Legendary Swirl at El Gaucho

On Tuesday night, El Gaucho Seattle held its third annual wine tasting to celebrate Washington Wine Month. Eighteen wineries offered tastings in the Pampas Room, the live jazz club downstairs from the restaurant. It being the Gaucho, of course, they had the best of the best wineries there, including John Abbott from Abeja; Jay Soloff from DeLille; Trey Busch from Sleight of Hand; Ben Smith from Cadence; and Jarrod Boyle from Alexandria Nicole. We were especially excited to see Jarrod there because we have been working together on Mackay's new proprietary wines. The first one, Mackay Duck Press Red, was blended by the 14 American Court certified sommeliers at Waterfront (www.waterfrontseafoodgrill.com). We learned on Tuesday that El Gaucho's staff is studying for certification as well, and are scheduled to take the exam in July.

As it does every year, the event completely sold out! But don't worry if you didn't make it; El Gaucho is a magnum sponsor at this year's Taste Washington, so you can have another chance to taste great Washington wines and sample food from El Gaucho and a whole host of other great restaurants at the Grand Tasting next Sunday!

2008 Tini Bigs Media Martini Tasting

As always, Tini Bigs really knocked our socks off at this year's media martini tasting. All six of the brand new martini recipes were fantastic- cutting edge, innovative and with unexpected and sometimes unusual ingredients (quinine powder anyone?). It was difficult to pick out my favorite, but I am really liking the Best Damn Gin and Tonic Tini- cool, refreshing and delicious!

Click http://www.randallpr.com/photoGallery/TiniBigsTiniTasting.html to see some great pictures from the event and click www.tinibigs.com to visit Tini Bigs website.

Cheers!

Andrea