This great feast in honor of all the souls in Heaven, both the canonized saints known to us and the uncanonized saints unknown to us, calls for a celebration. Since honoring all of the saints at once with every drink mentioned in this book would wind you in serious trouble, pick a drink from this book that you especially enjoyed or something that you wanted to try but were unable to (and if you are hosting a party, pick several). According to Pope Urban IV, one of the purposes of All Saints’ Day is to compensate for any negligence in celebrating the saints’ feasts from the previous year. Surely this principle can be applied to drinking with the saints.
Or, you can try the following beverages named after the entire Communion of Saints.
Beer and Wine
St. Peter’s Brewery in England makes The Saints Whisky Beer, a smoky, peaty beer infused with a measure of English whisky from St. George’s Distillery (surprisingly, it has an alcohol content of only 4.8 percent).
There are also wines made in the Veneto region of Italy by Santi. The winery is named after its founder, Carlo Santi, but Carlo’s last name means “saints” in Italian.
ALL SOULS’ DAY, NOVEMBER 2
After celebrating the Church triumphant in Heaven, the Church militant on earth turns her thoughts to the Church suffering in Purgatory and prays for the speedy delivery of the poor souls from their painful purification. Many customs surround All Souls’ Day, chief among them a visit to the final resting place of one’s dearly departed. For many cultures, that visit includes bringing food and drink and offering a libation at the grave, although the Church frowns upon the latter practice as a pagan holdover.
A more salutary alternative (and a far better use of your liquor) is drinking in honor of the dead, either at their graves or elsewhere. The Aztec Brewing Company in California has a strong Noche de los Muertos (Night of the Dead) imperial stout, but their distribution does not currently extend beyond San Diego County. Domaine Chenevieres in Burgundy, France, has a Premier Cru called L’Homme Mort (the Dead Man), but it is rarely found in the United States. Your safest bet, then, is to walk down memory lane with a drink that one of your departed forebears used to enjoy. If no candidates come to mind, have an Old Fashioned to honor the folks who have gone before you (p. 239).
How often does the perfect toast come with a partial indulgence? Yet that is precisely the case with the prayer “Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace.” The Church grants a partial indulgence every time it is piously said for the souls of the faithful departed. Drinking each time the prayer is said is not part of the indulgence.
NOTE ON NOVEMBER 1–8
Until the 1950s, All Saints’ Day had an octave that lasted until November 8. During this same period, the Church continues to grant a plenary indulgence for the faithful departed to anyone who, under the usual conditions, devoutly visits a cemetery. All of which means that it’s okay to drink All Saints’ and All Souls’ potations for a week.
ST. HUBERT, NOVEMBER 3
Hubert (656–727) was a Frankish nobleman who one Good Friday irreverently decided to go hunting. Chasing a deer through the forest, the animal turned around, revealing a glowing cross between its large antlers. The stunned hunter fell to his knees and heard a voice say to him, “Hubert, unless thou turnest to the Lord and leadest a holy life, thou shalt quickly go down to Hell.” Hubert heeded the warning, eventually becoming a wise and holy bishop of Maastricht, in what is now the Netherlands. He later transferred his see to Liège, twenty-five miles away in modern Belgium. Today St. Hubert is the patron saint of hunters, trappers, and archers.
St. Hubertus, a traditional herbal liqueur made by the Hungarian distiller Zwack, would be perfect for the occasion. You can also enjoy (or try to enjoy) a round of Jägermeister. The label of this strong German liqueur first made in 1935 features a stag with a cross between its antlers, an allusion to St. Hubert’s conversion. (“Jägermeister” means “master of the hunt.”) A more sublime option is Glenfiddich single-malt scotch, “distilled and matured in the valley of the deer” and featuring a stag on every label.
In the realm of cocktails, a Hart—also the name of a male red deer at least five years old—is an appropriate choice (see p. 64). Or, savor a Hunter cocktail as you mull over the wages of hunting on Good Friday. This virile beverage has not the slightest sweetness to it, but it is surprisingly smooth.
Hunter
1½ oz. rye whiskey
¾ oz. cherry brandy (kirsch)
1 Maraschino cherry (optional)
Pour rye and kirsch into a shaker or mixing glass filled with ice and stir until very cold. Strain into a cocktail glass. We recommend adding a Maraschino cherry for garnish. It balances the drink nicely, and a speared cherry is a good symbol for a hunter whose heart was pierced with compunction.
Wine
The winery Bodegas San Huberto hails from La Rioja in Argentina, a region that boasts of the oldest continuous wine production in the country and the beneficiary of the efforts of early Spanish missionaries. San Huberto has several offerings, including a red wine made from the local grape variety Torrontés Riojano.
Or go for a bottle that has some association with deer, such as the wines of Stags’ Leap in Napa, California.
ST. CHARLES BORROMEO, NOVEMBER 4
Charles Borromeo (1538–1584) was a giant of the Catholic Reformation (known in the history books as the Counter-Reformation). An Italian of noble birth, he became a cleric at the age of twelve and a cardinal at twenty-one. As archbishop of Milan, St. Charles personally aided victims of the plague and did penance for the people by processing in public barefooted with a rope around his neck (as he is featured in Christian art).
St. Charles is appreciated for his work in regulating the secular clergy and in founding diocesan seminaries, but he was also titular abbot of Sts. Gratinian and Felinus in his hometown of Arona. St. Charles’s monastic responsibilities, together with his choice of neckwear, give us but one choice for a cocktail in his honor.
Monk’s Rope Coffee
4 oz. hot coffee
1½ oz. Frangelico
½ oz. dark crème de cacao
2 oz. heavy cream
Pour the coffee into an Irish coffee cup. Add the Frangelico and crème de cacao and stir gently. Float the cream on top.
TWENTIETH-CENTURY MARTYRS OF SPAIN,
NOVEMBER 6
On October 28, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI beatified 498 men and women—bishops, priests, brothers, nuns, and laymen—who were martyred during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). This is only a fraction of the Catholics slain for their faith during that bloody conflict, but it is the largest group ever beatified by the Church on a single occasion. These holy witnesses of Christ, the oldest of whom was seventy-eight and the youngest sixteen, are called “Martyrs of Spain” and not “Spanish martyrs” because four of them came from France, Mexico, or Cuba.
Since 494 of the martyrs were Spanish, however, a Spanish drink would not be inappropriate. Comb through your options for St. James’s Day (pp. 180–84), have a glass of sangria (p. 151) or sherry (despite its popularity with upper-class Englishmen, it is a quintessentially Spanish beverage [p. 110]), or try a Spanish Cocktail.
LAST CALL
At the Mass of beatification, Cardinal José Saraiva Martins affirmed that these martyrs “behaved as good Christians, and when the moment came, they did not hesitate to offer their lives with the cry on their lips: ¡Viva Cristo Rey!”—“Long live Christ the King!”
To the martyrs of Spain, and ¡Viva Cristo Rey!
Spanish Cocktail
2½ oz. sweet vermouth
2 dashes Angostura bitters
3 orange peels or orange zest
Pour all ingredients except orange peels into a mixing glass or shaker filled with ice and stir until very cold. Strain into a cocktail glass. Grate orange peels over the drink to make zest.
ALL SAINTS OF IRELAND, NOVEMBER 6
The Church in Ireland celebrates within the octave of All Saints the memory of all of her holy sons and daughters. Revisit St. Patrick’s Day for an Irish beverage with which to toast them (see pp. 54–56).
DEDICATION OF THE ARCHBASILICA OF THE MOST HOLY SAVIOR, NOVEMBER 9
More commonly known as St. John Lateran, the subject of today’s feast is one of Rome’s seven great basilicas. Indeed, it is the highest-ranking church in the Catholic world—“Omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput” (“the mother and head of all the churches of the city and the world”), as one of its inscriptions reads. St. John Lateran, not St. Peter’s, is the cathedral of the pope, and hence it holds the rank of archbasilica. The church is dedicated Christo Salvatori, “to Christ the Savior,” for the cathedrals of ecclesiastical patriarchs are dedicated to Christ Himself rather than His mother or the saints.
The cathedral of the bishop of Rome can be honored tonight with a Roman Punch (see p. 205). The recipe, which includes port, can be made even more appropriate by using Porto Messias in homage to Our Savior.
Pallini Martini
¾ oz. Pallini limoncello
¾ oz. citrus vodka (regular vodka or even gin will suffice)
¾ oz. lemon juice
¾ oz. simple syrup
sugar (for the rim)
1 lemon peel (for garnish)
Rim a well-chilled cocktail glass with sugar. Pour all liquid ingredients into a shaker filled with ice and shake forty times. Strain into the cocktail glass and garnish with lemon peel.
Or, again with an eye to the delights of the Eternal City, have some limoncello, a delicious liqueur that can be consumed chilled and straight as a dessert drink or mixed into a cocktail such as the Pallini Martini.
Beer and Wine
No earthly drink can do justice to our Lord and Savior, but one beer that comes close is Salvator, the magnificent doppelbock beer made by the Paulaner brewery in Munich, Germany (see pp. 73 and 404–5). Relatively easy to find in the United States, Salvator is Paulaner’s first (and best?) beer. Today the work is contracted out, but in the 1600s the monks made it for themselves. And its current recipe has changed little since a Brother Barnabas came up with it in the late 1700s.
Or have a beer from the nation of El Salvador, named after El Salvador del Mundo, the Savior of the World. Although Salvadorans take the first week of August to celebrate their namesake, there is no harm in taking this day to enjoy a glass of Salvadoran beer such as Pilsener, Regia, or Santiago (p. 183).
For wine, the island monks of St. Honorat off the coast of France also make a fine Saint Sauveur (see pp. 6–7).
ST. ANDREW AVELLINO, NOVEMBER 10
Our saint today was baptized Lancelot, but when he entered the Theatine order, he took the name Andrew. Even before entering religious life, St. Andrew Avellino (1521–1608) led an exemplary life of chastity. A handsome man, he took the tonsure (became a cleric) as a way of escaping his female admirers. St. Andrew practiced both canon and civil law until one day a lie slipped from his lips as he was passionately pleading a friend’s case. Soon after, he read Wisdom 1:11—“The mouth that belieth killeth the soul”—and, cut to the quick, left the profession. A great reformer, he was once severely wounded by wicked men when he ordered them to leave the premises of a lax convent.
Several miracles are attributed to this humble and loving servant of God, including the following: “As he was once returning home late at night from hearing a sick man’s confession, a violent storm of wind and rain put out the light that was carried before him; but neither he nor his companions were wet by the pouring rain; and, moreover, a wonderful light shining from his body enabled them to find their way through the darkness.”
You too can experience something dark and stormy without getting wet and feel a wonderful light from within when you imbibe the following crowd-pleaser, popular with my swank parents-in-law, Kevin and Marilyn Ryan.
LAST CALL
Today, share in St. Andrew’s aversion to lying. Raise a glass and proclaim, In vino veritas—“In wine, there is truth.”
Dark and Stormy
2 oz. light rum
1 oz. lime juice
½ oz. simple syrup
ginger beer, chilled
lime zest
lime wheel for garnish
Pour rum, lime juice, and simple syrup into a shaker filled with ice and shake forty times. Strain into a highball glass half-filled with ice. Sprinkle lime zest and top with ginger beer. Garnish with lime.
Wine
The Campania region in Italy, where Avellino is located, has several celebrated wines including Lacryma Christi (see p. 424), Taurasi, and Fiano (see p. 257). The Fiano grape variety (also known as the St. Sophia) is particularly associated with Avellino. A DOCG denomination in the area is Fiano di Avellino.
ST. MARTIN OF TOURS, NOVEMBER 11
St. Martin (ca. 316–397) was a Roman soldier who, even before he was baptized, was on fire with Christian zeal. While still a catechumen, he saw a beggar shivering in the cold and tore his military cloak in two, giving him half. (The Roman army made you pay for half of your uniform, so Martin gave the half that he had paid for.) That night Jesus Christ appeared to him in a dream wearing the half cloak and said, “Martin the catechumen hath clothed Me.”
Martin eventually became a monk. When the townspeople of Tours, on the Loire, about seventy miles southwest of Orléans, tried to trick him into becoming their bishop, the holy man hid from them, only to be betrayed by a flock of honking geese. True or not, goose was the main course at medieval celebrations of “Martinmas” (St. Martin’s Day), and this culinary tradition even influenced the celebration of the first Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims were aware of the Martinmas goose from their stay in Holland and used North American turkeys for their banquet only when they could not find enough geese.
Which brings us to the martini. No one is certain when or where this magnificent concoction was invented. Some say it was named after Martini and Rossi vermouth, while others point either to a bartender in San Francisco or to the town of Martinez, California. Whatever its origins, there would be no “Martini” or “Martinez” had there been no saint called Martin to make the name popular in Christian lands. And so we rightly claim the king of cocktails in honor of the great saint of Tours—who, incidentally, is the patron saint of “penitent drunkards.” (Impenitent drunkards, apparently, must find another celestial sponsor.) And in a nod to St. Martin’s association with geese, we recommend a martini made with Grey Goose vodka. Let’s call it the Martlemas Martini, since “Martlemas” is another variation of Martin’s Day—we suspect it is how Martinmas tends to be pronounced after three martinis.
Martlemas Martini
2 oz. Grey Goose vodka
1 dash dry vermouth
1 lemon twist
Pour ingredients into a shaker filled with ice and shake forty times. Strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon twist to represent Martin’s torn cloak.
Or, have a San Martin. The Chartreuse (see pp. 273–74) can be a nod to Martin’s monastic vocation.
San Martin
1½ oz. gin
1½ oz. dry vermouth
1 tsp. yellow Chartreuse
1 lemon twist
Pour all ingredients except lemon into a shaker filled with ice and shake forty times. Strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a twist of lemon, to represent Martin’s torn cloak.
Lastly, if you happen to be in the canton of Jura in Switzerland, try to get your hands on some damassine, an eau-de-vie made from the damson plum and traditionally consumed on St. Martin’s Day in liberal quantities.
LAST CALL
In the Middle Ages swine would be slaughtered on or before Martinmas in preparation for the winter, a custom that led to several proverbs. In Spain, when predicting that someone would get his comeuppance or meet his Maker, folks would say A cada cerdo le llega su San Martín (“Every pig has its St. Martin’s Day”). In England, the equivalent adage was “His Martinmas will come as it does to every hog.” To St. Martin, then, and may his prayers on this day delay our own Martinmas.
Beer and Wine
The Brunehaut Brewery in Belgium has a series of abbey ales named after St. Martin. Their tripel is considered particularly good, and they also have a quadrupel-style beer called The Cloak of St. Martin.
Credited with helping spread viticulture throughout the Touraine region, St. Martin of Tours is now considered a patron saint of winemakers, vintners, and vine-growers. A page was lifted from Greek mythology and Martin (rather than Aristaeus) was given the honor of inventing pruning after watching a goat nibble on foliage. Some have also claimed that it was the holy bishop of Tours who introduced the Chenin Blanc grape to the region.
The obvious choice, then, is a wine from Touraine or, failing that, any Chenin Blanc wine that you can find. Domaine Prieuré Saint Martin de Laure Gibalaux is a winery in Laure-Minervois, in the Languedoc region of France. In the United States, the small but respectable San Martiño Winery and Vineyards in Rockwall, Texas, is named after the family owners’ ancestral village in the Galician region of Spain. In Benevento, Italy, the winery Santimartini produces a number of red and white wines as well as two intriguing grape brandies.
ST. IMIER, NOVEMBER 12
Imerius of Immertal (ca. 570–620) was born in the canton of Jura in French Switzerland and lived in a valley that is now named after him, Val-Saint-Imier. Although Imerius was a hermit, he also worked as a missionary and brought the faith to many people. A monastery was eventually built over his grave.
Tonight, toast to St. Imier and pray for the faith in Switzerland with a Swiss Alps Cocktail (see p. 105).
ST. DIDACUS, NOVEMBER 13 (NOVEMBER 7)
St. Didacus of Alcalá (d. 1463), a native of Andalusia, Spain, was renowned for his humility, miracles, and extraordinary graces. A Franciscan lay brother, he became superior of a community in the Canary Islands—a rare honor for someone of that rank.
Americans are more familiar with St. Didacus’s name in Spanish, San Diego. The explorer Sebastián de Vizcaíno, whose flagship was the San Diego, spotted a beautiful bay on the Pacific coast and stepped ashore on November 12, 1602. Vizcaíno had Mass celebrated in the saint’s honor and then named the bay San Diego. The mission later founded by Bl. Junípero Serra and the city that grew up around the mission would both take the saint’s name.
Time for an eponymous cocktail from a vintage recipe book.
San Diego
1 oz. bourbon
1 oz. red Dubonnet
½ oz. orange curaçao
1 dash aromatic bitters
Pour all ingredients into a mixing glass or shaker filled with ice and stir until very cold. Strain into a cocktail glass.
ST. KILIAN OF AUBIGNY, NOVEMBER 13
Or, if you’re in the mood for a beer, have a Killian’s Red in honor of St. Kilian of Aubigny, a seventh-century Irish missionary and relative of St. Fiacre who was visiting his kinsman in France when the local bishop asked him to preach the Gospel in the Artois. According to legend, St. Kilian is the only Irishman to have ever been offered the papacy, which he declined. No one is certain whether the Killian family that invented the ruby-red ale now sold as Killian’s Red was named after St. Kilian of Aubigny or St. Kilian of Würzburg (see p. 161), and in that ambiguity lies your opportunity.
ST. ALBERT THE GREAT, NOVEMBER 15
Albertus Magnus (d. 1280) is most famous for being the teacher of St. Thomas Aquinas, but this doctor of the Church, Dominican friar, professor at the Universities of Paris and Cologne, and bishop of Ratisbon deserves a toast or two for more than just having a bright pupil. Albert had an encyclopedic mind and was a brilliant natural scientist. In some ways, as Dr. Michael Tkacz has astutely observed, his work on how species are adapted to their environments rivals that of Darwin. What Albert could not observe himself he faithfully recorded from others, although not all such testimony was reliable. In his study on the heron, for example, Albert speculates that it received its Latin name, Ardea, because its excrement burns (ardet) whatever it touches. What is more, the bird is said to defend itself from hawks by aiming its anus at the assailant and shooting excrement at it. If the hawk’s wings are hit, they melt.
LAST CALL
A century ago, “Here’s mud in your eye” was a popular toast. It may have been inspired by Our Lord’s healing of a blind man with mud (Jn. 9:6–7), or it may have been a farmer’s way of wishing fertile and well-irrigated land for his friends. Either way, in light of Albert’s heron, it takes on a whole new meaning.
Another toast that works well after hearing the tale of the heron is: “Through the intercession of St. Albert, may the enemies of the Church never know what hit them.”
To honor St. Albert’s great work on the toxic waste of the humflinging heron, how about a Mud Pie?
Mud Pie
1½ oz. rye or bourbon
½ oz. orange curaçao
½ tsp. sugar
2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
1 orange slice, cherry, lemon twist
Here are the original instructions, which sound almost as old as St. Albert’s writings: “Build orange curaçao, sugar, and bitters in an old fashioned glass and muddle. Fill with ice. Add orange slice, cherry, and lemon twist. Float the rye or bourbon on top or serve it on the side.”
On the side? We preferred using a half teaspoon of simple syrup rather than pure sugar (it mixed better), and we liked our rye mixed with the rest of the drink rather than layered on top. With those two modifications, the Mud Pie tastes like a deluxe Old Fashioned. Yum!
ST. GERTRUDE THE GREAT, NOVEMBER 16
As far as we can tell, this is the only time in the calendar, old or new, that the faithful are treated to back-to-back Greats. No doubt this is an invitation to double down on our drinking commitments.
Gertrude (1256–ca. 1302) was a Benedictine nun of the monastery of St. Mary at Helfta in Saxony, Germany, which she entered, possibly as an orphan, at the tender age of four. Gertrude received an excellent education under St. Mechtilde and went on to become of the great mystics of the Middle Ages. Among the many extraordinary visions that St. Gertrude experienced was one in which she saw Jesus Himself offering the Mass. During the last three Kyrie eleisons to the Holy Spirit in the traditional rite of the Mass, Christ sanctified her in a special way. At the first Kyrie eleison (Lord, have mercy), “He illuminated her reason with the glorious light of Divine knowledge.” At the second Kyrie eleison, “He strengthened the irascible part of her soul to resist all the machinations of her enemies.” At the last Kyrie eleison, “He inflamed her love, that she might love God with her whole heart, with her whole soul, and with her whole strength.”
To honor St. Gertrude’s mystical holiness, have a B&B Plus. The Bénédictine liqueur can symbolize her vocation and the perfection of her reason, the lemon juice can represent her perfected irascibility (bitter but strong in a good way), and the brandy, or “burnt wine,” can signify her burning love for God and neighbor. Besides this allegorical fit, the B&B Plus is a darned good drink in its own right—some of us like it even more than the classic B&B (see p. 60).
B&B Plus
1½ oz. Bénédictine
1½ oz. brandy
¾ oz. lemon juice
Pour all ingredients into an old fashioned glass filled with ice and stir.
ST. FLORINUS, NOVEMBER 17
We know very little about the priest St. Florinus of Remüs (d. 856) except that he is a patron saint of the Rhineland, that he is said to have miraculously changed water into wine, and that in Christian art he is featured with a glass or bottle of wine.
Time for a wine from Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany’s top region for wine production in volume and export. Look for anything made in the subregions of Rheinhessen, Pfalz, Mosel, Nahe, Mittelrhein, and Ahr.
ST. ANIAN, NOVEMBER 17
Anian, or Agnan (d. 453), became the seventh bishop of Orléans, France, after his mentor and bishop, St. Evurtius, passed away. It is said that Attila and his Huns never touched the city of Orléans, because of the prayers and intercession of the holy bishop. In 826, a Benedictine abbey dedicated to St. Anian was founded in what is now Saint-Chinian (the town went through a transformation of names, from Saint-Anian d’Holotian to Saint-Chignan-de-la-Corne to Saint-Chinian). Today Saint-Chinian is also an appellation in the Languedoc-Roussillon wine region of France, where wine is still produced from vineyards once cultivated by Benedictine monks.
For a cocktail, how about something that is rife with French ingredients and named Bishop? Bourbon, named after the French monarchy at the time of the American Revolution, is at least French in name.
Bishop
1 oz. bourbon
½ oz. sweet (French) vermouth
1 oz. orange juice
1 dash yellow Chartreuse
Pour all ingredients into a shaker filled with ice and shake forty times. Strain into a cocktail glass.
VENERABLE HENRIETTE DELILLE,
DIED NOVEMBER 17
We move from old Orléans to New Orleans. Henriette Delille (1812–1862) is still two steps away from canonized sainthood, but since we want you to use this book for a long time, you should be ready for the day when the Church offers a toast to St. Henriette. Once canonized (and we boldly predict she will be), Henriette will be the first African American saint.
Henriette was the daughter of a wealthy French-American and his free Creole mistress, who was of French, Spanish, and African ancestry. She was groomed and educated for the plaçage system in New Orleans, in which refined free women of color became the common-law wives of the ruling white elite and lived luxurious though “kept” lives. Henriette protested this dubious practice on the grounds that it was a violation of the Catholic sacrament of matrimony. To help the poor and to educate black and mixed-race children, she founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family, composed mostly of Creole women, all the while patiently enduring discrimination both within and outside the Church.
Creole Lady
1¼ oz. bourbon or rye
1¼ oz. Madeira wine
¼ oz. grenadine
1 green cherry
1 red cherry
Pour all liquid ingredients into a shaker filled with ice and shake forty times. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with cherries.
A drink from New Orleans would be a good choice on this day, such as Herbsaint Frappé (see p. 75) or the Sazerac (see p. 57). Or in honor of this remarkable daughter of the Crescent City, how about a Creole Lady?
ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY,
NOVEMBER 19 (NOVEMBER 17)
Elizabeth (1207–1231) was married to Bl. Louis, duke of Thuringia, at the age of fourteen and bore him three children. Although the marriage had been arranged, the couple grew to love each other deeply. Elizabeth was renowned for her extraordinary charity to the poor, which her husband gladly supported—up to a point. Once, he came home to find his wife nursing a leper in their bed! The duke was understandably miffed until he saw a vision of Our Crucified Lord lying there instead of the leper.
Elizabeth was widowed at the age of twenty when the plague took her dear husband. Her in-laws treated her badly, but instead of complaining she moved to a tiny cottage and spent the last years of her short life serving the sick and poor, dying at the age of twenty-four.
Not surprisingly, we couldn’t find a mixed drink called Leper in My Bed, nor were we inclined to invent one. To honor this holy princess of Hungary, try some pálinka instead (see p. 237). Or, have a chic cocktail bearing her name.
Isabella
1½ oz. grenadine
1½ oz. crème de cassis
club soda (optional, our addition)
The original instructions to this vintage cocktail are to put a lump of ice into a cocktail glass and pour over it, but you might prefer mixing the ingredients in an old fashioned glass filled with ice. Like St. Elizabeth, the Isabella is very sweet, so you might want to cut it with club soda.
Walk on the wild side tonight with a bottle of Hungarian wine. Tokaji—probably the most famous—is a delicious and long-lived dessert wine. Also look for a vigorous red called Egri Bikavér (“bull’s blood”), which is also popular.
PRESENTATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, NOVEMBER 21
Known in the Eastern churches as the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple, the feast of the Presentation celebrates when Sts. Joachim and Anne presented their daughter, the Blessed Virgin Mary, to the priests of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem to be consecrated to God and educated in preparation for her divine maternity. The Blessed Virgin stayed in the Temple from the ages of three to twelve before being betrothed to St. Joseph. The story is taken from an apocryphal second-century work called the Protoevangelium of James and is not a point of doctrine, but it is a good reminder that apocryphal writings, even if they are not 100 percent inspired by an inerrant Holy Spirit, are not without some theological value.
We know that we are supposed to celebrate Our Lady’s matriculation on this holy day, but we can’t help but feel bad for Joachim and Anne, who, in fulfillment of a vow, had to say good-bye to their beautiful little girl. There are a number of “Empty Nest” cocktail recipes floating around in cyberspace, but they all appear to have been made by melancholic moms whose need for a good drink outstripped their ability to make one. Today, come up with your own Empty Nest beverage, mixed or straight, and toast to the pious fidelity of Joachim, Anne, and their immaculate daughter. And please: don’t drink sad.
ST. CECILIA, NOVEMBER 22
St. Cecilia was most likely martyred during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius between AD 176 and 180. When she heard (profane) music at her wedding, she instead “sang in her heart to the Lord alone” and is thus the patron saint of musicians. On her wedding night, Cecilia revealed to her husband, Valerian, that she had an angel guarding her virginity. When Valerian asked to see the angel, she instructed him to be baptized. After his baptism, Valerian returned home and saw the angel next to his wife. The angel then crowned the newlyweds with roses and lilies.
Later on Valerian was martyred, followed by Cecilia. Government officials tried to suffocate her by locking her in her bathhouse and overheating it. When that failed, the executioner struck her neck three times with his sword, but because he was so distraught at having to kill her, he could not finish the job. St. Cecilia died three days later, lying on her side, her head downward in prayer, with three fingers of her right hand extended and one on her left, “a silent profession of faith in the Holy Trinity.” She was buried in the same position, and in 1599 her coffin was opened, revealing to the amazement of Rome that her body was still incorrupt. The sculptor Stefano Maderno studied her remains before they were again interred under the high altar of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, built over her former home. Maderno’s statue, believed to be a precise replica of what he saw, now lies in front of the high altar of Santa Cecilia.
Wine
You can try to make your own body incorrupt tonight by saturating it in alcohol, but it probably won’t work. Instead, celebrate St. Cecilia’s memory moderately with a glass of vino. There are a few wines bearing St. Cecilia’s name, but the most widely available is probably Planeta’s vibrant purplish red Santa Cecilia bottling made from the grape variety Nero d’Avola in the province of Syracuse, Sicily.
Or put your wine-tasting skills and your memory to the test by selecting a wine that has “musical” overtones.
If you need stronger spirits, turn to St. Clement and Bl. Miguel Pro, whose vigils are tonight, and ask them nicely (see below).
Pope Clement I (d. ca. 99) was the third successor of St. Peter and the first “Apostolic Father,” a Church Father who had contact with the original Apostles. According to an old legend, Clement was banished to work in the stone quarries of modern-day Ukraine and, after converting many of his fellow prisoners to Christianity, was sentenced to die by being tied to an anchor and thrown into the Black Sea.
“Oranges and lemons / Say the bells of St. Clement’s.” Thus begins an old English nursery rhyme about church bells in and around London. The church in the jingle, it is speculated, is either St. Clement Danes or St. Clement Eastcheap, both of which are close to wharves where citrus fruit would arrive from sunnier climes. Consequently, there are three versions of a St. Clement’s drink involving oranges and lemons, one of them nonalcoholic and the other two involving London gin. Thinking of a church on St. Clement’s Day is also appropriate because one of Rome’s most ancient, beautiful, and archeologically important churches is San Clemente.
St. Clement
2 oz. gin
½ oz. orange juice
½ oz. lemon juice
1 tsp. sweet vermouth
1 lemon and/or orange wheel (optional)
Mix ingredients in a mixing glass or shaker filled with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon and orange.
St. Clements Gin
2 oz. gin
¾ oz. orange juice
¾ oz. lemon juice
1 tsp. powdered sugar (or try simple syrup)
soda water
1 lemon and/or orange wheel
Stir all ingredients except soda water in a mixing glass or shaker filled with ice. Strain into a highball glass filled with crushed ice and top with soda water. Garnish with lemon and orange.
2 oz. orange juice
2 oz. bitter lemon (tonic water flavored with lemon)
1 lemon and/or orange wheel
Pour ingredients into an old fashioned glass filled with ice. Garnish with lemon and orange.
Wine
St. Clement Vineyards in St. Helena, California, was named after the current proprietor’s ancestors, who helped found the (pro-Catholic) state of Maryland. The cross on the label, which is from the Maryland state flag, is also evocative of the St. Clement’s Cross, a combined cross and anchor.
LAST CALL
“The Epistle of Clement” was written by today’s saint to the Church in Corinth. It is easily found online and makes for interesting reading, establishing as it does the apostolic authority of the clergy at so early a date in Church history.
BL. MIGUEL PRO, NOVEMBER 23
José Ramón Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez (1891–1927) was a Mexican Jesuit priest martyred by the anti-Catholic regime of Mexico in what Graham Greene called the “fiercest persecution of religion anywhere since the reign of Elizabeth.” Miguel’s Jesuit confrères described him as a sparkling conversationalist who was both playful and prayerful. After studies and ordination in Europe, Father Miguel returned to Mexico, where his beloved Church had been forced underground. He ministered to small groups of Catholics in secret, celebrating the Mass and administering the sacraments. He even disguised himself in a policeman’s uniform to administer the Viaticum to prisoners. On one occasion, Father Miguel was scheduled to celebrate Mass at someone’s home when he found the place surrounded by police. Undaunted, he approached the sergeant in charge, flashed his wallet quickly in the man’s face and identified himself as a high-ranking detective. After curtly interrogating the frightened sergeant, he went into the house, celebrated Mass (much to the joy of the people inside), and came back out, admonishing the sergeant to watch out for the renegade priest.
Father Pro’s earthly ministry ended when he was arrested on a trumped-up charge of trying to assassinate the president of Mexico, condemned without trial, and executed by firing squad. After blessing and forgiving his executioners, he held his arms out in the shape of the cross and shouted the battle cry of the Cristero rebels resisting the government: ¡Viva Cristo Rey!—“Long live Christ the King!” The Mexican government filmed his execution, which is included in the closing credits of the 2012 film For Greater Glory.
Before socialists (backed by Freemasons and the Ku Klux Klan) took over Mexico a century ago, our neighbors to the south had perhaps the most Catholic civilization in the New World. Tonight, honor Bl. Miguel Pro’s Mexican heritage with some tequila. In the United States, this liquor made from the agave plant is often associated with bottom-feeding frat parties, but in Mexico tequila has a tremendous range, its upper echelons being as sublime as a single-malt scotch. North of the border, tequila is often consumed with salt placed on the back of the hand near the thumb and a wedge of lemon or lime. The drinker licks the salt, downs a shot of tequila, and quickly tastes the lemon or lime. While this method of drinking, called tequila cruda, unleashes an interesting spectrum of flavors, it happens too quickly for relaxed and refined social intercourse. Better, then, to adhere to the custom in Mexico, which is to sip one’s tequila neat in a leisurely manner.
LAST CALL
Make the battle cry of the Cristeros and Bl. Miguel Pro your own: ¡Viva Cristo Rey!
Then, choose from three options: (1) read Graham Greene’s riveting The Power and the Glory about the Mexican Revolution; (2) watch the 1947 John Ford movie The Fugitive, loosely based on the novel and starring Henry Fonda as the “whiskey priest”; or (3) watch the 2012 For Greater Glory.
Of course, that means you should have tequila capable of being sipped without grimacing. Tequila comes in five categories: blanco or plata (white or silver); joven or oro (young or gold), unaged silver tequila mixed with caramel; reposada (“rested” in oak barrels from two to eleven months); añejo (“aged” in oak barrels for one to three years); and extra añejo (“extra aged” in oak barrels three years or more). The older and more aged the tequila, the more mellow the taste and interesting the flavor. Although younger, unaged tequila can also be quite good depending on the brand, it is usually reserved for use in cocktails such as the ever-popular margarita (see p. 39).
Speaking of cocktails, say a prayer for the peace of the Church in Mexico and for the Mexican people as you enjoy the delicious cocktail Mexico Pacifico. The passion-fruit syrup can be a symbol of Bl. Miguel’s Jesuit vocation (p. 193).
Mexico Pacifico
1½ oz. tequila
½ oz. lime juice
½ oz. passion-fruit syrup
1 lime wheel for garnish
Pour all ingredients except lime wheel into a shaker filled with ice and shake forty times. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with lime wheel.
ST. PORTIANUS OF MIRANDA, NOVEMBER 24
Portianus (d. 533) began life as a slave. He ran away from his master and took refuge in the Miranda monastery of Auvergne, France, becoming a monk himself and eventually a powerful abbot who successfully wrangled with the Merovingian king Thierry of Austrasia over the release of prisoners. He is often represented in Christian art as a monk breaking a cup from which a serpent escapes because of the miraculous manner in which he obtained the release of those prisoners. Before Portianus could meet Thierry, the king’s assistant coerced the saint into drinking a cup of wine. Portianus raised his right hand to bless it, and immediately the cup split in two, spilling both the wine and a serpent (a symbol of poison?) onto the ground. The witnesses were terrified and threw themselves at the saint’s feet. When the king heard of the miracle, he ran to Portianus and, without waiting for him to say anything, liberated all of the captives.
After Portianus’s death, the monastery was named after him (Saint-Pourçain), along with the nearby village (Saint-Pourçain-sur-Sioule). Today, Saint-Pourçain is an appellation for wine located around the village.
A cocktail honoring Portianus’s most famous miracle would also be in order. In the world of bartending, there are several drinks called a Snake Bite, one of which combines a half pint of lager and a half pint of hard apple cider. There is also a cocktail called a Snake in the Grass, which we have taken the liberty to rename a Snake in the Glass.
Snake in the Glass
¾ oz. gin
¾ oz. Cointreau
¾ oz. dry vermouth
¾ oz. lemon juice
Pour all ingredients into a shaker filled with ice and shake forty times. Strain into a cocktail glass.
ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS, NOVEMBER 24
(DECEMBER 14)
Juan de Yepes y Álvarez (1542–1591) was from a family of conversos, Jews who had converted to Catholicism under pressure from the Spanish Crown. He entered the Carmelites and, along with St. Teresa of Ávila, became a great reformer of that order and a founder of the Discalced Carmelites. St. John of the Cross suffered terribly for his reforming efforts (he was brutally imprisoned and tortured for months by fellow Carmelites), but he survived and endured to become a great spiritual master, poet, mystic, and doctor of the Church. His most famous work—and one of the greatest works of Spanish literature—is The Dark Night of the Soul, a masterpiece about the difficulties in making spiritual progress towards God.
Carmelite Spirits
The author of The Dark Night of the Soul deserves a round or two of the delicious Dark and Stormy (see p. 310). Or have something associated with the Carmelite order, such as Tripel Karmeliet, a golden Belgian beer brewed by the Bosteels Brewery in Belgium using a 1679 recipe from an old Carmelite convent in Dendermonde.
But if you really want to celebrate St. John’s Carmelite vocation, perform a miracle and procure some Carmelite Water. In the twelfth century, French Carmelite nuns closely guarded the secret of a medicinal elixir by that name, a combination of lemon balm or lemon mint (Melissa officinalis), lemon peel, nutmeg, and angelica root that wards off nervous headaches and fever. Today Carmelite Water is sold as a restorative in French pharmacies as Eau de Mélisse des Carmes and in Germany as Klosterfrau Melissengeist (Klosterfrau is old German for nun). Contemporary enthusiasts of the elixir hail its effects on everything from the common cold to chemotherapy treatments. The German Commission E approves lemon-balm use for nervous disorders, as a soporific, and in gastrointestinal disorders.
Carmelite Water
1 liter neutral alcohol (30 percent ABV)
5.8 oz. (165 g) dried flowering tops of lemon balm (Melissa officinalis)
1.4 oz. (40 g) lemon zest
0.17 oz. (5 g) angelica root
Macerate for 2 weeks and then add:
2.3 oz. (65 g) coriander
0.4 oz. (12.5 g) nutmeg
0.4 oz. (12.5 g) cinnamon
0.05 oz. (1.5 g) cloves
Allow to macerate for an additional week and then redistill.
Alligator Cocktail
1 oz. orgeat almond syrup
1½ oz. gin
1 dash Carmelite water
Pour all liquid ingredients into a shaker filled with ice and shake forty times. Strain into a cocktail glass.
Your best bet is to purchase these products online, but if you are a glutton for penance and have certain distilling skills, then we present to you the most complicated and advanced recipe in Drinking with the Saints, a formula for making your own Carmelite Water. Once you have spent three weeks making it, you can make yourself an Alligator Cocktail, which requires a dash of Carmelite Water. That’s right: three weeks of labor for the sake of one dash. Kind of sounds like spiritual progress during a dark night of the soul.
ST. CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA,
NOVEMBER 25
St. Catherine (282–305), a noble young woman from Alexandria, had consecrated her virginity to the Lord and, like St. Catherine of Siena, had a mystical vision in which Christ placed a ring on her finger. When Catherine upbraided the Roman emperor Maximinus for his persecution of Christians, the emperor responded by assembling seventy pagan scholars to refute her. The learned Christian maiden, however, converted them to the faith instead, which is why she is now the patron saint of philosophers. The emperor then tried to execute her on a spiked wheel, but when she ascended the gallows, the wheel was destroyed by lightning and the executioner killed. The legend of her account ends by stating that she was beheaded. St. Catherine is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers and is invoked against sudden death.
To honor St. Catherine’s triumph over the wheel of death, have a Wheel of Fortune (see p. 293). Or mix a cocktail commemorating the virgin martyr’s mystical marriage. You have two choices: a Nuptial Cocktail (see p. 92) or the semisweet and complex Bijou Cocktail. “Bijou” means “small and elegant,” but it is from a Breton word for a ring and is thus a good term for today’s saint. (See all the things you learn when you drink with the saints?)
Bijou Cocktail
1½ oz. gin
½ oz. green Chartreuse
½ oz. sweet vermouth
1 dash orange bitters
1 cherry for garnish
Pour all ingredients except cherry into a shaker filled with ice and shake forty times. Strain into a cocktail glass.
Wine
Domaine Weinbach in the Alsace region of France produces its richest Riesling vintages as a Cuvée Sainte Catherine, so named because the grapes are picked late, around St. Catherine’s feast day. In the Loire, the Clos de Sainte Catherine vineyard is used by the Domaine des Baumard (under the appellation Coteaux du Layon) to make a smooth and developed Chenin Blanc. Twenty-six miles across the sea off the coast of California lies Santa Catalina Island, named after St. Catherine by Spanish explorers because it was discovered on the eve of her feast in 1602. (Actually, it was rediscovered. The Spaniards had forgotten that they had discovered the island in 1542.) The tiny island has only one vineyard, operated by one winery (Rusack), and its bottlings are extremely limited.
LAST CALL
Catherine’s feast day has had an interesting history. A popular feast in the Middle Ages, it was removed from the calendar in 1970 over doubts about the saint’s historical existence, only to be restored as an option in 2002 by St. John Paul II. It is rumored that the pope, a philosophy student himself, did not like to see the calendar bereft of the philosophers’ patroness.
The tension between scholarly historical conjecture and the Church’s living tradition once again calls to mind Chesterton’s remark that he would rather believe in old wives’ tales than old maids’ facts. So raise a glass: Here’s to St. Catherine of Alexandria and to pious old wives’ tales. May old maids never succeed in killing our buzz.
ST. PETER OF ALEXANDRIA, NOVEMBER 26
St. Peter (d. 311), a bishop or “pope” of Alexandria, presided over a large Christian metropolis in times troubled by persecution, schism, and the first stirrings of the Arian heresy. He approached his beheading with such calmness that his six Roman executioners were too unnerved to go through with it. They finally had to pool their money and offer the pot to the one man who could do the deed.
San Pedro Bay in California was discovered by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in 1542 on November 24, St. Peter of Alexandria’s feast day in the Spanish calendar at the time. Near the bay, the town of San Pedro (now part of the City of Los Angeles) is the home of the San Pedro Brewing Company.
ST. JAMES INTERCISUS, NOVEMBER 27
St. James’s epithet means “cut to pieces,” so you already know his manner of martyrdom. James (d. 421) was a military officer at the court of King Yezdigerd I of Persia, and when the king began persecuting Christians, James apostatized. After the king died, James’s wife and mother upbraided him for his cowardice. When the new king, Bahram V, called him to court, he did not hesitate this time to profess his faith. His sentence was to be slowly cut into twenty-eight pieces. Each time he lost a part of his body, St. James prayed, “O Savior, receive a branch of this tree. Let it die, corrupt in the grave and bud again, before being covered in glory.” James’s harrowing story reminds us that apostates can become saints, cowards can become brave, and Persians (Iranians) can become Christian.
To honor this singular martyr and his image of the body as a tree, have a Lone Tree cocktail. The following recipe is a development of the original, which calls for only 1¾ oz. gin and ¾ oz. sweet vermouth. The original is considered by some to be the first cocktail made without bitters, an ingredient that at the turn of the last century was considered essential to any mixed drink.
Lone Tree
1 oz. gin
1 oz. dry vermouth
1 oz. sweet vermouth
4 dashes Cointreau or orange bitters
Pour ingredients into a shaker filled with ice and shake forty times. Strain into a cocktail glass.
LAST CALL
If you really want to accent the macabre aspect of today’s feast, garnish your drinks tonight with something chopped up, like diced melon transfixed by a cocktail sword. Of course, the persecution of St. James and his fellow Christians started the Roman-Sassanid war of 421–422 after the Byzantine Empire heard what was going on, and your garnish might start one too.
A toast: May the prayers and example of St. James Intercisus help us to have his courage, and may our lowly bodies, like his, one day bud into eternal glory.
ST. ANDREW THE APOSTLE, NOVEMBER 30
Andrew (d. 60), a disciple of St. John the Baptist and the first disciple of Our Lord, was the younger brother of St. Peter, whom he introduced to Jesus. It was Andrew who brought to Jesus the boy with the fishes and loaves that He miraculously multiplied (John 6:8) in a foreshadowing of the Holy Eucharist. According to tradition, Andrew preached the Gospel in Byzantium and other areas south of the Black Sea before being crucified in Greece on an X-shaped cross.
It is perhaps fitting that St. Andrew, whose name means “manly,” is the patron saint of some of the world’s hardest-drinking countries, chief among them Scotland, Greece, and Russia. It’s therefore time to savor some quality scotch, oúzo and Metaxa, or vodka.
Scotch
Scotch, invented or perfected by medieval Celtic monks, is the world’s most famous whisky. Made from malt barley, wheat, or rye, scotch must be aged in oak barrels for at least three years. (Since the barrels don’t have to be new, they usually come from bourbon distillers in America, who are not allowed to reuse barrels.) There are five different categories of scotch, but the most basic division is between single malt, or single grain, and blended. Blended scotches are made from several different distilleries, while single malts and single grains are made from only one. Blending allows the maker to compensate for peculiarities in an individual whisky, and therefore blended scotches tend to be less expensive and of lower quality (though not always—they can also be a symphony of well-balanced flavors). An especially appropriate blend for today’s feast is Old St. Andrews, a scotch that comes in a bottle shaped like a golf ball. But since Old St. Andrews is difficult to find in the United States, we also recommend an affordable but good blend called Black Bottle.
A single malt has distinctive traits local to its area or maker. Glenfiddich and Glenlivet are popular choices, while Macallan from Speyside and the smoky and peaty scotches from Islay (“EYE-leh”), such as Lagavulin, Laphroaig, and Bowmore, are also much loved. Really good scotches (either single malt or blended) should be drunk neat or with a splash of cold water, decent scotches should be drunk with a splash of water or on the rocks, and cheap scotches should be used for cocktail recipes. Putting your best scotch in a cocktail is considered heretical in some of the Church’s more discriminating tribunals.
Speaking of cocktails, there are a number mentioned in this book involving scotch, but so far we haven’t listed a Rob Roy. This famous cocktail, invented in 1894 at New York’s Waldorf Astoria and named after the Scottish freedom fighter Robert Roy MacGregor, is equivalent to a Manhattan (see p. 354) but with scotch instead of bourbon.
Rob Roy
1½ oz. scotch
¼ oz. sweet vermouth
2 dashes Angostura bitters (optional)
1 Maraschino cherry or lemon twist
Pour all ingredients into a shaker filled with ice and shake forty times. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with cherry or lemon.
Oúzo and Metaxa
Oúzo, the national drink of Greece, is a distilled, anise-based spirit that has been made since the days of the Byzantine Empire, when it was first distilled by Greek monks. The liquor is clear in color, but when it is mixed with cold water the anise oil is released and it turns cloudy with a faint tinge of blue. The name for this process of emulsification is, fittingly, “the oúzo effect.” First-timers may want to start with one part oúzo, two parts cold water, and adjust the amount of water according to taste.
Metaxa, on the other hand, is Greek brandy made with traditional methods from three different grape varieties and then aged in oak casks anywhere from three to thirty years. The aged distillate is then mixed with aged Muscat wine and distilled a second time, but now with herbs and spices.
Vodka
Vodka, which is made from the distillation of grains, potatoes, or fruits and sugar, may have been invented in Poland, but don’t tell that to a Russian. According to legend, a monk from Moscow’s Chudov Monastery named Isidore made the first vodka in 1430. By 1911, vodka accounted for 89 percent of the alcohol consumed in Russia (a figure that today probably hovers around 70 percent). Some Russian drinkers take their vodka neat with beer as a chaser in compliance with the Russian adage “Vodka without beer is money thrown in the wind.” A more moderate option is to serve it chilled (in the freezer for at least a couple of hours) in a tall shot glass filled halfway (for “to fill glasses to the brim is the mark of a Philistine”) with lots of side dishes (called zakuski in Russian).
Russian Standard and Stolichnaya are well-regarded Russian brands easy to find in the United States. Like scotch, cheap vodkas are good for cocktails, while fine vodkas can stand on their own. Some say that you can even cheat and turn a cheap vodka into a fine one by running it through a good water filter to remove its impurities.
Cocktails
If you’re in the mood for a cocktail on St. Andrew’s Day, have one made from scotch or vodka. Or if you wish to have two of Greece’s most popular strong liquors in a single draught, have a Greek Buck.
Greek Buck
1½ oz. Metaxa
½ oz. lemon juice
¼ oz. oúzo
ginger ale
Build Metaxa, lemon juice, and oúzo in a highball glass. Fill with ice and top with ginger ale.
LAST CALL
St. Andrew is mentioned in the old Mass after the Our Father. Here is an amended version that can be used as a toast: “By the intercession of St. Andrew, may the good Lord grant us peace in our days so that, helped by the riches of His mercy, we may always be delivered from sin and safe from every disturbance.”
Beer and Wine
Belhaven Brewery in Scotland makes St. Andrew’s Ale, a well-regarded Scottish ale that is available in the United States and Canada.
Scotland, Greece, and Russia aren’t the only countries that admire St. Andrew. France has a number of wineries and wines named after today’s saint, including Château Saint-André Corbin, Vieux Château Saint André, Georges Duboeuf’s Château de Saint André (Châteauneuf-du-Pape), Domaine Saint André de Figuière, Château Tour Saint André, Roc Saint André, and Le Clos Saint André. Australia, on the other hand, can boast of St. Andrews, the flagship range of premium wines from Wakefield Wines.