Martini Groove

In response to some of the thank you e-mails from my recent post on SMS info, I've made a little useful tool that you can use while out. Text martinigroove to 41411. You'll get a response on your phone with a Random Drink and the ingredients in the drink. Because of SMS limitations you won't get the directions for making the drink, but here are some things it will be useful for. It beats telling the bartender "Surprise me" and the blank look you get in return. If you're out and want something different to drink but don't know what, here you go. Stump the bartender! Play drinking games! Two words: World peace! Careful though, that could be a lot of text messages and standard text messaging rates apply (I learned that from Ryan Seacrest).

Appelation America has two distinct things about it's site. First, it is easily the most eye-hurting, overly busy site I've seen in quite some time. It looks like GeoCities circa 1997. Second, they're doing some fantastic work spreading the word of " Terroir"that every wine writer seems to be freaking out about these days. They're doing it by making it so you can look up an appellation and see a map of the region as well as get a short synopsis of what that region is about. A very handy tool for learning the characteristics of an area. A lot of the images are like the one here but they are starting to upload more and more satellite photos of the appellations. Appelation America