Henry Jeffreys

It’s time to stop the war on Malbec

The German historian Johann Wilhelm von Archenholz wrote about British tastes in alcohol in the eighteenth century: ‘In London they liked everything that is powerful and heady.’ Not much has changed since then. Blame it on the weather, blame it on the food or blame it on the good times, the British have always liked their drink

Paul Wood, Ross Clark, Andrew Lycett, Laura Gascoigne and Henry Jeffreys

33 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: as Lebanon reels from the exploding pagers, Paul Wood wonders what’s next for Israel and Hezbollah (1:24); Ross Clark examines Ireland’s low-tax project, following the news that they’re set to receive €13 billion… that they didn’t want (8:40); Reviewing Ben Macintyre’s new book, Andrew Lycett looks at the 1980 Iranian

Cheers to corkscrews!

For the first 50 years of the corked bottle, there was no easy way to get into it. The combination of cork and a strong glass bottle came together around 1630 but the first mention of a device to open the bloody thing wasn’t until 1681. Cavalier get-togethers must have resembled the teenage parties I

Inside the plot to take down Rishi Sunak

42 min listen

Welcome to a slightly new format for the Edition podcast! Each week will be talking about the magazine – as per usual – but trying to give a little more insight into the process behind putting The Spectator to bed each week.  On the podcast: The Spectator’s political editor Katy Balls writes our cover story this week about ‘the

Women love flowers. Who knew?

It’s funny how long it can take a man to learn a simple lesson. For example, for years I had assumed that women couldn’t really love flowers, that it was all some sort of conspiracy created by Big Florist in league with Big Greetings Card that everyone, apart from me, had fallen for. On Valentine’s

How Britain sobered up

36 min listen

This week:  The Spectator’s cover story looks at how Britain is sobering up, forgoing alcohol in favour of alcohol free alternatives. In his piece, Henry Jeffreys – author of Empire of Booze – attacks the vice of sobriety and argues that the abstinence of young Britons will have a detrimental impact on the drinks industry and British culture.

How Britain sobered up

The people of these islands have long been famous for their drinking. A Frenchman writing in the 12th century described the various races of Europe: ‘The French were proud and womanish; the Germans furious and obscene; the Lombards greedy, malicious, and cowardly; and the English were drunkards and had tails.’ By 1751, at the height

Six English sparklers to enjoy this Christmas

Before I started researching my book Vines in a Cold Climate, I had a particular image of English sparkling wine as consistent but rarely that exciting. It was all a bit formulaic, like big brand champagne but leaner. I am pleased to say that I could not have been more wrong as the wines now

The shocking truth about adulterated wine: it was delicious

In 2012 the esoteric world of wine connoisseurship made the news when the FBI raided the Californian home of an Indonesian national called Rudy Kurniawan. They found a factory for creating fake wines with bottles, corks, labels and even recipes. According to Rebecca Gibb in Vintage Crime, Kurniawan’s counterfeit Mouton Rothschild from the legendary 1945

The cult of the gilet

Last summer I attended a reunion at my prep school. The occasion was the leaving of a much-loved master. I thought that the appropriate thing to wear would be a tweed jacket in honour of prep-school masters everywhere. I found myself woefully overdressed. Pretty much all of my contemporaries were wearing gilets. It was a

How to make a royally good Dubonnet cocktail

The Platinum Jubilee celebrations look like boom time for the drinks industry, with various whisky, gin and port brands all releasing special commemorative bottles. But there’s one curious omission: Dubonnet, a liqueur that is said to be the Queen’s favourite. According to a spokesman from parent company Pernod Ricard, there’s nothing planned to celebrate 70

More than one bad apple: the sorry demise of English cider

Can you imagine if, in the 20th century, wine producers in France had switched from a product made (almost) entirely from grapes to something that was essentially grape-flavoured alcoholic sugar water? It’s inconceivable. In fact, they did just the opposite. To stamp out the growth of ersatz wines, the appellation contrôlée system was created, which,

With Henry Jeffreys

26 min listen

Henry Jeffreys is features editor of Masters of Malt, and author of The Cocktail Dictionary. On the podcast, he tells Lara and Livvy about living like the Goodfellas in Leeds, being ‘portly’ at university, and enjoying his mum’s apple and bramble pie.

Why Florence’s ‘wine windows’ are making a comeback

Stroll around Florence and you’ll notice little ornate openings embedded in the walls of Renaissance palazzos. They look like doorways for tiny people, though they would have to be quite athletic tiny people, as the openings are three feet off the ground. But they’re not entrances for Tuscan pixies — they’re for selling wine. There

Is this the end of the wine bottle?

Picture the world before the invention of the bottle: if you wanted a nice glass of claret at home, you’d have to send a boy round to the tavern to fill up a jug — unless you were rich enough to have a whole barrel in your cellar. Around 1630, a new tougher glass was

Tips for Christmas tipples

It’s telling that perhaps the best wine book of last year, Amber Revolution by Simon Woolf, was self-published, though you’d never guess from the quality of the design, photography or editing. Wine books are a tough slog for publishers unless they’re written by one of the big four: Clarke, Johnson, Robinson and Spurrier (sounds like

Home bars

When I mention to people that I have written a book about home bars, the most common response is, ‘my parents/grandparents/swinging uncle used to have one of those globe cocktail cabinets’. The other thing they mention is Only Fools and Horses. For years, having a bar in your home was seen as the height of