Organic wines continue to be a hot trend, so I was excited to try this new certified organic bubbly cuvée being launched by family-owned Champagne house Drappier that will arrive in the U.S. in May. It’s fresh, bright, chalky, and very, very dry, with an enticing golden color, scents of violets, and a creamy texture. Think of a superb white Burgundy with bubbles.

The blend of pinot noir, pinot meunier, chardonnay, and a bit of blanc vrai (pinot blanc) is the first fizz made by Drappier’s eighth generation—Charline, Hugo, and Antoine—all millennials.

Best New Spirit
2006 Jiu Hai Bu Gan Sadhana, about €83

The biggest surprise was the world debut of this—get ready for it—vintage single malt from Tibet. Made with local barley and yeast grown at an elevation of nearly 10,000 feet and aged for nine years in special porcelain amphora, it was finished for six years in used American Bourbon casks and French oak barrels from Sauternes and Layon in the Loire Valley. It’s not like any whiskey you’ve tried. Amber-colored, with delicate floral aromas, it tastes very dry, pure, and soft, almost velvety in character. The barley comes from a Tibetan monastery, and three women distill it.

Best New Cocktail Ingredient
Paragon Pepper Collection Cordials, €22 each

These exotic single botanical cordials from Nepal, Ethiopia, and Cameroon are based on different local peppers and reflect a current bartending obsession with unusual essences from remote places to liven up drinks.

My favorite was Timur Berry, which grows on small trees at elevations of 7,000 feet in Nepal. Fresh and citrusy, it smells and tastes of grapefruit. The powerful jasmine scents of Rue Berry, from Ethiopia, and the menthol-scented White Penja Pepper, from handpicked and fermented white peppers in Cameroon, wowed me, too.

Flavor syrup company Monin and award-winning London-based bartender Alex Kratena created them, using such new processes as “supercritical CO2 extraction,” which they claim reproduces a plant’s smell without altering it.

Best New Organic Wine
2017 Domaine Marcel Deiss Riquewihr, $40

Marcel Deiss, one of the top biodynamic domaines in Alsace, will launch this savory new white in the U.S. in the spring. The earthy, seductive blend of pinot gris and riesling is part of a series of new village wines with medieval manuscript-like labels designed to reflect the “emotion” of the wine inside. Alsace lacks the official category of village wines that Burgundy has, and the Deiss family is trying to create one to promote Alsace’s different terroirs.