Despite its name, Chili Verde, 2311 Federal Blvd., is different from the many taquerias dishing street tacos along Denver’s major boulevards, and the Caldo Tlalpeño served at the North Denver eatery and bar is not just another bowl of chicken vegetable soup. Chili Verde is a comfortable, spacious, cloth napkin kind of place specializing in cuisine from Puebla.
Featuring a long-simmered chipotle red broth, Caldo Tlalpeño offers steam and spice that stays with you. Al dente potatoes, carrots, and onions plus big pieces of pulled chicken breast fill a bowl topped with avocado slices and a lime squeeze. The rest of the menu including the tacos are equally appealing.
A hard seltzer worth sipping
Here’s the hard seltzer truth: Most of the popular hard seltzers on the market are just flavored, diluted malt liquor. For many of us it brings back bad memories of Coors’ ill-fated Zima experiment. You need to add sweeteners and flavorings to hide the flavor of malt liquor.
That’s why the new hard seltzers and canned cocktails from Denver’s Lifted Libations are such a nice change of pace. As a fan of the classic Arnold Palmer, the company’s Tee Time tastes just right. It’s a clean combination of organic vodka, brewed organic black tea from Denver’s Teatulia, and organic lemonade made with a minimal amount of vegan sugar, i.e., not bleached using charred animal bones. As Arnie preferred it, Tee Time is 70/30 tea to lemonade.
Other Lifted Libations flavors include Swing Juice, Lifted Lemonade, and an excellent Mile Hi Mule. These beverages are 150 calories a can with five percent alcohol by volume.
Holiday hack: Popping a champagne cork
To open a bottle of Champagne or sparkling wine safely (and without wasting half of it), follow these basic rules. Always makes sure the bottle is well chilled. Wipe off the bottle with a towel and hold it against yourself. Always point the bottle away from you and everyone else. After peeling the foil, take off the wire cage around the cork while keeping downward pressure. Hold the cork in one hand while twisting the bottom of the bottle until you hear “that” sound.
Buckel Family Wine
Instead of sipping bubbly shipped in from thousands of miles away, consider toasting with a sparkling wine produced in Colorado such as:
- Buckel Family Wine Sparkling Rosé
- Purgatory Cellars Indulgence Rose
- Colorado Cellars Trinity Champagne
- Sauvage Spectrum Sparklet Rose
- Kingman Wine Estates Red DemiSec Sparkling Wine
- Carboy Rose La La La Sparkling Rose Wine
- Red Fox Cellars Freestone Sparkling Peach
Culinary calendar
For an upcoming Boulder Weekly food feature, we are gathering information about food-related educational opportunities in 2022 in Boulder County and across the state. These include cooking schools, cooking/ language classes, immersive culinary learning experiences and apprenticeships, and internships that involve food, beverages, baking, dining, regenerative farming, and food insecurity.
Send information to [email protected].
