(Editors Note: The Fall/ Halloween Cocktail Recipes are back!)

We’re in that season, the time to make nice thick drinks to warm the body while we get used to the cool fall months. On the flip side, it’s the start of the best times of the year. Office parties, family parties and parties with friends rule the nights (and some days) throughout the Thanksgiving to New Years weeks and tend to leave us looking for the right cocktail to go with the turkey and dressing. Here’s some recipes for drinks with Pumpkin. It just seemed so right.

This list of bar etiquette was given to me by a fellow restaurant employee. Dave received it via email. It seems the guy who put this list together has spent more than his fair share on both sides of the bar. From all of the times I’ve heard my co-workers behind the bar over the last decade talk about writing a book or telling stories about crazy patrons, this is the best comprehensive list of things that should and shouldn’t be done in a bar that I've seen. Some of you will find it hilarious, all of the restaurant employees will know it’s brutally truthful and some of you will be realizing why it took 30 minutes to get that drink the other night. Bartenders and wait staff alike, please print this and leave it behind your bar as to end all further discrepancies in bar actions. If you have any other suggestions from the restaurant world, login and post those comments.

Hey Everyone .... Do you want to learn more about Pinot's? I hope so. :-)

I am hosting a tasting on August 22nd from 7:00 to 9:00pm at the Napa Cafe about all different types of Pinot's. We will taste and explore 6 different wines and discuss various regions, styles and flavor profiles you find in those 6 kinds of pinot. and they will be paired with heavy hors d'oeurves. $18 plus tax & tip. For reservations please call the Napa Cafe at 901-683-0441.

Summer is rolling through Malaysia… I mean Memphis… and the air is thick enough to swim through. In honor of this wonderful weather, we’ve come up with some cocktails that could help stem the tide of the heat. Or, at the very least, keep you drunk enough to forget the oppression of the Memphis summer.

Care for a glass of burnt wine? While it may not sound like something you would seek out, it could be just the ticket. When Dutch traders described the spirit they introduced to northern Europe after picking it up in southern France and Spain in the 16th Century, they said it was “burnt” (or boiled) in order to be distilled. From these Dutch traders, the name and spirit known as brandy was introduced to Europe and eventually the world.

Brandy’s broadest definition is a spirit made from fruit juice or fruit pulp and skin. Specifically, there are three basic categories: grape, pomace, and fruit brandy.

This time around, the recipes for four Martini’s, some of which can be made as a shot, and one after dinner drink to cleanse the summer palate. As many people will attest, Martini’s and their variations have become very popular to a large segment of the drinking population and while some know what they want and how to make it, most bar patrons wonder what it is that makes a Cosmo or a Wedding Cake. As in previous columns of this particular nature, the method and ingredients are included.

(Editor's Note: Justin Pitts, of Busters Liquors, is our new resident wine guy. In his first article, Justin delves into pairing wines with the Sunset Symphony and which wines go with which meats. Hope you enjoy and as always feel free to contact Justin with any questions.)

The Rites of Spring are here and for many of us that means drinking cheep beer at an ageless bar on Highland. Don’t get me wrong, I will always have a weakness for a cold Bud or two, or five; especially at my favorite watering hole where Too Tall Todd presides ringing his bell on my wallet’s behalf. But I’m not here to talk about frothy lager; I want to talk to you about vino! And just so you keep reading, I’ll keep it easy for all you oenophile “neophytes” and avoid sounding like that “over-the-top” geeky Miles character in the movie Sideways.

All of you out there now see why they pay me the big bucks. I write constantly. I produce articles at an alarming rate. I am amongst the people at all given moments, even seconds. Or, I almost get fired because my lack of any drive or direction causes me to become a derelict when turning in articles is concerned. Depending on which of those two versions you believe, you either know me very well or giving me the benefit of the doubt. In either instance, a serious thanks from me to you.

When I was contacted, via a fairly long and rather deliberate email I will add, by one of the cronies at this prestigious online magazine, it was not to find out if I’d fallen in a ditch. They didn’t seem particularly occupied with anything that had been going on in my life. No, they wanted copy. Let me rephrase that, actually. They wanted copy that I’d already been paid to write. So, really a nasty note was about the best I could have hoped for. And, in reality, nothing had really happened, I was just lazy- for about four months. We’ve all been through that. So, after learning of Hunter S Thompson’s death a fortnight ago, I decided to go on a minor bender. It would have classified as a major bender, but two of the ten days I didn’t drink at breakfast, so it didn’t qualify and even if it had, the Russian judge told me afterward that she would have only given me a 4.8, style points included.

Written by: Tiffany Werne
Buster’s Liquors & Wines
Special To DivingIn2Memphis.com

Dive right in to Memphis with some fine wines that are not only cool to the taste but have a cool package with a real cool price. As my first wine article for this innovative new website, I wanted to inform you about some of the latest quality wines under $10. These wines are embraceable upon sight as their flashy, catchy labels dare you to give them a try. Each month, I will strive to not only update you but also educate you and your palette about the new products available in Memphis and the Mid-South. I will also dive into the intricate details of the grapes and their regions as I shed light on exactly where they come from and what characteristics they possess.

Written By: Matt Duncan
Special to DivingIn2Memphis.com

"...the brown haired guy stated that he would give me $100 in United States currency to go out and get drunk every night Sunday through Thursday. I had to tip and I had to get drunk every night and I could not under any terms buy a single beer from my own money."

So I’m sitting at the bar, minding my own damn business when these two jackasses come storming in the joint like they're looking for more trouble than I’m willing to get into. They’re loud, actually make that obnoxiously loud and they apparently have been drinking for quite some time.