Calicaro Wine

10/14/2026

Kirk Douglas was a ragman’s son who became a Hollywood legend, survived a devastating stroke, and kept going until the ripe old age of 103. He also knew how to spend a Sunday afternoon.

In Old Las Palmas, that meant tennis, gin rummy, cold vodka, and a gate that opened directly onto Dinah Shore’s property. Because apparently, in Palm Springs, even your doubles partner could be a celebrity.

Our latest Local Flavors story takes us inside the world of Kirk and Anne Douglas, where Donald Wexler designed the house, Hollywood royalty dropped by, and the desert provided a rather spectacular backdrop.

Come for the architecture. Stay for the gin rummy. And perhaps reconsider your Sunday plans.

Check it out on the ARtisan Food Tours website under Devour the Desert

10/14/2026

Kirk Douglas was a ragman’s son who became a Hollywood legend, survived a devastating stroke, and kept going until the ripe old age of 103. He also knew how to spend a Sunday afternoon.
In Old Las Palmas, that meant tennis, gin rummy, cold vodka, and a gate that opened directly onto Dinah Shore’s property. Because apparently, in Palm Springs, even your doubles partner could be a celebrity.
Our latest Local Celebs story takes us inside the world of Kirk and Anne Douglas, where Donald Wexler designed the house, Hollywood royalty dropped by, and the desert provided a rather spectacular backdrop.
Come for the architecture. Stay for the gin rummy. And perhaps reconsider your Sunday plans.
Look for Devour the Desert on the Artisan Food Tours website

10/08/2026

After a couple of days in Palm Springs, something strange happens.

You stop asking tourist questions.

You know where to find a good margarita. You’ve figured out the pool. You’ve accepted that the mountains are simultaneously right there and somehow miles away.

Then the little mysteries begin.

Why are you suddenly Redfinning houses over your morning latte?

Why are all the roofs so low?

Why does every third front door appear to have been painted by someone with a perfectly healthy disregard for beige?

And why is someone wearing a purple feather boa at brunch at 10 a.m.?

These are the questions that come after the margarita questions.

Our latest Local Questions explores some of Palm Springs’ more curious habits, architectural quirks, colorful doors, suspiciously pleasant airport, and the enduring Palm Springs tradition of making brunch considerably more interesting than it needs to be.

Because the longer you stay here, the more you notice.

And the more you notice, the more questions you have.

Read the latest from Devour the Desert at the artisanfoodtours.com website.

https://www.artisanfoodtours.com/blog/local-questions-vol-4-field-notes-from-palm-springs

After a couple of days in Palm Springs, you stop asking tourist questions. You already know where to find a good margarita. You've figured out the pool. You've accepted that the mountains somehow look both impossibly close and impossibly far away. Instead, your curiosity starts drifting toward

10/05/2026

Is there really a hot spring beneath downtown Palm Springs?

Can you see it?

Should you stay in Palm Springs—or escape Down Valley?

What happens when Midcentury Modern finally has its day of reckoning?

And, most importantly, are there bears?

These are the questions that keep a Palm Springs tour guide gainfully employed.

In Field Notes, Vol. 12, we go underground, uphill, Down Valley and occasionally into the weeds to find some answers.

There may be hot water.

There may be bears.

There will definitely be Midcentury Modern.

Come investigate with us.

Congratulations. You've been in Palm Springs long enough now to realize that the questions keep on coming. And, as we peel back the layers of the onion, maybe they also get more interesting.  And concerning… Welcome to Volume 12, our next edition of the Field Notes series. 

10/04/2026

Fun tour with Mike and Rhea today! Here's the charcuterie board. I just snapped it with my phone but I think it looks like a professional shot. The crew at On the Mark did an amazing job. We enjoyed it with a nice cold bottle of sparkling rose on a warm Palm Springs day. Join us on a food tour to taste your way through town. artisanfoodtours.com

10/01/2026

The man who helped give us The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Yogi Bear, Scooby-Doo and Tom and Jerry had a house in Old Las Palmas.

Which raises an obvious question:

Did Palm Springs influence Hanna-Barbera—or did Hanna-Barbera simply recognize that Palm Springs was already a cartoon?

The answer involves flying-saucer houses, Googie architecture, Bedrock, the San Jacintos, and a man who apparently looked at the desert and thought, Yes. This seems perfectly normal.

A new Devour the Desert article:

Joseph Barbera Came to Palm Springs. The Cartoons Came Along.

There are people who come to Palm Springs to escape their work. And then there was Joseph Barbera. Barbera was one-half of the team behind Hanna-Barbera, an animation studio whose work is embedded in American pop culture, whether or not we recognize the name. Tom and Jerry. Yogi Bear. Huck

09/28/2026

The desert is not impressed.

Not by your plans. Not by your expectations. And apparently not by the fact that you’re standing on a perfectly good sidewalk wondering why everything looks dead.

This week’s Field Notes From Palm Springs considers three unlikely desert survivors:

An ocotillo that looks dead until it rains.

A bighorn sheep that considers a vertical cliff a reasonable place to stand.

And Sammy Davis Jr., who lost an eye, faced racism, got knocked down repeatedly—and simply went back to work.

What do they have in common?

More than you might think.

The desert has its own rules about survival. And it is not particularly interested in your opinion.

Read “The Desert Is Not Impressed” in Devour the Desert.

Welcome to another edition of Field Notes From Palm Springs, brought to you by Artisan Food Tours. This is the place where we ask the weird, wacky and wonderful questions that come to mind once your eyes have glazed over from the sun, your water bottle has been empty for the last forty-five m

09/23/2026

Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt became Donn Beach. He told stories about wandering the South Seas, opened a bar in Hollywood, invented elaborate cocktails, surrounded himself with bamboo and mystery—and somehow turned the whole thing into a sixteen-location business.

He also had a garden hose on the roof that he used to make it “rain” on departing customers, presumably on the theory that if you could make someone believe it was raining, they might as well settle in and have another drink.

In other words, Donn Beach was doing immersive entertainment, invented personas and experiential dining long before anybody had come up with those names for them.

Palm Springs Tiki, Part Two: The Man Who Invented Donn Beach looks at the remarkable character behind the fantasy—and the woman who quietly turned his fantasy into a business.

And somewhere along the way, we get to Trader Vic, the Mai Tai, Walt Disney, a little rivalry, and the curious problem that eventually confronted every Tiki bar: what happens when everybody has one?

Donn Beach liked to tell a good story. This was fortunate, because he had a lot of them. One of his favorites concerned a choice his father supposedly offered him: money for college, or money to travel around the world. Donn chose the world, naturally, and embarked on what became an unusually l

09/20/2026

Everyone has an opinion about the best date shake in the Coachella Valley.

I decided to investigate.

This involved drinking date shakes, comparing dates, ice cream, gelato, espresso—and, briefly, kale.

Was there a methodology? Not exactly.

Was there a lot of field research? Absolutely.

Field Notes, Vol. 10: The Best Date Shake in the Coachella Valley. A completely unscientific investigation into one of the desert’s most important questions.

Read it here. And tell me: what’s your date shake?

Welcome to Field Notes. This is where we ask the questions, from the ridiculous to the sublime. Today's question is near and dear to the hearts of many Coachella Valley residents: Where can I get the best date shake? The question is easy. The answer is a little trickier.  Date shakes

09/13/2026

Who invented the date shake?

If you ask around Indio, you'll probably hear one name: Floyd Shields.

Except he didn't.

The real story involves a roadside stand, a man named Russ Nicoll, some dates and goat's milk, a little industrial ingenuity—and, eventually, a fifteen-minute movie about the s*x life of a date palm that has been playing since 1951.

Oh, and there is a milkshake involved.

I went down the rabbit hole to find out how the Coachella Valley turned one of the world's oldest cultivated fruits into one of its most iconic roadside treats.

The Date Shake: Theory and Practice — the latest from Devour the Desert.

There is a particular kind of American confidence required to look at the hottest, driest, least forgiving stretch of ground in California and think: palm trees. Not the palm trees that already grow wild in a handful of shaded canyons nearby, mind you, where springs seep up through granite and th