Anyone who has walked along the Hollywood Walk of Fame lately knows that certain stars have definitely seen better days. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce has taken a new approach to raising funds to restore the Walk. They have created the Friends of the Walk of Fame initiative to restore the Walk of Fame before its 50th anniversary in two years and they've hooked their first big sponsor, Absolut Vodka.

Sponsors won't get an official star but according to the press release "sizable donations from corporate supporters will be acknowledged with a Friend of the Walk of Fame honorary star" which is described as a "new terrazzo piece that will be placed in the sidewalk, on private property, adjacent to the Walk of Fame." The Chamber presented Absolut with the first honorary star which will be located near the entrance to the Kodak Theatre, part of Hollywood & Highland Center on Hollywood Boulevard.

Certainly corporate sponsors are a familiar sight on baseball fields and other public landmarks but the LA Times reports that the news of Absolut's pseudo star isn't sitting well with everyone. Some see it as an affront to the tradition of honoring Los Angeles luminaries with their own piece of sidewalk space.

Absolut is also launching a new flavor, Absolut LA, a mix of "blueberry, acai berry, acerola cherry, and fruity notes of pomegranate" which will be available this month.

The poolside Skybar at the luxe Shore Club in Miami Beach (above) has revamped their chic cocktail menu in time for the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week swimwear shows (check out a sizzling slideshow of bathing beauties here). The indoor/outdoor oasis, which is comprised of four different settings - the Redroom, Redroom Garden, Sandbar, and the Rumbar, which has 75 different varieties of rum - is intertwined with lush gardens ad secret passageways. Check out the gallery for photos and recipes of the new libations, but you'll have to actually go there to get the special Skybar Bento Box prepared by the Shore Club's own branch of Nobu.

While vodka and sometimes gin happily make their home in the freezer during the summer months you wouldn't generally find a bottle of whisky in there. Famous Grouse seeks to change that with the first Scotch whisky created to be served chilled straight from the freezer. The Snow Grouse brand will be sold exclusively to international travel retailers for the first six months and distributed through Maxxium Global Travel Retail. It is matured in oak casks before being gently chill filtered. It's described as having a light vanilla taste and a "sweet, gloopy mouth-feel."

The Snow Grouse has a recommended duty free retail price of €19.99.

As their ads show, Shelter Point Distillery in Vancouver Island, British Columbia believes there is a little Scotch in all of us. They want to put a little whiskey in the hands of Canadians through their planned $2-million single malt whiskey distillery in Comox. The Vancouver Sun reports that ground has been broken on the project. The distillery will include an 8,000-square-foot building and distilling equipment will come direct from Scotland. Barley for the distillery will be planted next spring.

While customers will have to wait a decade or so for the whiskey to age, the distillery plans to offers some fruit and cream liqueurs in the meantime. Customers can also opt to buy a cask which will cost around $5,000. A bottle will likely cost about $100.

With the economy in its current state of disrepair, you'd think the premium liquor sector would be getting a little worried wondering whether people will continue to shell out for the good stuff. No doubt it's a big topic of discussion at Tales of the Cocktail, the big industry fest currently taking place in New Orleans. We asked one attendee, Rob Bryans of top-shelf 10 Cane Rum, for his thoughts on the subject. Premium liquor remains a "must-have" for consumers, he insists, despite the added strain on purchasing power.

Bryans, the brand's VP, says that 10 Cane for one insulated itself from market forces to some extent by striving for an excellence that consumers would consider indispensable. The "luxury rum" is made from the first pressing of virgin Trinidadian sugar cane in place of the molasses, a sugar byproduct, used by most others, and the process is overseen by Jean Pinneau, the Master Distiller of Hennessy in France. "Every step of the production process is painstakingly geared towards quality," Bryans tells Luxist. "This is an artisanal approach to rum making."

Instead of worrying about the economy 10 Cane is focusing on new ways of marketing its brand, such as the deluxe Mojito Kit they've come out with for summer, featuring a mixer from our personal favorite, Stirrings. Sounds like good business practice to us; there's nothing like a great drink for a temporary respite from economic pressures.

Passionate about culinary-style cocktails and organic, eco-conscious spirits, Square One has created a fresh, new vodka to tempt your palate. The Cucumber Vodka perfectly pairs with tonic and a slice of cuke, on the rocks, or perhaps with a splash of vermouth for a spa-like martini. In the heat of the summer I imagine this would have quite the cooling effect. Deliciously aromatic and delicate, Square One's Cucumber Vodka may be the spirit just for summer.

[via Epicurious]

The second "Pinot Lovers' Cruise" is scheduled for May 31 - June 12, 2009, and combines the wines of August West with Freeman Vineyard & Winery. The 12-day trip on Oceania Cruises' Insignia makes stops in 12 cities, starting in Rome and ending in Istanbul. Oceania only carries 650 passengers and is known for its relaxed, no-tie policy, and gourmet cuisine, overseen by Executive Chef Jacques Pepin. The cruise includes a private winemakers' dinner, wine tastings and discussions, tours of top Italian wine-estates and plenty of Pinot parties.

Freeman has been named as one of the Magnificent 30 "Hottest Pinots" by the Wine Spectator, while the San Francisco Chronicle recognized August West as one of its top 10 wineries of 2005. Both wineries have received multiple 90+ scores from Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast and the Connoisseurs' Guide to California Wine.

Cruise prices range from $3,649 - $7,049 per person double, including free airfare from 20 major U.S. airports. Book by September 1 and receive prepaid gratuities, worth up to $300 per cabin.

Siembra Azul, the small-batch, boutique tequila brand, is unveiling its highly anticipated aged Anejo.

This first batch of Siembra's Anejo has been aged for 18 months in barrels of virgin "medium toast" American white oak to give it richness and character.

Each subsequent bottling will vary in its maturing period depending on weather conditions impacting the quality of the year's agave crop.

Siembra Azul literally means "Blue Harvest." The super-premium spirit is double-distilled.

The company, which also makes a crisp, young Blanco and an elegant, gently aged Reposado all in similarly-designed modern bottles, grows its 100% blue agave during the winter months in the town of Arandas, in the Highlands of Jalisco, Mexico.

See the gallery for more.

Delamain Le Voyage Cognac, the latest addition to the Delamain portfolio, recently picked up a new honor, being awarded "Best of the Best" 2008 Spirit by Anthony Dias Blue for Robb Report. Le Voyage is a blend of Grande Champagne cognacs from the Delamain cellars. It has aromas leather, tobacco, coffee and spice with the rich tastes of the grapes from the hillsides of the Grande Champagne region, aged for many years in the Delamain cellars. The cognac is housed in a Baccarat crystal decanter inside a dovetail leather traveling box. Le Voyage sells for $7,000.

Bruichladdich, the brawny Islay single malt that won top honors on Men.Style.com's Scotch hotlist for its classic 15 Year, is coming out with a new Multi-Vintage Trilogy showcasing the whisky's full range of flavors.

The three new bottlings - Rocks, Waves and Peat - range from light to heavy smokiness and feature aggressively modern packaging that's a real departure from the vintage feel of the distillery's signature labels.

Rocks takes its name from the Rhinns of Islay, the "oldest rocks in the whisky world" through which the water used in Bruichladdich is filtered, while Waves reflects the Atlantic ocean buffeting the Hebridean isle and Peat is, well, pretty self-explanatory.

Rocks is available now and the others will be by the end of summer. See the gallery for more.

More and more spirits also doing charitable work. England's Whitley Neill Gin has created "The Whitley Neill Top of the Tree Challenge" cocktail competition to raise money for UK-based charity, Tree Aid, which supports African communities. UK bartenders will be creating cocktails involving the gin and at least one other ingredient which has derived from a tree. The cocktails will be available until August 1 and the bars will donate money from each cocktail sold to the Whitley Neill Planting Project in Africa.

Whitley Neill Gin already donates five per cent of the proceeds of each bottle sold to Tree Aid. Tree Aid focuses on the poorest sub-Sahel villages where 90 per cent of the population depends on trees including the Baobab, which is a signature botanical in Whitley Neill. The gin was launched in 2005 and is produced in small batches in an antique copper pot still and contains two African botanicals, baobab fruit and Cape gooseberries. It sells for around $30.

Summertime in the sweltering South calls for that thirst relieving concoction known as sweet tea. Now a South Carolina distiller has created a liquored-up version. Firefly Sweet Tea vodka is an infusion of American Tea and Firefly Vodka which is a muscadine grape vodka. The new flavor is a huge hit in Charleston where local bartenders are creating new tasty drinks for summer sippers. The vodka is sold in South Carolina, Colorado, Nevada, New York currently and will soon be making its way to other states but it's perhaps best experienced in states where sweet tea is already a beloved drink.

[via Charleston City Paper]

In our Classicist column about Veuve Clicquot's collaboration with Riva Yachts the other day we fell to musing about Dolce Vita style on the Riviera. Of course, nothing exemplifies seaside sprezzatura quite like Campari, the classic Italian aperitif. The bold red spirit with the sexy ads starring Salma Hayek (above) has been around since 1860, but that doesn't mean they've run out of things to do with it. Campari and soda is the classic combo - and one of our seasonal staples - but the company has come up with several spiffy new cocktails for summer. See the gallery for recipes, including a couple that can be made in large quantities for parties.

Earlier in the season we wrote about Stirrings, the Massachusetts-based company dedicated to improving America's drinking habits through all-natural cocktail ingredients. Now Stirrings is about to introduce a thirst-quenching new mixer for summer.

Their Simple Lemonade cocktail mix is inspired by the taste of classic farm stand lemonade, made with real lemon juice and an additional blend of acai and white cranberry juices.

The simplest way to jazz it up is by adding vodka, but it can also be combined with their other mixers such as Pomegranate, Blueberry and Cosmopolitan to create more complicated concoctions. See the gallery and visit www.stirrings.com for more.

The new Diamond Standard vodka takes a concept I first saw with Diva vodka, a step further, using just diamonds rather than all precious stones to filter their vodka. Their process uses over 600 cut diamonds of up to one carat in size. The grain used is from Poland. The bottle is produced by Saver Glass and is made of perfume bottle grade glass with a 25mm Swarovski Xillion Chaton crystal as its centerpiece embedded within its neckline. The vodka is now being test marketed and sold in Massachusetts with plans to expand into New York and New Jersey and has a retail price of $100.