Lifestyle Tip:

Festive Lemon Drinks

This holiday season, you can add health to your fun without sacrificing taste. Lemons add the perfect tang to the festivities. You can learn how to make these delicious drinks by selecting the links below.

Mixologistes From Around The Globe Link With Limoneira

From Hong Kong to Peru and Atlanta, there's a lot of great talent in the bartending world and Limoneira is linking up with the great folks below. These folks are the tops in their industry!

Hong Kong native Antonio Lai has traveled the globe to work as a bartender, cadging knowledge and techniques along the way before returning home as the inspiration and co-owner of Quinary and Origin, two cocktail lounges in the expensive and prestigious Mid-Levels residential area. Lai has worked in Beijing, Singapore, Malaysia, Italy, Germany, London and Paris.

At Quinary, the focus is in classic cocktails balanced with some interesting molecular concoctions. For example, the Earl Grey Caviar Martini, one of their most popular drinks, uses a gastronomy method with caviar and air. It has the smell and texture of the caviar, along with mouth-feel.

Lai's Origin cocktail lounge is a creative hybridization of "original" and "gin". Here the focus is on concoctions with distilled gin infused with great Asian influences such as shiso, lemongrass, cucumber coriander, grapefruit and more. Gin is a familiar concept around the world but is less well known in Hong Kong. Lai's empire also includes Angel's Share, a whiskey bar with over 80 offerings.

Arianne Fielder has been described as blonde, tattooed and smart-as-hell. She has a degree from Georgia Tech and years of developing playful takes on classic cocktails at popular Atlanta outposts Southern Art, Seven Lamps, and most recently, Article 14. She's considered one of the city's best and what began as a way to earn some extra cash in college led to a career she loves, and her Tech roots shine through in her clever use of tools like carbonated cocktail shakers and sous vide machines. Her penchant for bourbon and American whiskey makes her a natural fit for the "manly" brown elixirs all stocked up at Article 14. Fielder just won the Manhattan Experience bartender regional exhibition (she'll compete nationally in January).

Joe McPherson founded ZenKimchi in 2004, and it's now Korea's longest running food blog and has been featured inThe New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and CNN as well as a number of Korean publications such as The Chosun Weekly, SEOUL Magazine, JoongAng Daily, The Korea Herald and Newsweek Korea

Joe has also spoken at TEDx Seoul on Korean food globalization. His Company ZenKimchi International organizes food tours for tourists and corporations and acts as a media liaison for foreign and Korean media and local restaurants and producers. Joe is the co-founder of Seoul International Cocktail Expo and says that the most popular cocktail in Korea is the mojito because it requires fresh mint. Mint is generally not used in Korea, and the use of fresh ingredients in cocktails has gotten Koreans excited.

Located in Central Square between Cambridge's twin pillars of academe Harvard and MIT, Dylan Black's Green Street has long been a people's pleasure dome, serving its neighbors since the great depression (it's the home of Cambridge's oldest-standing liquor license). Dylan reinvented Green Street in 2006 with an eye for its history, but its award-winning (Best of Boston 2008) cocktail menu, better-than-serviceable wine list, raft of craft-brew, and revived kitchen have garnered enthusiastic notice beyond Cambridge. Dylan's family has been in the spirits world for generations. His father ran a bar outside Chicago. His mother's father owned and ran the Reisch Brewery in Springfield, Illinois, into the 1960s.

The Green Street staff takes primary flavors and concocts them in differing proportions and textures to make a wide range of drinks. They depend on accurate jigger measurements not just for economy but to achieve correct and consistent balance of elements and flavors. That assures that, on a given night, your drink will be the same, whether mixed by Dylan or any of Green Street's other talented bartenders.

Erin Hayes is one of several women shaking up the cocktail scene in Chicago. She's a mixology force to be reckoned with in the city of the big shoulders and her tweets (Erin Hayes @theminxologist) are an excellent source of delicious concoctions as well as providing a lot of great knowledge of Chicago's culinary world. Erin has a long and extensive background and is quick to credit others for her growth & success. Paul McGee from Three Dots & A Dash and Matty Eggleston from Nico Osteria have been mentors. Erin has a creative pallet and likes Limoneira lemons. She designs her luscious libations around unusual ingredients from around the world as well as utilizing delicious elements sourced locally.

Over the past 30 years, Hans Hilburg has been perfecting his craft through the development of hundreds of original and innovative cocktails. He has also been nurturing his passion for Peruvian Pisco and actively involving himself in its development, promotion and protection not only in Peru but throughout the world.

Hans is currently head of bars and creator of original cocktails for Grupo Acurio. In this capacity he is responsible for all the bars, in all five restaurant franchises, worldwide. He has created the cocktail repertoire for all Astrid y Gaston, La Mar, T'anta, Caf� de Museo and Panchita restaurants and before that also developed the cocktail menus for Bohemia restaurants and Club Nacional.

Hans has worked in the United States, Peru, Spain, Mexico, Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, Chile and the Caribbean. He has written for many publications and also recent completed a book with his original coffee cocktail recipes and is now in the process of developing a new book of Pisco cocktails.

"Espiritus del bar" or "Bar Spirits" his latest brain child is a portal for both professionals and aficionados alike. Here they can meet and exchange information about not only Pisco, but also the world of cocktails at large in Peru and abroad.

Tacy Stevens mixes it up at Galatoire's 33 bar & steak, part of iconic Galatoire's in the Vieux Carr� (old Square) founded in 1905 by Jean Galatoire, this infamous address distinguished itself on Bourbon St. from its humble beginning. From the small village of Pardies, France, Jean Galatoire brought recipes and traditions inspired by the familial dining style of his homeland to create the menu and ambiance of the internationally-renowned restaurant. In its fifth generation, it is the Galatoire family and descendants who have carried the tradition of New Orleans' fine dining restaurants and influenced its evolution. The restaurant's culinary customs and reservation statutes have been preserved with little change throughout the decades. One Friday, President Ronald Reagan placed a call to former U.S. Senator J. Bennett Johnston, who happened to be waiting in line for a table at Galatoire's. After the President's call ended, Senator Johnston graciously returned to his position in line.

Harold Edwards Featured In 805 Living's "Give Thanks, Give Back" Feature

November's issue of 805 Living focused on the tradition of giving back and highlighted their "20 Questions" feature on the Presidents and CEOs and their organizations that are constantly making a difference. Limoneira was honored by the inclusion of CEO, Harold Edwards. Regional luminaries that were spotlighted along with Harold included Janet Garufis, President and CEO of Montecito Bank and Trust, Jim McGee, CEO of the American Red Cross Central Coast Region and Suzanne Drace, President at Cancer Support Community Valley/Ventura/Santa Barbara.

Lynn Andujar, the editor in chief and publisher of the publication expressed her appreciation for "the hard work they do, day in and day out to make a difference in the lives of others. They are the kind of people who make me proud that this magazine represents a part of the country with such a long and rich history of philanthropy".

Limoneria, in turn, appreciates this finely crafted publication that spotlights one of the most beautiful regions of the United States.

Melissa Gurvis - On The Road - Message From Rome

Limoneira was lucky enough this past year to have the services of intern extraordinaire, Melissa Gurvis, a Cal Poly student. Melissa has been on the Colleges Study Abroad program and has spent the past 3 months honing her international skills. Melissa knows that Limoneira means place of the lemons in Portuguese and she was happy to send in a bit of lemon knowledge from Rome:

I have been studying abroad in Rome for the past 3 months, and it has been the most exciting and outrageous experience of my life! I have also traveled to some other beautiful places including Dublin, Amsterdam, Florence, and Croatia. Most importantly however, I have been fortunate enough to get to know the culture of Italians through their history, art, and most of course food! I have also found a new guilty pleasure. I have been indulging in the espresso, called caf�, and cappuccinos it is much richer and stronger than in the US. My main priority however, is to eat as much of the traditional food as I can before I leave-it is just too good to resist!

Coastal places such as Split, Croatia, has a menu full of seafood. All of these dishes include some kind of lemon sauce or lemon juice because it works well with the fish. Even the beautiful 5 towns of Cinque Terre along the coast of Italy serves many seafood dishes, hence lemons are commonly served with meals. However, I have found a dish in Rome that is guaranteed to make me happy, and lemon is an important part of it. The dish is Linguine with Clam Sauce and Lemon. This pasta dish is always on the menu, and is always supplied with a wedge of lemon to squirt on to enhance the flavor. It is important in Italian culture for foods to work well together and the lemon on this dish helps to compliment and bring out the flavors in the clam sauce. This is one of my favorite dishes, and I love comparing the dish when I get it at different restaurants. It will be safe to say that I will miss this when I return to the US.

Whether I was eating at an Italian restaurant or cooking in my own apartment in Rome, I always found a way to apply and incorporate the information I learned this summer. If you are a possible intern looking for a great experience, I would highly suggest contacting Limoneira.

Ciao for now,

Melissa Gurvis