Author: Camper English
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All of the Olives’ Brine Time to Shine
My latest story for the San Francisco Chronicle is about all the ways bartenders are liquifying olives in their Martinis – in the vermouth, gin, vodka, brine, leaf tinctures, oil-washing everything, and even an “olive turducken.” Here’s a gift link so you can read it.
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Talking About Ice on the America’s Test Kitchen’s Proof Podcast
I did an interview with America’s Test Kitchen a long time ago, and it just went up. The first half of the episode is on the history of ice. I come in at around 27 minutes in. The episode is called Why Are Americans So Obsessed with Ice? Start your own ice obsession…
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How to Stretch a Lime – My Story in the SF Chronicle
I wrote about oleo citrate and super juice for the San Francisco Chronicle. These are techniques for increasing the yield from citrus fruits by eight times or so, using a touch of citric and malic acid powder in a specific way to bump up the flavor and texture of citrus to extend it over a…
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Don’t Drink and Send Telegrams – and Other Advice from 100 Years of Cocktail Etiquette Books
My first story for Food & Wine just went live. I took advice from 95 years of cocktail etiquette books, beginning in 1930 and ending with the publication of How to Be a Better Drinker last week [amazon] [bookshop]. I had fun going through my cocktail book collection to find other etiquette books, including The…
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Why Did The Lake Ice Industry End?
Another section cut from my Vinepair article on lake ice from Norway (yesterday I shared the section on different types of ice blocks) is this one below. In it I explain why lake ice went out of fashion. It wasn’t only that ice making machines got better…. Rise of the Machines In…
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Ice Blocks Are Made in Many Different Ways
In the story I wrote for Vinepair about harvesting lake ice in Norway, a couple sections got cut out. They weren’t essential to the story, but I liked them a lot! This first section is about ice blocks – I was researching the blocks people use at different ice hotels and ice carving…
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The Return of Ice from Lakes
I visited Norway late last year to see an “ice farm.” I wrote it up for Vinepair. The story I turned in was about twice as long (my bad) so I’ll also share some of the stuff that was cut out here over the next couple of days. For now, here is the story. Frosty,…
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The Only Good Alcohol is Made from Wine
I’ve read in other sources that when grain distillation became available in the 1400s and 1500s, it was viewed as a far less healthy alcohol than that distilled from grape wine. The sources I’m thinking of were from Germany, at a time when distilled spirits were still technically medicinal, even if people were dipping into…
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Esquire’s Best and Worst Cocktails of 1934
Esquire magazine printed an article with the Ten Best Cocktails of 1934 – the year after Prohibition was repealed. They included at the end a list of the Worst cocktails as well. Esquire’s link to the story is here, but it requires a subscription to view. DiffordsGuide has the list of best and…
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Heinold’s First and Last Chance Over the Years
I stumbled across this thread on Threads -it’s a history of the wonderful and historic the bar Heinold’s First and Last Chance Saloon in Oakland’s Jack London Square, as seen through pictures of its front. If you haven’t been, Heinold’s is a little shack built from the remains of a paddle steamer boat, which opened in…