"Although some beer lovers recoil at the thought of other ingredients tainting their sacred substance..."

"Some take delight in the fact that the beer cocktail often functions as beerdom’s Trojan horse. It’s a means of slipping the goods into enemy territory."

Daniel Fromson covers the District's growing use of beer in cocktails. In the process, he briefly discusses the Cascade hops-infused gin concept that I brought to Last Exit for last year's winter cocktail menu!

Apparently, California Wasn't So Infusiastic About a Craft-Cocktail Trend, Until Last Wednesday

New York Times Diner's Journal writer, Robert Simonson, has been on the case. I call this "Jacob Grier bait":

"On Wednesday, Gov. Jerry Brown of California announced that he had signed Senate Bill 32, which overturns a legal vestige of Prohibition that made it unlawful to infuse alcohol with fruits, vegetables, herbs or spices. Such infusions have been popular in the country’s best cocktail bars for several years, and the old rule became a nuisance early last year when State Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control agents started warning bars like San Francisco’s Bourbon & Branch that they were breaking California law with their house-made tinctures and bitters.

To bartenders, the sudden enforcement of the obscure rule was alarming."

Obviously, cracking down on liquor infusions is just asinine.

“More than anything else, it’s similar to developments around the country where cocktail culture has outpaced the legacy of Prohibition laws that exist,” observed Frank Coleman, senior vice president of The Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S., a trade organization representing distillers that spends a lot of its time trying to strike down obsolete, antiliquor laws."

Libertarianism and mixology collide.

(h/t: MixCo)

Note: This post has been revised since its original publication