drinking

Cool off with a cold drink

The days just keep getting hotter, and all I ever want is a cold drink. But half the time, it seems like there's nothing in the fridge and I've got a choice between a warm bottle of water from the pantry and an even warmer soda from the garage.

But Hammacher Schlemmer's got the perfect appliance for my problem: the One-Minute Drink Chiller. Slip a can, a wine bottle, or other drink into the chiller, and in just a minute you'll have a perfectly chilled refreshment. There's no risk of freezing: it can drop a … Read more

Chill wine instantly as you pour

Summer can be rough on oenophiles who lack a proper wine cellar. Even if your red wines survive the high temperatures, they'll still need to spend some time in the refrigerator to come down to an appropriate temperature before serving. But all too often the guests arrive and the wine is poured before you remember to chill it (at least, that's how it happens at my house).

Enter the Ravi Instant Wine Chiller. The two-part device includes a cooling tube, which you store in your freezer, plus a base, which is inserted into the neck of the wine … Read more

Dow Chemical's green-meets-green vision

SAN MATEO, Calif.--How does Dow Chemical, the world's second-largest chemical producer, turn itself into a sustainable business?

"It's where green meets green," Neil Hawkins, vice president of sustainability at the company, said here Tuesday at the opening of the two-day Dow Jones Environmental Ventures conference.

Hawkins, who was interviewed in a morning keynote address, was referring to the 110-year-old company's efforts to make money by being more energy-efficient, investing in new clean-tech technologies, and working with manufacturers on new green chemistry.

For example, from 1994 to 2005, Dow spent roughly $1 billion on refining … Read more

Minikeg redefines 'counter-culture'

Though Heineken's recently developed miniature keg (the DraughtKeg) is a great idea, I'm glad that someone figured out that it needed a more portable refrigeration system. After all, what good is a portable keg if you can't carry it far from the very unportable standard refrigerator?

As a solution, Krups and Heineken have partnered up to deliver us the BeerTender, a counter-friendly miniature version of the kegerator. For those of you who wonder what that is, a kegerator is a full-size refrigerator specifically designed to hold a keg, or barrel of beer. The tap, regulator, and CO2 … Read more

Popping the cork spills carbons too

Making champagne is by no means carbon neutral, as tree-hugging teetotalers might like to note. Carbon dioxide causes the bubbles, after all.

To be exact, champagne makers have determined that making each bottle of bubbly causes the release of 200 grams of carbon dioxide.

Some champagne makers want to shrink emissions by 25 percent within 12 years and up to 75 percent by 2050. They announced the goals Tuesday at the Bordeaux Carbon Initiative, one of many recent events by vintners seeking to green their craft.

The figures do not include all sparkling wine, such as Spanish cava, made outside … Read more

In case you wanted to know where NY bloggers hang out

Now this is kind of cool. Chris Mohney, editor of the Gawker Media travel blog Gridskipper, has compiled a guide to "New York blogger bars," a list of watering holes where members of the digital press have been known to go and blow their meager salaries on booze.

Like the blog's earlier guide to "Nerdy New York," it's fairly accurate. I've been to the majority of establishments on the list, and typically each visit was in the company of other bloggers and new-media journalists. (Believe it or not, I do hang out with … Read more

Device could bring relief for red-wine headaches

Red wine is a drink with a dark side. We praise it for its full body, long legs, and exquisite nose, but the bacchanalian beverage has long been accused of being particularly prone to giving people headaches. Some people have such a sensitivity to red wine that they can't drink it at all.

Now, the Associated Press has good news for all you wine lovers. Scientists have speculated that the chemical culprit in red wine might be biogenic amines, like histamines. And although that hasn't been proved for certain yet, a group of UC Berkeley researchers working on … Read more

Magnitude 5.6 Twitterquake hits Bay Area

It was only because I was changing my son's diaper at 8:04 PM tonight that I wasn't online immediately after the house stopped shaking. But when it did, and I did, and the boy was asleep, and the house was checked for damage (none), and the wife was confirmed OK, what's the first thing I did? I went to the USGS Web site to see what had happened and to Twitter (via Snitter) to see how my friends were doing.

As I've written before, disasters are social, and Twitter is a great social platform for … Read more

Pumpkin Gutter makes evisceration easy

Making a Cylon Jack-o-Lantern will be a piece of cake--er, pie--with the Pumpkin Gutter, a $12 drill attachment that lets you zip through the sticky pumpkin prep stage and get right to carving. All you have to do is cut a hole in the top of the pumpkin, use the dishwasher-safe Pumpkin Gutter to loosen the strings and thin out the walls, and then dump the guts out. The tool even leaves the seeds intact for those who like to turn them into snacks.

We're always wary of seasonal gadgets, which often turn out to be a waste of … Read more