Wine, Water, Coffe, and so on: Drink, in short.

The holidays are rapidly approaching, and this means, in addition to deciding on menus, deciding on wines -- both to serve and to give to wine-loving friends.

Peschen: Everyone knows that peaches are one of the delights of summer, especially when sliced into a good glass of wine. But if you have access to a tree, you can also make a liqueur from the leaves.

Come spring, roses bloom. They're beautiful to look at, but one can also do more, capturing their essence to enjoy them later in the year. How? By making rosolio, the sweet liqueur enjoyed by the Ladies in the 1800s. And not only; Elisabetta's Uncle Renzo used to tell about loving the beignets filled with rosolio they sold at fairs when he was a boy (early 1900s); they were called mangia e be'i, eat n'drink, and half the fun was eating them without squirting the rosolio all over.

Limoncello Cream: This is a very nice variation on the standard Limoncello from Sorrento, which I enjoyed at a dinner in the hinterland of Verona.

Alex writes, "I am looking for a recipe for an Italian Liqueur that is made with grain alcohol, lemon, and milk.... A little old lady from Italy used to live in my neighborhood and made it." The combination might sound odd, but the liqueur is crystal clear -- the acidity of the lemon curdles the milk, and the curds stay behind when you filter it prior to bottling it.

Wine is of course the most classic Italian drink, but there's much more: refreshing ice water flavored with fruit syrup, cordials and liqueurs, amari, and so on.

When I began doing this site, it was dedicated to Italian wines, and here you'll find discussions of many of the major Italian appellations, which are known as Denominazioni.

All sorts of things from past issues of Cosa Bolle in Pentola, my newsletter.

Since I also write about wine, it follows that I visit wineries, and occasionally mention them here.

Just what it sounds like, notes from vertical (several vintages of the same wine) and horizontal (several wines of the same vintage) tastings, and more besides.