Vermouth is an aromatized fortified wine, flavoured with various botanicals and sometimes colored. The modern versions of the beverage were first produced in the mid to late 18th century in Turin, Italy. While vermouth was traditionally used for medicinal purposes, it was later served as an apéritif, with fashionable cafés in Turin serving it to guests around the clock. In the late 19th century, it became popular with bartenders as a key ingredient for cocktails, such as the martini, the Manhattan, the Rob Roy, and the Negroni. In addition to being consumed as an aperitif or cocktail ingredient, vermouth is sometimes used as an alternative to white wine in cooking.
Brandy is a liquor produced by distilling wine. Brandy generally contains 35–60% alcohol by volume and is typically consumed as an after-dinner digestif. Some brandies are aged in wooden casks. Others are coloured with caramel colouring to imitate the effect of aging, and some are produced using a combination of aging and colouring. Varieties of wine brandy can be found across the winemaking world. Among the most renowned are Cognac and Armagnac from south-western France.
Ismail Kadare is an Albanian novelist, poet, essayist, screenwriter, and playwright. He is a leading international literary figure and intellectual. He focused on poetry until the publication of his first novel, The General of the Dead Army, which made him famous internationally.
A bitters is traditionally an alcoholic preparation flavored with botanical matter for a bitter or bittersweet flavor. Originally, numerous longstanding brands of bitters were developed as patent medicines, but now are sold as digestifs, sometimes with herbal properties, and as cocktail flavorings.
Caffè corretto is an Italian caffeinated alcoholic drink, consisting of a shot of espresso with a small amount of liquor, usually grappa, and sometimes sambuca or brandy. It is also known as an espresso corretto. It is ordered as un caffè corretto alla grappa, ... alla sambuca, ... al cognac, or corretto di Spadino, depending on the desired liquor.
Apéritifs and digestifs are drinks, typically alcoholic, that are normally served before (apéritif) or after (digestif) a meal respectively.
Grappa is an alcoholic beverage: a fragrant, grape-based pomace brandy of Italian origin that contains 35 to 60 percent alcohol by volume. Grappa is a protected name in the European Union.
Cîroc is a brand of alcoholic beverages produced in France since 2003 and owned by the British-based multinational alcoholic beverage maker Diageo. The brand family includes vodka, flavored products containing vodka, and brandy. From 2007 the marketing and promotion for Cîroc in the United States was in conjunction with rapper Sean Combs in an "equal-share venture" with profits from the brand being split between Combs and Diageo, but this was terminated in 2024 after a legal dispute, leaving Diageo the sole owner.
David Bellos is a British academic, translator and biographer. He is the Meredith Howland Pyne professor of French and comparative literature at Princeton University in the United States, and was director of its translation and intercultural communication programme from 2007 to 2019.
A liqueur coffee is a caffeinated alcoholic drink that consists of a shot of liqueur, mixed with coffee. It is typically served in a liqueur glass, often accompanied with cream and sugar. Coffee liqueur beverages are served in different fashions and can be found throughout many countries. One of the most popular liqueur coffee beverage is commonly known as Irish coffee. Liqueur coffee beverages are largely classified as cocktails as well as digestifs which are aimed at aiding the digestive process typically after a meal.
Orujo is a pomace brandy from northern Spain. It is a transparent spirit with an alcohol content over 50%. Its name comes from the expression "aguardiente de orujo".
The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (1990–2015) was a British literary award. It was inaugurated by British newspaper The Independent to honour contemporary fiction in translation in the United Kingdom. The award was first launched in 1990 and ran for five years before falling into abeyance. It was revived in 2001 with the financial support of Arts Council England. Beginning in 2011 the administration of the prize was taken over by BookTrust, but retaining the "Independent" in the name. In 2015, the award was disbanded in a "reconfiguration" in which it was merged with the Man Booker International Prize.
Amaro is an Italian herbal liqueur that is commonly consumed as an after-dinner digestif. It usually has a bitter-sweet flavour, sometimes syrupy, and has an alcohol content between 16% and 40%.
Poli Distillerie is an artisan Grappa distillery solely owned by the Poli family, founded in 1898 in Schiavon, near Bassano del Grappa, in the heart of Veneto, Italy. The distillery is currently run by Jacopo Poli together with his siblings Giampaolo, Barbara and Andrea.
Bortolo Nardini is an Italian family-owned producer of alcoholic drinks, notably grappa. Founded in 1779 and based in Bassano del Grappa, the company produces four million bottles of grappa per year - over a quarter of the world market - making it the brand leader in this area.
Rakı or raki is an alcoholic beverage made of twice-distilled grape pomace and flavored with aniseed. It is the national drink of Turkey. It is popular in many Mediterranean countries and is often served as an apéritif or with seafood or meze. It is comparable to several other anise-flavored liqueurs such as pastis, ouzo, sambuca, arak and aguardiente. The alcoholic content of raki must be at least 40%. The largest producer of raki is Diageo; Yeni Rakı is the largest brand.
The 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the French author Annie Ernaux "for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory". It was announced by the Swedish Academy on 6 October 2022. Ernaux was the 16th French writer – the first Frenchwoman – and the 17th female author, to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.
