If you’ll be in the New York area, I hope you’ll come out to Lolita Bar to enjoy a cocktail, and hear some amazing writers read from their work about beverages. Here are all the details on where, when, and most important, WHO is reading. 

Date & Time: Wednesday, October 19, 2011. Come by at 6:30 for a drink – the reading starts at 7pm.

Location: Lolita Bar – 266 Broome Street at Allen St., NY, NY

Admission: FREE admission, but drinks are on you, buddy.

Featured Readers: Curated by wine and spirits writer Kara Newman, participants include:

• Gary Allen, food writer/editor & Adjunct Professor, Empire State College
• Sydney Beveridge, writer, editor & radio producer
• Warren Bobrow, food/spirits writer & rum judge
• Mike DeSimone and Jeff Jenssen, aka “the World Wine Guys”
• Johanna Gohmann, writer and personal essayist
• David Farley, travel writer and author, An Irreverent Curiosity
• Brad Thomas Parsons, author, Bitters: A Spirited History of a Classic Cure-All, with Cocktails, Recipes, and Formulas
• Diana Pittet, cheesemonger and food/beverage writer
• Julie Sheehan, author, Bar Book: Poems & Otherwise
• Liza Weisstuch, travel and drinks writer; American Correspondent, Whisky Magazine

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Hard to believe, but the upcoming Drink.Think event on Oct. 19 is just over a week away!

As always, expect a lively mix of accomplished writers and authors and bright up-and-comers, all with something to say about what we drink. And as always, be sure to arrive thirsty!

This week’s featured writer is Sydney Beveridge, who –as a beverage writer– recognizes the amusement that her name and chosen writing topic can provide. Luckily, she enjoys a good pun. 

“I’ll leave any Beverage/Beveridge jokes up to your discretion,” she wrote to me. “Feel free to indulge as you see fit.” (thanks, Sydney!)

A writer, editor and radio producer, La Beveridge has contributed to a variety of media outlets, including Mental Floss, Gotham Gazette, WNYC’s the Brian Lehrer Show, East Village Radio and Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood.

Double trouble, these two!

Mike DeSimone and Jeff Jenssen, aka the World Wine Guys, are wine, spirits, food, and travel writers. They’re also a helluva lot of fun to have around (as if you couldn’t tell from the michievious grins in their photo at right.)

When not traversing the globe, they divide their time between their homes in NYC and southern Spain. They are Wine Enthusiast’s Entertaining and Lifestyle Contributing Editors, and in addition to many magazine articles, the duo have written chapters for The Ultimate Wine Companion and Barrels & Drams: The History of Whisk(e)y in Jiggers and Shots. (Note – a preview copy of this book just landed on my desk, and I’m having a blast reading it.)

They are very excited about their two books to be released in 2012: The Fire Island Cookbook (Simon and Schuster) and The Complete Wines of the Southern Hemisphere (Sterling Epicure). Their hobbies include chasing the harvest wherever grapes are grown, and dinners with chefs, family and friends, and winemakers.

Come on out to Lolita Bar on Wednesday, October 19 at 7pm — this dynamic duo will be reading from their work, and stirring up some bibulous mischief.

Visit her at JohannaGohmann.com – or better still, come out and hear her read from her work at Drink.Think — Oct. 19 at 7pm, at Lolita Bar.

No. wait. I meant to say, Brad Thomas Parsons (aka BTP) is totally all about the bitters. So much so, he wrote a book that should be out…any…minute…now, called Bitters: A Spirited History of a Classic Cure-All. I –and other cocktail geeks — can’t wait to get our Angostura-stained mitts on a copy, when it’s released November 1. But you can get a sneak peek, if you come out to Drink.Think on Oct. 19. 

In addition to being a shiny new author, BTP also is a writer, blogger, and food and cocktail enthusiast. A former senior editor at Amazon.com, he received an MFA in Writing from Columbia University and has been a contributor to Serious Eats, Omnivoracious, Al Dente, and Seattle Met, among others. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. Visit him at www.btparsons.com.

Don’t be bitter. Come on out and say hi on Oct. 19, at Lolita Bar.  (6:30 to drink; reading starts at 7pm.)

photo credit: Ed Anderson

Seriously; the woman wrote a poem about Fernet-Branca.

She’s no mere back-of-the-cocktail-napkin scribbler, either. Sheehan is the author of three poetry collections: Bar Book: Poems & Otherwise, Orient Point and Thaw. Her honors include a Whiting Writers’ Award and NYFA Fellowship in Poetry. Her poems have appeared in many magazines and anthologies. She teaches in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton.

And have I mentioned the part about her former life as a bartender? Oh yes, this talented poet also has mixology chops. If we get lucky, maybe she’ll give us a little demo on Oct 19. 

Click here to view the full roster of readers, and all the where & when details.

Photo credit:  Chip Cooper

Mark your calendar – Wednesday, Oct. 19 is the next Drink.Think reading event!

Once again, we’ve got a great line-up of writers slated to read from their work — and over the next few weeks, I’ll entice you with mini-biographies, starting this week with Warren Bobrow. 

Now, if you’re out and about in the NY food and drink scene, surely you’ve run across this chap. Somehow, the man seems to be everywhere — He’s at spirits launch parties. He moderated a panel on food writing I attended at the IACP regional conference. He was front and center at a rum seminar I attended at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans (he’s a rum judge for the Ministry of Rum, so that makes perfect sense). And all the while, Warren manages to tweet up a storm like it’s an Olympic sporting event–go ahead, follow him @WarrenBobrow1.  I dare you.

Warren is a prolific writer off Twitter, too:  he’s the Food and Drink Editor of the 501c3 non profit Wild Table on Wild River Review; he is a cocktail writer for William-Sonoma’s Blender Blog, Foodista and Serious Eats; and his research on Biodynamic and Organic Wine and Food will appear in the 2012 Oxford Encyclopedia of Food/Drink in America, Ed. 2.

Whew!  Come on out to Lolita Bar on Oct. 19 and hear what he has to say.

Mark your calendar – the next Drink.Think event will be Wednesday, October 19, at Lolita Bar (266 Broome St). 

….If you’ve never attended this gathering of beverage writers before, here’s a quick write-up of a recent Drink.Think. We have a lot of fun, so come out and join us!

…If you’re a writer with something to say about wine, spirits, beer, coffee, or any other potable, email me (kara DOT newman AT yahoo.com) and let’s talk. I’m already lining up writers, and have a couple of open spots though they won’t last long.

Hope to see you there!

One last cool writer to tell you about before Wednesday’s event. Come out to Drink.Think on Wednesday, June 15 at Lolita Bar (266 Broome, at Allen St.) to get your fill of what the New York Times called “Literate Drinking”!

Megan Wiig is one of the writers you’ll find there. She’s a wine writer and educator — among other things, she writes a column for one of my favorite drinkin’ pubs, Mutineer Magazine. When she’s not writing, she runs Wine Wise Consulting, where her clients include Sopexa, Champagne, Bordeaux, Port, Armagnac, and Ribera del Duero, and she’s Director of Education for Flow Wine Group. Whew! Megan, do you ever sleep?

Come out and hear what this powerhouse has to say about wine at Drink.Think. And thanks to our sponsor Four Roses Bourbon, we’ll have $4 bourbon lemonades to sip while you listen.

See you Wednesday!

So when Drink.Think veteran and James Beard award-winning wine writer Alice Feiring recommended Talia Baiocchi for June 15′s reading event, I knew she had to be good people.

Her bio tells only part of the story:  wine writer living in NYC. Former editor of WineChap.com; current weekly wine columnist for Eater.com New York and National; regular contributor to the wine-lovin’  San Francisco Chronicle.

But a closer look at her writing reveals more, particularly the sassy, accessible tone Baiocchi puts on for her Eater column. A quick skim of interviews reveals another piece to the puzzle — I especially like this Daily Meal Q&A, in which she derides the common wine descriptor “jammy.”

“That’s sort of gross,” she scoffs. “I don’t want to eat my wine with a spoon.”

I’m looking forward to hearing what this up-and-comer has for us at Drink.Think. Be there on Wednesday, June 15 if you’d like to hear as well.