With whiskey sales on the rise, more people are discovering there are plenty of ways to drink the distilled spirit than just straight on the rocks.

Drink mixologists enjoy finding more and more ways to complement the whiskey flavor with a plethora of other ingredients, whether its syrups, fruit juices, vermouth or even tea.

A growing willingness to experiment with whiskey and bourbon as the primary ingredient in a variety of cocktails is just one of several ways consumer habits have been changing, says Steven Earles, CEO of Portland-based Eastside Distilling (www.EastsideDistilling.com).

"People are drinking less wine and more whiskey, and women have become more inclined to give whiskey a try," says Earles, whose company already experiments with a variety of flavors in its drinks, such as Cherry Bomb Whiskey and Oregon Marionberry Whiskey.

The trend of finding more ways to include whiskey in cocktails also may be just one of several factors helping to add to the bump in whiskey sales. As of November 2014, Whiskey sales were near $4 billion, in contrast to $3.5 billion in 2013, according Nielsen research.

For distilleries, those numbers may mean a toast is in order. For consumers, that toast may involve a mix of flavors made just to their liking - but definitely is still on the rocks.

Recipes For Mixing It Up Yourself

Perhaps the classic whiskey cocktail is the Old-Fashioned, around since the late 19th Century. But for those looking to add even more variety to their whiskey and bourbon selections, Eastside Distilling offers these cocktail recipes:

• Earl's Demise
25 oz. Cherry Bomb Whiskey (one 750ML bottle)
12.5 oz. Burnside Bourbon
75 oz. Smith Teamaker Earl Grey Tea (chilled)
25 oz. Orange juice
25 oz. Simple syrup
12.5 oz. Sweet vermouth
5 tablespoons Peychaud's Bitters

Mix all the ingredients in a large punch bowl, then add ice or ice ring. Serve in small punch glasses. The mixture serves 10-12 people.

• The Sideburn
1 ½ oz. Burnside Whiskey
¾ oz. Aperol
½ oz. Solerno Blood Orange Liqueur
1 oz. Fresh lemon juice
½ oz. lavender simple syrup
13 oz. Old Fashioned glass over ice

Fill a 14 oz. rocks glass with ice, add all the other ingredients and stir.

• Eastside Civil War
1 ½ oz. Burnside Bourbon
½ oz. Cocchi Torino Sweet Vermouth
½ oz. Cynar
2 dashes Fee Brothers Old Fashion Bitters
Amarena cherry

Add all the ingredients, except the cherry, to a 16 oz. mixing glass (pint glass). Fill to within 1 inch of the top with ice. Stir until chilled and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with an Amarena cherry.

• Marionberry Beret
1.5 oz. Marionberry Whiskey
.5 oz. Dry Curacao
2 oz. Fresh Grapefruit juice
Served on the rocks

Fill glass with ice, add Burnside Bourbon and recipe ingredients.

About Steven Earles

Steven Earles is the CEO of Portland-based Eastside Distilling, (www.EastsideDistilling.com), a producer of handcrafted spirits created from local ingredients and focused in small batches to ensure unparalleled quality. He is responsible for Eastside's day-to-day operations as well as overseeing the company's brand development and financial strategy. Earles, who joined Eastside in 2009, has more than two decades of executive experience and orchestrated the development and building of one of the largest land-development companies in southern California.

When it comes to buying power, women are steadily overcoming men. Throughout the next decade, women will control two-thirds of consumer wealth in the United States and will be the beneficiaries of the largest transference of wealth in our country's history, according to Fleishman-Hillard Inc.

"The stats on a woman's earning and buying power are pretty extensive; females are doing better in school than men, we're earning more money than ever before and the business world has known about this trend for years," says Erica L. McCain, a veteran financial expert, LUTCF and founder of McCain & Associates, (www.mccainins.com).

"As women, we're inundated by advertisements. The first thing many of us do in the morning is check our e-mail and social media. Before a wake-up shower we may be hit with appeals from Macy's, Bath and Body Works, Groupon and assorted retailers to 'click for 50 percent off.' "

Of course, these aren't "deals" so much as advertising campaigns, she says. In fact, there are plenty of women who spend good money on things - whether on themselves or their children - that are relatively frivolous, "I know because I was one of them," says McCain, author of "Ladies With Loot."

"With more money comes the inclination to spend it but, to be sure, you'll need that resource for something more important down the road."

McCain shares the ways in which women can better help themselves, and their children, by better utilizing money.

•  "Retail therapy" doesn't work; think of money as a precious resource. Money can buy you happiness. We all know that feeling of wanting an item that will make you feel good for a few hours, but sooner rather than later, most of these retail goods quickly amount to stuff. Lasting happiness goes far beyond "retail therapy." Money facilitates happiness better by being an available resource for more important things, such as emergencies, tuition for children, peace of mind for retirement or a family vacation that everyone will remember.

•  You can't cash in your children's toys to pay for college. Buying nice and fun things for our kids is enjoyable; we can feel their joy and we like when they're happy. However, just like buying something that you enjoy - a new purse or shoes - that joy is fleeting, and in the long term, it's worth questioning the value of an item. The cost of a professional baseball bat exceeds $100, and for a professional glove you can pay up to $500, but these aren't the things that will make your child truly enjoy baseball. Imagine how that money will be needed to pay for textbooks in college!

•  Counting calories? - Try counting dollars. We know what it's like to want a tasty muffin for breakfast, but many of us refuse such treats with the realization of what it'll take to burn off the excess calories. We know that a moment of pleasure equals extra time on the treadmill. Apply that shrewd approach to money. How many hours do you work in order to pay for extravagant purchases, and could that money be better used elsewhere? Understanding the value of a dollar will help you live a more fulfilled life.

About Erica L. McCain, LUTCF

Erica L. McCain is a financial professional with a Life Underwriter Training Council Fellow (LUTCF) designation and more than 15 years of experience. She founded her own firm, McCain & Associates, (www.mccainins.com), in 2007, intent upon providing the detailed, personalized services retirees and pre-retirees need to pursue their retirement goals. She specializes in the financials for women in all stages of their lives and careers. McCain is a member of the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT), the premier association of financial professionals.

We've all lost our identity at least three times, with more than 930 million records breached, lost or stolen to hackers and cyber criminals, says consumer advocacy non-profit Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.

Why don't we do all we can to stay safer online?

According to StaySafeOnline.org, more than a quarter of Americans say they lack the information necessary.

So, here it is - everything you need to know to enjoy the shopping experience without losing your privacy and identity or putting your children's safety at risk:

•  Assume you've already been compromised. Whether it's your baby monitor, your SmartTV, the Webcam on your laptop or apps you installed on your smartphone or tablet, your antivirus is not enough protection. It's time to take those devices' and apps' privacy policies, and the permissions you grant them, much more seriously.

•  Change your passwords - all of them. Now. And do it as frequently as you can tolerate. Also, if you don't want to change it often, then use any unique characters you can think of, such as a dollar sign ($) or exclamation mark (!), or replace an "oh" with a "zero" (0). This goes a long way in preventing attacks against your password.

•  Turn off wireless and geolocation services. Protect your smartphones and tablets by turning off WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC and GPS, except when you need them. That way, if you are at a local coffee shop or in a shopping mall, no one can spy on you using nearby (proximity) hacking attacks and they can't track where you were and where you are going on your GPS.

•  Assume most of your apps are creepware. Do you really need them? Delete all of the apps you aren't using too often. Replace apps that ask for too many permissions and take advantage of too many of your privacy settings -- like GPS, phone and sms logs, personal identity information - with similar apps that don't.

•  Opt out of sharing your information. Opt out of every advertising network that you can. Visit the National Do Not Call Registry and register your smartphone and home phone numbers at www.donotcall.gov. If you use a Google email account and have an Android phone, even with your GPS off, it's tracking your every move. (Log in to maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0 and see for yourself.) Go into your smartphone or tablet settings and turn this feature off. In your Android phone, go to Settings, then Location, select Google Location Reporting and set Location History to off. The same holds true for the Apple iPhone, iPad and iTunes. You need to find the location and privacy settings and turn off access under Settings, then Privacy then Location.

•  Your browser is a double agent - keep it clean. It is spying on you for advertisers unless you block and remove cookies and delete the cache frequently. In your web browser settings, delete your history, all cookies and passwords and the cache. You should do this frequently so you don't leave personal information sitting around on your computer, smartphone or tablet.

•  Remove third-party Facebook plugins. Third-party plugins are mini applications designed to eavesdrop on your behavior in Facebook and possibly grab information about your habits within that social network. Some websites you visit will require you to log in using Facebook, and then you have to trust them to connect to your Facebook account. This is very risky. Read their privacy policy and make sure they are a legitimate business before you risk doing this.

•  Only shop on the websites of companies you already trust. If you don't know where the merchant is located, don't shop online there. If they don't have a corporate address or are located in another country, it is risky for you and you may never see the goods you think you purchased. Also, if their shopping cart experience is not an HTTPS browser session, then everything you type in, your name, address and credit card information, is going over the internet unencrypted -- in plain view.

•  Turn off geotagging - your photos are full of information. Twitter and Instagram as well as your iPhone will give away your location. Most people don't realize Twitter and Instagram both use geotagging for everything you send out. Geotagging stores the latitude and longitude of your tweet or image. Pictures you take on an iPhone usually store geotagging information, as well. The less information you give out about where you are located, the safer you are.

•  Don't use cash or debit cards - use credit cards, wisely. Credit cards allow you to travel with less cash, and if you're purchasing online, it's safer to give your credit card than your debit card information. The same holds true when you visit your local retail outlet. The reason? If you experience identity theft, credit card laws allow you to keep all of your credit,  with no responsibility during an investigation. With a debit card, your bank can tie up your money in the amount equivalent to the fraudulent transactions for up to 30 days.

About Gary S. Miliefsky

Gary S. Miliefsky is CEO of SnoopWall (www.snoopwall.com) and the inventor of SnoopWall spyware-blocking technology. He is a founding member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and serves on the advisory board of MITRE on the CVE Program, and is a founding board member of the National Information Security Group. He's also the founder of NetClarity, Inc., an internal intrusion defense company, based on a patented technology he invented.

(Fast-track to Your Retirement)
Math-Minded Financial Advisor Lays Blueprint for Rethinking Your Earning & Distribution Years

What does it take to be comfortable during retirement? Conventional wisdom calls it the 4 percent rule - withdrawing about that amount from your nest egg each year to live comfortably. And, for that, millions of Americans believe they need to stick to a job they don't like during their earning years.

"Unfortunately, the kind of money retirees want to spend each year for a comfortable lifestyle tends to be about $60,000, which means someone's nest egg would have to be $1.5 million for that rate of withdrawal to sustain for 25 years," says financial advisor Dave Lopez, a mathematics and computer science major who applies his analytical mind to solving retirement challenges.

"Of course, there are additional sources of income during retirement, such as social security, but the program may not survive the coming decades. And, there are additional costs of retirement, including legacy interests and the likelihood of needing long-term medical care."

The fact is that millions of retirees simply do not have or will not have the kind of income they'd like to have during retirement. Lopez, founder of ILG Financial, LLC (www.theilg.com), discusses an alternative approach to the golden, or distribution years.

•  Remember, Social Security is a welfare program. Before President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act in 1935, seniors worked. America was an agrarian culture, and many who were in their 60s and 70s usually continued duties on the family farm, albeit handling lighter tasks. Social Security is essentially a Socialist idea. A response to the Great Depression, its purpose was to move out older workers in favor of employing younger Americans, but times have changed.

•  You don't have to remain stuck in your "earning" job. "The U.S. government is the biggest employer in the world, and I work with many of its employees," he says. "They usually have high-stress jobs and usually want to retire as early as possible and, while leaning on their pension, start working on their own terms as government contractors."

•  Consider retiring early and working the job you've always wanted. The model frequently followed by retired government workers can be replicated by millions of other retirees. You don't need a $1.5 million nest egg when you combine Social Security with a smaller withdrawal amount and a fun job earning $20,000 a year. Retirees can be creative in how they earn this "fun money."

"Let's say your passion is water skiing - why not parlay this hobby into a career?" Lopez says. "You'll likely have decades of experience and plenty of contacts. You might work for a ski shop or create a small business giving lessons. Doing something you love is a great way to stay active as an older person."

•  No pension? - Create your own. The days of working 30 years for a single company and collecting a sizeable pension are mostly over. This means retirees need to get creative and rely on other sources of income, including IRAs and strategies for annuities - effectively creating their own "pension." Annuities are contracts with insurance companies. The contracts, which can be funded with either a lump sum or through regular payments, are designed as financial vehicles for retirement purposes. The money used to fund the contract grows tax-deferred. Unlike other tax advantaged retirement programs, there are no contribution limits on annuities.

"Annuities provide plenty of opportunity," he says. "Of course, creative options also yield the risk of complexity. You'll want to be sure to know what you're doing, or at least consult with an accredited professional."

•  Consider lifestyle changes. Through the distribution years, you should consider moving to a place where the cost of living is cheaper than major metropolitan areas. Simply put, you'll want your money to go further. Take a play from younger folks who are cutting their cable in favor of only Wi-Fi access. Learn how to cook delicious meals on a budget. For many, learning how to make one's money work better for them, rather than working for their money, is a preferable lifestyle.

About Dave Lopez