Boston’s South End keeps getting hipper. Every time I return to the charming neighborhood in my college town, I discover new chocolate shops, design stores and restaurants.

Last weekend I was in the city for the Red Sox game (and Celtics celebration), and even though I was craving a Fenway frank, I made time to swing by the much-buzzed-about South End restaurant the Beehive. The space and concept were inspired by and named for a 1920s artists’ residence in the Montparnasse district of Paris, and the downstairs truly feels like an artist’s studio, with live music performances and local art hanging on the walls. Despite the fabulously designed interiors, my friends and I were lured outdoors to a patio table because we wanted to try the new “urban picnic” menu.

My friends and I were handed a list of about a dozen simple yet delicious-sounding items, and after much back and forth, we checked off the Sicilian tuna with artichokes and sun-dried tomatoes, Manchego cheese with honey, tuna tartare and seasonal red cherries. Within minutes, our server dropped an oversize picnic basket on our table. Tucked inside were adorable glass jars containing each of our dishes, along with two butcher-paper-wrapped French baguettes. After a round of Beehive juleps (made with two rums and a drop of honey) arrived, we passed around jars, taking forkfuls from each and battling for the last scoops of our favorites (there aren’t plates, so things got a little messy, which was part of the fun). It was the perfect prelude to a game—satisfying, yet not so overwhelming that I couldn't make room for my ballpark dog by the sixth inning.

I can think of a dozen reasons why Bruichladdich (pronounced brook-LADDIE) is the most exciting distillery in Scotland. For starters, it’s one of only two independent distilleries left in the country (and the only one on Islay, where it’s helping to revitalize the local economy). Secondly, it’s shaking up the Scotch industry, creating a huge portfolio of lightly peated, floral Scotches that challenge the idea of regional styles and traditional distillation techniques. Thirdly, it’s reinventing the idea of barrel-aging: Head distiller Jim McEwan (who spent 40 years at Bowmore before helping Bruichladdich CEO Mark Reynier relaunch the shuttered brand in 2001) has created a system he calls “Additional Cask Evolution” (ACE), wherein he finishes his Scotches in select barrels from the world’s top wineries, including Chateau d’Yquem, Chateau Haut-Brion, Gaja, Ridge and Guigal. These barrels add a completely different body and flavor profile than traditional bourbon and port casks do, making Bruichladdich’s bottlings unlike anything the Scotch world has tasted before.

And now Bruichladdich is applying its ACE program to, of all things, rum. I recently had my first taste of its Renegade Rum at Manhattan’s Elletaria restaurant,  and the stuff is as aberrant as its whiskey. Reynier had the idea to produce the rum a few years back, when he noticed certain disheartening parallels between the rum and whiskey industries: Both are dominated by a few enormous companies with deep marketing pockets and a penchant for blending and consistency. Reynier picked out a few select barrels from the Caribbean’s oldest, family-owned distilleries (some now defunct) and shipped the rum back to Scotland, where McEwan ACE’d them in ex-d’Yquem and Latour barrels, among other things. I tasted all four of the mind-blowing, limited-edition rums in Renegade’s current rotation: an earthy 15-year-old Jamaican rum finished in ex-Latour barrels; a clean, fruity 10-year-old port-finished Panama Rum; and two rums from Guyana, one a robust 12-year-old ACE’d in d’Yquem oak and the other a lighter, fruitier 16-year-old enriched by Madeira casks.

The rums run from $80 to $110, which is pretty reasonable, given their cult status. Look for them online at K&L Wines, Morrell and Garnet.

My super plugged-in colleague Kate Krader is usually the one name-dropping celebrities and rock stars but this weekend I found myself uncharacteristically star-struck while out in Montauk, probably the least celebrity-filled town in the Hamptons.

I was there to volunteer at the second annual Beach Rescue Mission sponsored by the Surfrider Foundation and Barefoot Wine.  Picking up garbage alongside me at Ditch Plains – Montauk’s best surfing beach - was the much-buzzed-about-of-late singer/songwriter Tristan Prettyman and nearly 200 other surfers and eco-crusaders. Surfrider and Barefoot Wine thanked all of us do-gooders by throwing a killer after-party at the newly opened Second House Tavern with unlimited wine (The new Barefoot Moscato could not be restocked quickly enough!) and incredible performances from Tristan and headliner Garrett Dunton – better known as, G. Love from the eclectic hip-hop,funk, psychedelica, blues trio G. Love & Special Sauce.

The night before I was hanging with G. Love at the much-hyped (all of it well deserved) Surf Lodge where Sam Talbot, a fan favorite from season two of Bravo’s Top Chef, is serving serious, summer-style food in a space that’s a total throw-back to 70’s surf culture and Bruce Brown’s iconic Endless Summer movie. G. Love, surprised me with his sophisticated palate (his mom’s a cooking instructor and his sister works for wine importer Daniel Johnnes) and we shared notes on our meals: sweet corn, peeky toe crab salad got a major flavor boost from the brilliant addition of marinated nectarines; lobster rolls were untraditionally served on hamburger buns, making them less messy to devour; and striped bass prepared in an herb and roasted garlic broth was light, yet insanely flavorful.

The Surf Lodge’s excellent food, super laid-back vibe, lakeside bonfire and 3,000 square-foot deck drew our group back for an after, after party Saturday night which went into the late hours with dancing and endless, Endless Summer cocktails (a dangerously delicious concoction that mixes Snow Queen vodka, Chardonnay, seedless red grapes, simple syrup and fresh lemon juice). G. Love summed up the weekend best saying: “We cleaned the beach, we drank some wine and we rocked out in Montauk.”

When you break it down, America’s two greatest contributions to the culinary universe are barbecue and cocktails (buffalo wings finish a distant third). On this patriotic weekend, I plan on celebrating both, with a pile of pulled pork (from our June 2008 issue) and this spunky drink made with applejack, the original American spirit, which I’ve turned into a pork-friendly pitcher drink.

Big-Batch Applejack Cocktail
Makes 8 drinks

Ice
2 cups applejack
1/4 ounce Rich Simple Syrup
1/2 ounce Angostura bitters
8 lemon twists, for garnish

Fill a pitcher with ice. Add all of the ingredients except the lemon twist and stir for 30 seconds, until chilled. Strain into chilled martini glasses and garnish each drink with a lemon twist.

Patrick Watson and his wife Michele Pravda are very good at naming stuff. First was their Carroll Gardens wine shop, Smith & Vine, a name that would make Hemingway proud: simple, direct and packed with information (location plus trade, separated with an ampersand). They took more of a Gossip Girl approach for their next business, a nearby cheese chop called Stinky Bklyn: sassy and smart, with allusions to the txtmsg era and a cheese head’s weak spot.

If Stinky Bklyn is Gossip Girl, then the couple’s latest venture, The Jake Walk, is John from Cincinnati. Its name is obscure—“jake walk” is 1930s slang for the partially paralyzed gait exhibited by Prohibition-era vagabonds who drank Jamaica Ginger, a highly alcoholic (though legal) patent medicine found to be loaded with, whoops, neurotoxins—and, like John from Cincinnati, you’re not quite sure how to describe Jake Walk , except for “singularly awesome” (if you disagree with me about JfC, don’t hold it against Jake Walk).

You can’t simply call Jake Walk “a bar,” because its carefully curated wine list (50 by the glass) is too good—seriously, I think it’s Brooklyn’s best. But you can’t call it a “wine bar,” either: A selection of 120 whiskies and eclectic, pre-Prohibition cocktails says you can’t. And “restaurant” isn’t quite right, though the place is a charcuterie- and cheese-aficionado’s Disney World, with an expansive selection of both. So let’s just call it what it is—a gastro wine-cocktail lounge and charcuterium—and leave it at that.

Oh, I almost forgot: Jake Walk is also the place’s signature drink, courtesy of David Wondrich:

The Jake Walk
Makes 1 drink
Ice
3/4 ounce reposado tequila
3/4 ounce J.M. Rhum Blanc (or other white rum)
3/4 ounce St-Germain (elderflower liqueur)
3/4 ounce fresh lime juice
2 dashes Peychaud's bitters
Candied ginger, for garnish
Fill a shaker with ice. Add everything except the ginger and shake vigorously. Strand into a chilled coupe and garnish with the candied ginger.

I just returned from a trip to the fabulous Ventana Inn and Spa in Big Sur, California. Its restaurant, Cielo, has a great cocktail list that included a few drinks I had never seen before. Listed under the category Fantastic Floats were three made with beer and sorbet. The best was called Belgian Delight, a pint of Hoegaarden topped with a scoop of homemade orange sorbet. Simple, refreshing and original, it will be my go-to cocktail this summer.

Charbay is famous for producing the first American vodkas flavored with actual fruit. But this Northern California distillery has also made what are probably the first American whiskeys made with actual beer. Let me explain: While whiskey is distilled from a fermented, beerlike mash made up of malted grain and water, you really wouldn’t drink the stuff. But Charbay’s Marko Karakasevic and his father, Miles, have created two whiskeys made from bottle-ready beer. The first is the second release of their Double Barrel series ($325/750ml), a malty, pilsner-based whiskey Marko and Miles made in 1999 and aged in oak barrels.

The second whiskey is even wackier. After a 25-year “apprenticeship” with his father, Marko has finally earned the right for Dad to pass on the honor of being a “Master Distiller,” making him the 13th generation of his family’s spirits-makers. His thesis: A crystal clear whiskey made from India Pale Ale. For legal reasons, Marko has to age the spirit in oak in order to call it “whiskey,” so he places the distillate is neutral oak barrels for a total of…one day. “It’s the lightest whiskey ever,” Marko said this afternoon when he visited our offices. He plans to call his potable thesis “Doubled and Twisted” after the whiskey’s double-distillation and the way the liquid twists on itself as it exits the still. “It’s spicy and herbaceous—the beer’s hop and malt flavors are right there,” Marko said. “It looks like moonshine, but this is way past moonshine.”

It seems I never again have to leave my beloved Brooklyn to have sophisticated cocktails. Which is a good thing, since cab fare from lower Manhattan can add as much as $30 to an already pricey evening out. In my little four-block radius, I now count four bars—a fine ratio of walk to drink. There's Flatbush Farm (a personal favorite—try the Mo' Stormy), Soda (a good selection of Irish whiskey and the best burgers in Brooklyn), Barette (burlesque every Tuesday and Friday night) and the newest of them all, Weather Up, which is owned by Kathryn Weatherup and has the Sasha Petraske (Milk & Honey and East Side Company Bar) imprint. It's a good thing Brooklynites are a laid-back people, though, as it took nearly 45 minutes and a whopping $55 to get four drinks at Weather Up—but if you deduct the cab fare, it's worth it in the end. 

I also attended Wednesday night’s tiki party and loved seeing some of the city’s most serious mixologists relax enough to drink—and serve—out of coconuts. One trend I hope will accompany the revival of tiki: the elevation of frozen drinks. I grew up snagging sips of my mom’s piña coladas, and most summers, when I’m far away from New York, I order one and enjoy it despite its mouth-coating sweetness. On Wednesday, F&W’s deputy cocktail book editor and mixologist extraordinaire Jim Meehan was whirring up a much more refreshing version of the piña colada in his BarBoss blender from Vita-Mix. Still, he said, “The blender’s going right back on my kitchen counter. I’m still anti-blender at the bar.” Unless it’s a tiki bar, he admitted. The new nautical-themed Rusty Knot (I know, how many editors can blog about it in a week?) is supposedly serving frozen mint daiquiris. Since so few people will actually get to taste them at this cooler-than-thou spot, I predict it won’t be too long before other respectable bars bring in a blender. May I suggest the Breville?

Ever since the concept was born in 1934 —when Ernest Gantt opened Don the Beachcomber in Los Angeles—tiki bars have always been a West Coast thing. Sure, there’s a tiki room or two in most major cities, but even the ones in a cocktail kingdom like New York have been awful, serving unbalanced, high-octane bastardizations of the Mai Tai and the Zombie—jungle juice garnished with a paper umbrella, essentially—to frat brothers who wouldn’t know grog if it were dumped over their heads. But recently, some of New York’s top cocktail carpenters—at bars like PDT, Death & Co. and the Krader-endorsed Rusty Knot—have begun honoring the tiki gods with their own Polynesian potables. Last night I attended a tiki-themed party hosted by the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States at Oser Bikini Bar, an appointment-only shop in Tribeca that sells custom-made surfboards, bespoke swimsuits and vintage tiki tchotchkes and furniture.

However, a couple of weeks back, the burgeoning trend almost had its torch blown out. I received a phone call from Eric Seed, an importer of esoteric and long-lost spirits (see our January 2008 issue or click here). He was trying to track down a bottle of Velvet Falernum for Elettaria, a new restaurant/bar in the West Village, and wondered if I wouldn’t have an extra bottle around my office (I didn’t, having just depleted my supply on one of these). A sweet almond- and lime-flavored liqueur from Barbados, Velvet Falernum is an essential ingredient in tiki drinks like the iconic Zombie Punch (limit one per customer, thanks to its deceptively high alcohol content), which Elettaria bartender Brian Miller had added to the list, in addition to a few other tiki-lounge classics. Anticipating this trend, Seed had just signed on to be the liqueur’s new importer, but his first shipment had yet to arrive. After calling every liqueur store in town, Miller found a few bottles at Morrell & Company and bought their entire stock—just in time for opening night.