Alcoholic Beverages

WIELDING six-pronged chippers, three people are smashing up 2-inch slabs of Belgian dark chocolate on a stainless steel table and tossing it, along with coils of fresh orange peel, into gleaming 50-gallon tanks of vodka. Just another Friday morning in a Monrovia industrial park. This sterile yet aromatic room is the Modern Spirits Vodka "fruit lab," where Litty and Melkon Khosrovian and assistant Randy Clemens -- the entire Modern Spirits staff -- create exotic flavored vodkas.

How about a glass of wine to celebrate St. Patrick's Day? That might not sit well on the stomach of many residents of Ireland's capital Saturday as they mark the year's biggest party with copious quantities of Guinness, the rich, dark beer with a creamy head that is the national drink.

Joseph Michalek makes liquor the old-fashioned way, slowly heating corn mash in a large copper still. As for the rest of his moonshine operation, he steers clear of Southern mountain traditions. A relative newcomer to the Appalachian foothills, Michalek, 38, does not haul sacks of grain or sugar to a creek, hunch down in mud to stoke wood, or cast a wary eye about for federal tax agents. Instead, the Northern entrepreneur with gelled hair, crisp blue jeans and polished Dr.

ACROSS L.A., that jejune institution known as bottle service has taken on a life of its own. Not just the big-club "cologne head" custom it once was, lately it's infiltrated trendy restaurants and intimate bars. And at Hollywood clubs, the practice is even more entrenched, more elaborate and ever more costly. It's long been the case in the hottest clubs that in order to reserve a table you had to order a bottle of liquor for an exorbitant price -- $200 to $500 or even more.

A fruity cocktail may count as health food, U.S. and Thai researchers said Thursday. Adding ethanol -- the type of alcohol found in rum, vodka, tequila and other spirits -- boosted the antioxidant nutrients in strawberries and blackberries, the researchers found. Any colored fruit might be made even more healthful with the addition of a splash of alcohol, they reported in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. Dr.

A television commercial featuring golfer John Daly singing in a honky-tonk bar amid reveling beer drinkers and later shown grabbing a beer from a friend while driving a golf cart has been rejected by CBS. "It did not meet the standards of the CBS network," spokeswoman LeslieAnn Wade said Tuesday. "Any implied or direct reference to excessive consumption of alcohol would not meet network guidelines."

Attorneys general in California and 26 other states urged Anheuser-Busch Cos. to issue warnings about mixing alcohol with caffeinated energy drinks, such as its new Spykes flavored malt beverage drink. In a letter to the company Thursday, state officials accused the beer company of marketing Spykes and other products to underage drinkers and failing to deter minors from using them.

RUM allegedly cured the king of Spain's deadly flu. A concoction of aromatic bitters kept Simon Bolivar's South American troops healthy, and daily doses of brandy are credited with helping several Catholic popes live long, healthy lives. Of course, all this was a long, long time ago, when liqueurs, aperitifs and other alcoholic beverages weren't found behind the bar as often as they were by the sickbed.

HONEY from Yucatan bee fields. Coffee so concentrated it's like chocolate stirred with molasses. Damiana, an herb with a heady, aroma evoking mint, musk and Juicy Fruit gum. The earthy bite of agave familiar to tequila lovers. These are a few of the flavors you find in Mexican liqueurs. Quick, name a Mexican liqueur. If the only one that comes to mind is Kahlua, you're not alone.