In my continuing quest to think outside the spirit box, I have developed not only an appreciation for gin, but also one for rum. Well not just any rum, Jamaica's finest Appleton Estate rum. Earlier this week I was invited to an tasting at Spruce restaurant in San Francisco, and I got to sample the rich caramel-colored liquor neat in four different cocktails.

Appleton is Jamaica's oldest producer of rum and they've got rum-making down to a science. The sugar cane is environmentally estate grown and distilled and blended in small batches by Joy Spence, the industry's first female master rum blender. Spence describes Appleton as a "playful, but serious rum" that "should never see the inside of a blender." Instead we were instructed to "sip it up!" Spence, who was on hand at the tasting, guided us through the four steps to properly enjoy fine rum. To find out what they are, keep reading.

To many of this country's home cooks, Mexican food is a genre reserved for dining out and perhaps the occasional Americanized taco night. But one nutritionist, Lourdes Castro, wants to change that with her new book, Simply Mexican ($16.47). Castro, who is neither a trained chef nor Mexican herself, aims to teach readers how to enjoy the authentic flavors of Mexico using techniques such as roasting, grilling, and stewing. "Feel confident in knowing that these recipes have been developed with one eye on authenticity and the other on practicality," she writes. Find out if her statement proves to be true when you read more

This was one of those fridge-clean-out sandwiches that came together so brilliantly I wanted to make it again immediately. I started with some ingredients I needed to use up ASAP: precooked chicken patties from Trader Joe's, a bag of mixed Southern-style greens, and a yellow onion.

Then I thought, let's make things a little more interesting. Enter a jar of roasted piquillo peppers (regular red peppers will work just fine) and sliced white cheddar cheese. To balance out all that bite, I settled on cranberry-walnut bread from Acme, while sauteed onions also added sweetness. The resulting stack of reds and greens was delectably unfamiliar and comfortingly juicy. So make it yourself!

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• One lobsterman hopes to keep his business viable by selling direct to customers. — Boston Globe

The UK government, in an effort to reduce wasted food, is pressuring grocers to stop employing buy-one-get-one-free sales tactics. The nation's administration found that a third of all food in the UK is wasted, including roughly 5.1 million potatoes and 220,000 loaves of bread each year.

According to the Waste and Resource Action Program, or WRAP, the average Briton throws away more than his own weight — over $700 worth — in food annually. Eliminating the amount of food being tossed would decrease carbon emissions equivalent to removing a fifth of the country's cars on the road.WRAP suspects that since many of the buy-one-get-one-free promotions are applied to older items, consumers are tossing products that pass their "sell-by" dates, unaware that the commodities can still be consumed, as long as they haven't reached a different "use-by" date. As an alternative, supermarkets are being asked to offer half-price deals on perishable goods instead.

Since I've spent my whole life exposed to these deals, it never occurred to me that this sales pitch could be wasteful. But the policy, which appears to have plenty of market research behind it, makes sense. What do you think of the move? Should America consider doing the same as well?

Source: Flickr User Michael_Lehet