cockroaches. But I do look for articles from Stephen Beaumont and Lew Bryson.

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I really think the better non-professional drinks writers need to join forces; get together; and create a single on-line presence - the ultimate resource for the alcohol loving web-surfer.

Have more suggestions from established sites? Leave them in the comments . . . but please, no self promotion...I'll zap it.

Comments

[Jeffrey Morgenthaler]

Thanks for the props, Kevin!

[Darcy O'Neil]

Hey look at that I read your site too! When a few of us bloggers get together at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans, I think there may be some discussion on co-operating with each other better. Thanks.

Darcy

[Stephen Beaumont]

Thanks for the mention, Kevin. You've hit most of my regularly visited blogs, but I'd add the entertaining Bar Stories at http://barstories.blogspot.com, plus the intelligent beer blogging of Stan Hieronymus at http://appellationbeer.com and Jay Brooks at http://www.brookstonbeerbulletin.com.

BTW, I'm going to be at Tales, too.

[Kevin Erskine]

Stephen,
How could I have forgotten Jessie at bar Stories???
You are right . . . very entertaining.

Jessie was also a member of the DrinkShoot.com gang...which someday we'll try to get up and running again :)

[Chris Bunting]

I am glad you have posted this because I have been thinking too that drinks writers should get together and somehow concert their efforts in some way. How to do this is an open question and perhaps the discussion can start here.

I read:
Explore the pour
explorethepour.blogspot.com

Spittoon
spittoon.biz
Spittoon is an excellent site, although I think it is written by a professional

Liquid MUse
liquidmuse.blogpsot.com

And in the world of Japanese sake, I find two sites quite useful:

Tokyo Drinking Glass
tokyodrinkingglass.blogspot.com

Urban Sake
www.urbansake.com

Of course, in the world of whisky, as you know, there are

Dr. Whisky
drwhisky.blogspot.com

WhiskyGrotto
www.whiskygrotto.com

WhiskyFun
www.whiskyfun.com

Now, just to get a discussion going on how best too concert efforts, I'll put in my two pence worth. I think I emailed you about this subject and at that time I suggested we set up a group blog of quality bloggers, each acting as "editors" of their special interest area.

Each section, say the Scotch whisky section, would link to the chosen one's page. I have been thinking about this some more and the problem with this model, as our list already shows, is there are often numerous quality bloggers in a given field and so having such a hierarchical structure is going to turn the group blog into just another website, not concerting the efforts of non-pro drink bloggers but just trying to promote a small group.

What happens if one of the "editors" heads to the famous blog graveyard and there is a better blogger in his or her area. How do you sack them? tricky.

Nevertheless, there is a difference between someone who is seriously blogging about a subject and providing entertaining and informative stuff and a spam site or some 13 year old Absinthe fan who started a blog yesterday. Readers will want some sort of quality control.

So, here is my idea:

A group blogging/tagging site with membership made up of serious drink bloggers. There are various ways to do this but options include hosting it on the www.ning.com system or using tools like this open source social content management system called Pligg .

Ning is restricted in terms of hosting on your own URL and access to certain controls. Pligg would require hosting. I am not sure we might not go for something a lot simpler than either of these two options. We can leave the technical details to later.

But the hosting issue brings me to my final point: I think it is important that any group platform is non-commercial and owned by the community rather than any particular blogger. I don't say this for any principled reason, just that it will avoid arguments in the future and would allow individuals to pursue their own commercial/non commercial approaches on their own blogs.

Yours Chris

[Japanesewhisky]

It might be a good idea to get a few people together and have a private bulletin board or something, so that people can circulate stuff among drink bloggers, float ideas, give advice etc..From that we might or might not be able to build some concerted thing (or more likely things) but on the other hand people might have totally different philosophies of what they are doing and it would be interesting to hear about that and bounce ideas, technologies and visions around. One thing is clear, everybody will be better off from working or at least discussing things together.

Maybe instead of just saying come along to such a place for a talk, we could do a "cyber drink bloggers unconference" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference ) say for a week, as a way of getting people along and then see what happens from there.

[Camper English]

Thanks for the props! I'll also be at Tales of the Cocktail and look forward to meeting y'all.