Month: December 2007

By me, in today’s SF Chronicle: Daytime Cocktails for New Years Brunch Camper English, Special to the Chronicle New Year’s Day often arrives with one pondering the previous night’s indulgences and the resulting aftereffects. On the upside, this can also be done with a cocktail in hand. Whether consuming them to nurse the previous night’s…

By me, in today’s SF Chromicle: Splurge on a $12,000 bottle of scotch Though the product isn’t available until January, the whiskey lover in your life probably won’t mind the IOU for this $12,000 Macallan 55-year-old single-malt Scotch packaged in a custom Lalique crystal bottle. The spirit inside is unusual for Macallan as it has…

By me, in today’s SF Chronicle: Drink Menus Explore Virgin Territory with Alcohol-Free Cocktails Camper English, Special to the Chronicle Bay Area restaurants and bars are increasingly devoting space on their menus to alcohol-free drinks. These concoctions are more complicated than simple sodas and juices, involving the same glassware, seasonal ingredients and fresh garnishes as…

I contributed this round-up of new drinking venues to the San Francisco Bay Guardian. As I was taking notes on the venues that opened in the past year, I realized that there are way to many of them to list. The final article has 32 new venues listed, and it doesn’t include a third of…

By me, in today’s SF Chronicle: Raise a Glass to Yoga Class A sense of relaxation, the loss of calories and increased flexibility are some of the benefits that come with yoga practice, but the just-opened Cocoon Urban Day Spa and Local Kitchen and Wine Merchant have teamed up with some rewards that are a…

By me, in today’s SF Chronicle: Fritz Maytag and the team at Anchor Distilling are so far ahead of the curve they must get bored waiting for us to catch up. They’ve just released Genevieve, a genever-style gin they began developing in 1996, which has been sitting in a tank ever since. Genever is an…

So Lance Winters of St. George Spirits let the cat out of the bag that his absinthe was approved at the end of last week. Well, local booze news doesn’t get any bigger than that so I told my editors at the Chronicle it shouldn’t wait until Friday’s Wine Section and they agreed. Stacy Finz…