Sunday concluded the Miami Rum Renaissance Festival, a playground for wannabe pirates, booze-hungry businessmen, and diehard rum enthusiasts to geek out together in drunk bliss. But looking beyond the flashy booths and Tiki merch, I found distilleries with fascinating origins that can get lost amid all the shots and swag…
The afternoon I visited the Miami Rum Renaissance Festival, the atmosphere was electric, and the air was perfumed with the sweet aroma of the spirit that thousands of people flocked to celebrate — rum. Pirates, tiki enthusiasts, and plain old rum lovers filled the main hall of the Miami Airport…
If you’re like most red-blooded Miamians, you spend most of the week just getting by, waiting for that most glorious moment when you can break free of the shackles of everyday life and enjoy the world. That’s right. We’re talking about brunch! We love brunch. It’s a weekly excuse to…
It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it, I suppose. Each year, in addition to tastings, seminars, and general rum-infused revelry, the Miami Rum Renaissance festival hands out awards for the world’s best rums in several categories. The awards will be announced Friday in a gala presentation where…
Pub crawls have become somewhat of a thing in the Magic City, and now annual poetry festival O, Miami introduces this city’s first LitCrawl. San Francisco spawned the first LitCrawl in 2006 by adding literary events to an evening of bar-hopping. Soon, other cities, including London, New York, Chicago, Austin,…
Hold on to your liver, matey. The Miami Rum Renaissance Festival returns to the DoubleTree Hotel Miami Airport Convention Center April 25 to 27. (Friday, April 25, is open to trade only.) Over the years, the festival has grown from a poolside fete to a multiday event that features mixology…
You might have seen her while driving along the MacArthur Causeway. She’s the gigantic ship with the colorful mermaid, designed by Miami artist Lebo, dancing on her hull. That’s Norwegian’s newest cruise ship, the Getaway. The massive, 145,655-ton vessel can accommodate nearly 4,000 passengers on its weekly sailings from the…
It’s difficult to capture Stefano Campanini’s attention for more than a couple of minutes. Owner of downtown Miami’s Wine by the Bay, he has a passion for the product and a charming Italian demeanor that have earned him many fans who wave as they walk by or stop in to…
Redbar, the mixed-use cocktail lounge, gallery space in Brickell, is celebrating a relaunch. The bar, henceforth known as Redbar Drink Company, has gotten a retro facelift. Decked out in a New-Orleans-meets-Chicago-speakeasy style, the space features vintage furnishings with rich sepia and burgundy hues. What’s also notable about the new-and-improved Redbar…
Use of the term “420” has become so universally recognized and tossed around so much in the American vernacular that its origins have become somewhat obscure. But the real story about the how and why are likely to emerge this Saturday at Kush over a rare keg of Waldo’s Special…
The final season of Mad Men premeired last night, which means it’s time to start salivating. While some of us will froth at the mouth over Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm) and others will drool over Joan Harris (played by Christina Hendricks), all of us will slobber over the…
Brewery Ommegang is busting out with its third annual HopChef Competition at the BIltmore Hotel on April 28, pitting several Miami chefs against each other to see who can make the best beer and food pairing. Eight prominent Miami chefs are currently in the process of developing their dishes for…
To kick off the Spring season, Rose Bar at Delano is mixing up a batch of “farm to glass” cocktails. The libations are created by Delano South Beach’s head mixologist, Bernie Waters, who decided that the fresh fruits and herbs coming from local South Florida farms are just too good…
Miami New Times’ Brew at the Zoo returns to Zoo Miami Saturday, May 3. From 8 to 11 p.m., channel your inner party animal as you sample unlimited beer and rock out to the soulful tunes of Mr. Robert Van Winkle, better known as Vanilla Ice (AKA king of the…
The folks at Red Robin once combined beer into a milkshake, but now they are giving something else a try with the Mango Moscato Wine Shake. Developed by Red Robin’s master mixologist Donna Ruch, it combines Alice White Moscato (roughly 10 percent alcohol-by-volume) and SKYY Infusions Moscato vodka (35 percent…
Not very many American universities have the ability to brew fresh beer, but Florida International University’s brewing science laboratory officially opens today, according to student home-brewing club B.R E.W FIU. This comes two years after the initial announcement, which followed the South Beach Wine & Food Festival in 2012. See…
Michael Schwartz is taking on the high seas once again with the announcement of his new gastropub concepts on Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas class ships. The first, the Quantum of the Seas, launches Fall 2014, sailing from the New York area to the Caribbean. Michael’s Genuine Pub is…
The Miami Rum Renaissance Festival returns to the Doubletree Hotel Miami Airport Convention Center for three days of rum tastings, seminars and festivities April 25 to 27. Now in its sixth year, the festival features more than 80 rum producers worldwide offering tastes of over 200 rums to rum enthusiasts,…
Tomorrow, April 1, Gramps Bar, in conjunction with O, Miami, will kick off Poet-in-Decadence, a contemporary take on writer residency programs. The union of Gramps Bar and O, Miami makes perfect sense — booze and literature have long been lovers. Writers such as Truman Capote and Jack Kerouac would agree…
The Sony Open came to a close yesterday, and Serena Williams and Novak Djokovic finished with the singles titles. Lovers of the sport rejoiced during the past couple of weeks as they watched the world’s best in tennis battle it out. But there were plenty of other reasons to check…
When was the past time you were on a pub crawl? It’s kind of an awesome way to spend the evening, but the problem is that someone has to map out the bars in advance… unless you let someone else do it. Last Call Pub Crawls have done the legwork…
The first cocktail I ever had was a gin and tonic. I was 14 (no judgments) and slipped into a bar in Queens with my “older” date. When he asked me what I wanted to drink, my knee-jerk reaction was to rattle off what I had seen my father order…
