Some readers don’t like cocktails. They like their booze simple. For them, we here at Drink Local are featuring mead, the anti-cocktail. What’s more basic than hooch drunk from the Serengeti to the Fjords since before record? It’s one of the oldest boozes; mead, honey beer, tej. But brewers have

Hard Cider is as American as the Boy Scouts, or driving jacked-up trucks downtown listening loudly to Kid Rock, Willie Nelson, or Johnny Cash. Chances are if your great-great-grandparents were stateside circa the Louisiana Purchase, they were getting swilled in a barn on locally pressed cider. At that time, it

by Dr. Deborah Gordon Sounding like a broken record, my answer to that question would be, “Well, it depends who you are and what are your goals.” The only broadly applicable truth about drinking alcohol will not surprise: alcohol in excess is never good for you (or others if you