Paul Tanguay and Tad Carducci channel their love of the romance, traditions and hospitality that surround the art of the drink into Tippling Bros., their NYC-based beverage consulting business. From developing innovative wine and beer-based cocktails to running cocktail competitions and educational seminars they're focused on fulfilling a common goal--to help the world drink better. Laren Spirer sat down with Tanguay and Carducci recently to find out how they got started, the story behind their "mock tequila" and what they eat and drink when they're off the clock.

LS: How did the two of you meet and decide to create the Tippling Brothers?

Tad Carducci: We took a class about three years ago - the first ever BAR (Beverage Alcohol Resource) class - and we met there and instantly kind of clicked. We have similar sensibilities, and we realized that we had a very good friend in common. Since that class, we immediately started talking about this idea - wouldn't it be great if we could take the passion and the knowledge and start our own thing?

Paul Tanguay: Start educating, start teaching, start spreading our knowledge.

TC: A few months later, we both quit our jobs and did it. Obviously we had lined up a few clients, and since then we've been going at it. Tippling Brothers has its own life now; it has grown faster than we anticipated it would.

New Yorkers love pizza, and a bevy of new spots (Co., Keste Pizza e Vino, Motorino, Pizza Mezzaluna, San Marzano, Spunto, and Tonda) attest we're in the Golden Age of Pizza. However, only one--Keste Pizza e Vino--is certified-authentic Neapolitan wood-fired pizza, and if you've ever traveled to Naples or tried an authentic Neapolitan pizza, you remember the difference. Roberto Caporuscio, the American-chapter President of Associazone Pizzaiouli Napoletana, has been making thin, 10-inch pizzas at Keste since March. Recently, I visited Keste to discuss pizza, watch Roberto at work, and taste a little bit of Naples. Roberto has plans to open a pizza making school, but until then, learn from the master.

LM: You are a former farmer and onetime mozzarella-maker, what initially attracted you to start making pizzas?

RC: I wanted a change in my life, so I decided to go make pizza. The foods that I love are pizza and gelato. There's no school for making gelato, so I went to school for pizza and worked in Naples.

How old were you when you decided to start making pizzas?

37 years old.

How many years ago was that?

11.

You serve as the U.S. delegate for the Associazone Pizzaiuoli Napoletani, an organization that seeks to preserve Neapolitan pizza-making traditions and pass them down to a new generation.

More than that, what they try to do, they try to promote the pizza maker. Again, the pizza maker is the most important thing to preserve the pizza. You can't preserve the pizza without the pizza maker.

What defines an authentic Neapolitan pizza?

By Louise McCready

Babbo pastry chef Gina DePalma earned this year's James Beard Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef of the Year.  An Italian-American New Yorker, DePalma earned critical acclaim for her 2007 cookbook, Dolce Italiano [Buy on Amazon].  A year after she was first diagnosed with ovarian cancer, DePalma launched the Cowgirl Cure Foundation to increase public awareness of and find a cure for ovarian cancer. This past week, DePalma took a break from her busy schedule to discuss spices, gelato, and cowgirling up.

LM: First, congratulations on winning the James Beard Award.  After being nominated several times in the past, what do you think separated you most from the rest of the competition this year?  

GD: After 7 nominations, I don't think it's about separating me or looking at my work because I never think it's a competition. Everyone who's nominated wins because your work is already being recognized.

What made winning the Beard Award neat for me was to be able to stand up and publicly thank Joe [Bastianich] and Mario [Batali] for everything that they've done for me--for 11 years of standing by me and making everything happen. The minute I was sick, they didn't stop, and they've been just beside me every step of the way.

Tomorrow evening Per Se kicks off its An American Table at Per Se dinner series with special guest Wells Guthrie of Sonoma County's Copain Wine Cellars. The series will allow guests to experience limited production American wines alongside a seven-course tasting menu, "specially crafted to highlight the old world nuances and flavors reflected in the wines." In addition, each guest winemaker will lead a discussion around their techniques, influences and personal winemaking style.

We spoke with Guthrie recently to learn about Copain, his background and his past experience working with the team at The French Laundry and Per Se.

How long has Copain been around?

1999 was our first vintage. We did a whopping 300 cases.

How much are you producing now?

For our vineyard designated wines, we do about 4,000 cases. That's split over six different Pinots, a few Syrahs, so about 10 wines. We have an appellation wine called Tous Ensemble, which means "all together." The appellation wines that we make are more readily accessible.

How did you get into winemaking?

I started working at Wine Spectator. I worked there for two years as their tasting coordinator in San Francisco. I set up all of the tastings for the domestic wines. I got to taste all of the wine, which was cool. Getting to taste 3,000 to 4,000 wines a year gets your palette honed for what you do and don't like.

As part of its "New York Diet" series New York Magazine recently invited James Beard Foundation Outstanding Chef Dan Barber to chronicle his meals for a week. Aside from learning that Dan does most of his eating in the kitchens of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns, we also discovered that he consumes a remarkably consistent, and simple, breakfast: a mystery power shake mixed up each morning by his girlfriend, writer Aria Sloss.

Meet Leo Mondragon, mushroom farmer. Leo supplies Blue Hill and other top restaurants in New York City and Boston with shitake, oyster and 20 other types of mushrooms. If you've ever wondered how mushrooms are cultivated you should find this video interesting.

[Watch this video on YouTube]

Learn more about Forest Harvest on their website.

This video is a part of a series produced for Blue Hill by Savory Cities. View our previous Meet Your Purveyors posts:

• Mountain Sweet Berry Farm
• Cherry Lane Farms
• Herondale Farm

Or view the entire serious on the Blue Hill website.

By Laren Spirer

Don't let Brian McGrory's charm, Scottish lilt, and good looks fool you -- he's a man on a mission. His mission? To get you to love gin. As the Beverage Director at Double Crown and Madam Geneva, Brian has one of the city's most extensive gin list at his disposal, as well as several other tricks up his sleeve.

How did you get into the cocktail business?

I got into the business by default. I was in San Francisco during the whole dot com crash and I couldn't get any work whatsoever. I was unemployed and ended up bar backing at this great music club called Café Du Nord for about eight months. We had the most amazing old school bartender who was so into classic cocktails, his bitters, and little mixtures. He actually taught me everything - all the basics of bartending. It wasn't this huge luxury establishment, but it was an institution. He was very passionate about freshness and balance and drinks tasting how they should be - sugar/acid balance and presentation and all that.

This Saturday Tribeca will host the 15th annual Taste of Tribeca celebration. Over 60 downtown restaurants, including Chantarelle, Blaue Gans, Odeon, Macao Trading Company and Bar Artisanal, will be on hand to serve the hungry masses. In addition to dishes like bruschetta with lump Maryland crabmeat, Moroccan braised tuna and Molton chocolate cake, there will be a celebrity chef cook-off, a wine tour, kid-friendly activities and, of course, live music. The proceeds benefit local public schools P.S. 150 and P.S. 234.

General admission tickets are $45 ($40 in advance) and get you six dishes. Premium tickets start at $175 per person and include reserved seating, a designer t-shirt, a gift bag and access to personal food runners. For more event and ticket info visit the Taste of Tribeca website.

If you've ever visited the Union Square Greenmarket in search of ramps, chances are you've ended up at Rick Bishop's Mountain Sweet Berry Farm stand at one time or another. Rick's the guy with the sign board featuring assorted ramp recipes and the names of his more well known restaurant customers.

In small letters off to one side is the name Blue Hill, home to chef and co-owner Dan Barber, who is not only one of Rick's best customers, he's also one of his biggest supporters. Barber, who took home this year's James Beard Foundation Outstanding Chef award, wrote about Bishop and his science-oriented farming practices in the July 2007 issue of Food&Wine magazine. In the article Barber made note of Bishop's use of a refractometer, a tool used to measure the sugar content of fruits and vegetables, to gauge the optimal time to harvest his crop for the best possible taste. 

On Monday night we had the privilege of helping the James Beard Foundation's editorial team with their live blog of this years awards. We were joined by Jennifer Leuzzi of snack blog, writer Adam Sachs, Meredith Arthur from Chow, Jody Williams of Gottino and Louise McCready of Savory Cities & Huffington Post.

This years live blog coverage chronicled the night from the first arrivals on the red carpet to the best moments on stage to the last bite of octopus carpacio at the gala afterwards. For all the juicy bits check out the James Beard Foundation blog. The JBF also kept a close eye on all of the awards-related Twittering going on and retweeted the best ones. Relive the minute by minute action on @beardfoundation.

Much like at last year's awards we shot video of Jennifer Leuzzi interviewing the bold faced names as they arrived on the red carpet. Find out how award-winning celebrity chefs start their day in the video below and then watch the full set of videos over on the JBF blog.