Last night I went to Absinthe for a dinner with Mike Miyamoto of Yamazaki Whisky. They brought along David Wondrich, whose new book I reviewed for the Chronicle (review coming out November 9th).

We tasted the 12 and 18 year whiskies, as well as a 25-year-old not available in the US. What’s unique about these whiskies is the Japanese oak used to age some of it (they use five types of barrels- three American oak new or used bourbon, one Spanish oak sherry casks, and one Japanese oak), which impart an incense-spice flavor to the whisky.

Until I could identify the flavor on its own, I thought of it as very fine ground green and red pepper confetti, whereas American oak is a more coarse confetti. This is how my tongue identifies oak until my brain catches up.

Somewhere during the dinner the conversation took a turn to Britney Spears ( I blame Wondrich), though it didn’t linger there too long after I started mocking them.

Miyamoto has worked on different production aspects of whisky in the US, Japan, and Scotland. The company has been making whisky in Japan since 1923, and studying it scientifically to try to achieve the best product. When he went to Scotland (after Suntory purchased a distillery there) to see what the Scots could teach them about making whisky, he says they were just coasting on their laurels and following tradition instead of studying and innovating.

Also unique about Yamazaki is that the product is changing. They are trying to make better product so they try to improve the equipment and processes rather than aim for consistency. They reduced the size of their stills to make a better whisky a couple of years ago, so we won’t see how that tastes for another ten years. Miyamoto said, “If there is something you don’t like about the whisky let us know and we’ll change it.”

They sure don’t talk like that in Scotland.

Labels: whisky

By me, in Friday’s SF Chronicle:

For the past few years, cocktail consultant Jacques Bezuidenhout has been sneaking maple syrup into the drinks he invents for the Starlight Room and special events, and perhaps it’s finally caught on, because now we see it on several menus about town.

At Bar Drake, downstairs from the Starlight Room, Bezuidenhout put maple syrup in the lobby bar’s signature cocktail: the Bar Drake Manhattan. It contains Woodford Reserve bourbon, Port, Angostura bitters and maple syrup. 450 Powell St. (at Sutter), San Francisco; (415) 392-7755, Ext. 226, bardrake.com.

Across town at the Presidio Social Club, you’ll find the breakfast ingredient in the Pays d’Auge Cocktail, along with Calvados and citrus. 563 Ruger St.(near the Presidio’s Lombard Gate), San Francisco; (415) 885-1888, presidiosocialclub.com.

Maple syrup is an unexpected ingredient in any drink, let alone drinks at a tiki bar, but Forbidden Island in Alameda has added it to the fall drink menu. The Dead Reckoning also pairs maple syrup with Port, along with 12-year-old Cockspur rum, Navan vanilla liqueur and fresh citrus. 1304 Lincoln Ave. (at Sherman), Alameda; (510) 749-0332, forbiddenislandalameda.com.

And at the new Bar Johnny in Russian Hill, they make no secret of the syrup in the Bourbon and Maple. It includes those two ingredients, along with the nutty liqueur Nocino Della Cristina and Angostura bitters. Does anyone else want pie? 2209 Polk St. (at Vallejo), San Francisco; (415) 268-0140.

Labels: bars, cocktails, SanFrancisco, trends

Okay, last post about WhiskyFest until I go there: Here is the mention of the event in Friday’s SF Chronicle:

Lessons in whisky

Malt Advocate magazine’s WhiskyFest, which has been running annually for years in New York and Chicago, makes its debut in San Francisco on Tuesday. It’s a one-stop whisk(e)y workshop, with lectures, tastings of more than 250 Scotch, Irish, Canadian, Japanese, and American whiskeys, and food to keep you from getting overwhelmed by it all. Some of the special guests and/or speakers this year are Jimmy Bedford, master distiller at Jack Daniel’s, Fred Noe, Jim Beam’s great grandson, and John Campbell, distillery manager at Laphroaig. New whiskeys available for tasting include Benromach Organic Scotch, additional Glenmorangie finishes, and the Buffalo Trace 2007 Antique Collection. The event runs from 6:30 to 10 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency, 5 Embarcadero Center, in San Francisco. Tickets cost $105; to register in advance and for information, call (800) 610-6258 or visit maltadvocate.com.

Labels: camper_clips, events, SanFrancisco, whisky

Here’s my big fat lost ingredients cover story in today’s SF Chronicle Wine Section.

Resurrecting spirits
Camper English, Special to The Chronicle
Friday, October 19, 2007

Last year, Erik Ellestad, a cocktail aficionado and systems administrator at UCSF, decided to drink his way through a classic recipe book.

Though he initially considered “The Old Waldorf Astoria Bar Book,” he found a cocktail every couple pages that required an obscure or unavailable ingredient, so he chose the easier-seeming “Savoy Cocktail Book” from 1930. On his path to making the book’s 750 drinks, he hit his first snag at the second recipe: The namesake spirit in the absinthe cocktail had been banned in the United States since 1912.

“I tried a couple of substitutes (including pastis) that were not very satisfying. Then I received a bonus from work … so I decided to order some absinthe from London.”

Ellestad has plenty of company: Historically accurate cocktails are a growing trend extending from the classic cocktail craze, with an emphasis on finding and tasting the first-known version of a drink. Such cocktails can be a challenge to re-create. Drink recipes from 100 or more years ago require some translation, as they were smaller in size, used measurements such as drachms and gills, and involved processes like clarifying loaf sugar syrup.

But, as Ellestad found, the bigger challenge is that many of the spirits and other ingredients called for in classic recipes are no longer imported, have changed flavor profiles radically, were outlawed or are simply no longer produced.

Hunting down obscure spirits involves time, travel, collaboration and sometimes, reinvention. Nevertheless, dedicated drink historians (and thirsty mixologists) are working together to bring many of these lost cocktail ingredients back onto the market.

(Go read the rest. There’s lots of it and I name-checked about half the booze nerds on the planet.)

Labels: absinthe, camper_clips, liqueurs, rum

I’m back from Poland and jet lagged as all get-out. I was there and in Paris on a press trip for Chopin vodka. While I’ll save many of the details for a later exposition on the trip and for stories I need to write, I’ll hit the highlights of the distillery tour.

We were there during the potato harvest, which happens just once each year. Unlike grain distilleries and other potato vodkas like Blue Ice from Idaho, Chopin distills all their potatoes into vodka (and other alcohol products) over a two-month period at harvest time, kicked off with a VIP party at the distillery. I’m not sure yet why they need to process everything all at once whereas other distilleries can spread this throughout the year (the pesticide-free potatoes spoil fast, they say, but do American potatoes last that much longer? Is it the type of potatoes or the pesticides?) (update: see answer in comments). They process 10 million pounds of potatoes during this period, running the distillery 24 hours a day.

It’s rare on visits like this to see actual product coming into the distillery, so I was thrilled to see the potatoes move from the yard, into the distillery, and down the wash chute into the boiler. We had little time to see everything, so I was running behind Tad Dorda, president of Chopin, asking three questions for every sentence he spit out. I am a drink nerd, after all.

The potatoes are a special variety unlike what we get at the grocery store, of high starch content that turns to liquid mush quickly. They’re then cooled and fermented for three days before hitting the still to turn them from potato beer into potato vodka. Of the four column still, the first one is made of copper and the other three of steel. As is usually the case, the first column separates out the solids, which are then sold as animal feed afterwards. (I think, but am not sure, that it’s unusual for them to be placed into the top of the column and making their way to the bottom of it, rather than bottom-up.)

They’re particularly proud of the first-distillation vodka produced, and we were supposed to do a taste test of others one-time distilled but didn’t have time. That was a bummer. They store some of this distillate for future scientific study at the nearby potato institute to see how the makeup of each year’s potato crops effects the outcome of the vodka.

Then it’s shipped to the bottling facility where it’s diluted with demineralized well water and we get to drink it. Na Zdrowie!

Labels: travel, vodka

By me, in today’s SF Chronicle:

Oct. 13 is the first Independent Spirits Fest, a big tasting event focused on small producers. Unlike most single-topic spirits bonanzas, this one has a bit of everything: cachaca, single-malt Scotch, liqueurs, flavored vodka, eau de vie, bourbon and more. Most of the Bay Area-based distillers (Charbay, Anchor, St. George, Osocalis) will present so you can support the home teams or try something from farther afield. Spirits are available for ordering on site, allowing you to get a jump on your holiday shopping. For added entertainment, “Cocktails on the Fly” Internet cocktail show host Alberta Straub will be conducting live interviews with distillers onstage while also mixing drinks with their products. Tasting, food and music are included for $75, or for $88 you can get in and start tasting an hour early.

The W Hotel San Francisco, 6:30-10 p.m. Oct. 13th. Tickets available at CelticMalts.com.

Labels: camper_clips, events, SanFrancisco

By me, in today’s SF Chronicle:

While most wineries sponsor genteel sports like croquet and polo, Roshambo stages a battle of fists. At high noon this Saturday, the fifth annual RockPaperScissors Championship gets under way. Competitors, who must register in advance ($20 at roshambowinery.com), come dressed for battle in opponent-concentration-breaking costumes like blue wigs and wrestling gear. The winner of the event takes home $2,500, which buys a lot of wine and better outfits in which to defend the title in 2008. Tickets for spectators (spectating costumes also encouraged) go for $10 in advance or $15 at the door.

Noon-6 p.m., Flamingo Hotel, 2777 Fourth St., Santa Rosa; (707) 431-2051

Labels: events, wine

Here’s today’s story in the SF Chronicle on the state of cachaca:

A wave of artisan cachaca hits local bars
Camper English, Special to The Chronicle
Friday, October 5, 2007

Nipping at the mojito’s heels, the caipirinha is poised to become the next Latin cocktail of the moment.

With just three ingredients – a muddled half of lime, sugar and cachaca (kah-SHAH-sah), a Brazilian spirit – a caipirinha is easy enough to make. If a bar or restaurant has a muddler, there is a fair chance the bartender can make a caipirinha.

With so few ingredients in the drink, the choice of cachaca will have a large impact on its flavor, but until recently bartenders had to work with the very few mass-produced, rough-tasting brands that were available in the United States.

In Brazil, however, there are an estimated 30,000 small-scale cachaca producers and 5,000 brands on the market. Cachaca is the third-most distilled liquor in the world, and because of the caipirinha’s popularity, more of it is hitting stateside shelves

Cachaca is commonly called Brazilian rum, but it is distilled from fermented sugarcane juice instead of the molasses used in most rums from other countries. The majority of cachaca is unaged (whereas most rums are aged), giving it a lighter and often more vegetal flavor with a strong sugarcane taste.

Like other liquors, cachaca can be either column distilled, an industrial technique that usually results in a cleaner, though less flavorful end product, or pot distilled, a smaller-batch method that retains more character of the raw ingredient, but also impurities. Most of the commonly available Brazilian brands like Cachaca 51 (also called Pirassununga) and Pitú are column distilled and bottled without aging.

Other brands of cachaca are aged in oak or native Brazilian wood barrels, and are generally considered “sipping cachacas,” enjoyed without mixer. The brand Ypióca, also fairly available in the Bay Area, produces several cachacas aged one to two years in balsam or freijó barrels. Wood aging softens the mouthfeel of spirits and adds vanilla, caramel and other flavors. When the wood is not the usual oak used in wine and the majority of spirits, refreshingly new flavor notes can be found in the final products.

In recent months, three smaller brands of aged imported cachacas have become available: Armazem Vieira, GRM and Rochinha. These products range from 2 to 16 years of aging in woods with names like arririba, umburana, and jequitiba rosa. Some of these brands are available at the liquor store John Walker & Sons, and at the bar Cantina in San Francisco and the restaurant A Cote in Oakland. These boutique products come with a matching price, though. The GRM (my favorite of the bunch) sells for more than $60 per 750 ml bottle.

These three brands are imported by Olie Berlic, a former sommelier from New York who discovered them in Brazil while preparing to launch his own brand of cachaca, Beleza Pura. Berlic says, “I was looking for a high-end, unaged cachaca. The caipirinha calls for unaged, un-wooded cachaca, so that you don’t have the wood flavors competing with the fresh lime citrus flavors.” Beleza Pura is meant for the caipirinha, whereas his imports can be sipped neat.

The Fazenda Mae de Ouro brand is pot distilled from sugarcane not burned before harvesting (the brand manager said this can impart smoky flavor into the final product), and aged for one year in oak. Though aged, the product makes a fine caipirinha.

Many new high-end brands were developed specifically for the American market and palate. These companies advertise their cachacas as possible substitutions for vodka, rum or tequila in cocktails consumers already know. To make them adaptable to multiple drinks, they distill the products multiple times and/or highly filter the products to remove flavor.

Agua Luca is distilled from fermented sugarcane juice “within 24 hours of harvesting,” then the final spirit is filtered 12 times for a flavor profile that’s closer to vodka in flavor and structure than most cachacas.

Leblon is the most visible and available premium cachaca in the city. It is unique in that it is aged for a few months in used Cognac barrels both in Brazil and in France. Because of this, other brands’ representatives question Leblon’s authenticity as a true cachaca but newcomers may prefer its softer texture to the rough industrial brands.

Despite all the new brands on the market, even most Brazilian establishments here don’t carry more than a few bottles of cachaca. San Francisco restaurants Canto do Brasil and Espetus stock three, and Destino carries four brands.

There are a few go-to venues for cachaca variety though. The restaurant Bossa Nova in San Francisco offers nine brands of cachaca, and Oakland’s A Cote carries “9 or 10” cachacas. The Union Square Latin bar, Cantina, likely has the largest selection in San Francisco with nearly 20 brands, almost all of them high-end, and more than half meant for sipping rather than mixing.

As it’s rare to find this many brands even on liquor store shelves, these venues may be the best places in the Bay Area to learn about cachaca, with bartenders who can lead tastings of their preferred products. Barring that, you can always fly to Brazil and research the other 4,990 brands.

Where to drink cachaca

A Cote, 5478 College Ave. (near Taft), Oakland; (510) 655-6469, acoterestaurant.com

Bossa Nova, 139 Eighth St. (near Minna), San Francisco; (415) 558-8004, bossanovasf.com

Cantina, 580 Sutter St. (near Mason), San Francisco; (415) 398-0195, cantinasf.com

Canto do Brasil, 41 Franklin St. (near Oak), San Francisco; (415) 626-8727

Destino, 1815 Market St. (near Guerrero), San Francisco; (415) 552-4451, destinosf.com

Espetus, 1686 Market St. (at Gough), San Francisco; (415) 552-8792, espetus.com

Camper English is a freelance cocktails and spirits writer and publisher of Alcademics.com.

Labels: cachaca, camper_clips

A fun list on Kottke.org of (mostly bad) martinis, including

Franklin-tini (for Ben Franklin’s 300th birthday)
Mex-tini (orange vodka + tequila)
Sex-tini (Asian sex tonic + x-rated vodka)
Flu-tini (vodka + cold medicine)
Red Lobster Butter-Tini (butterscotch schnapps + half and half + Bailey’s)
Bikini-tini (low calorie)
K-tini (sauerkraut)
Red Hot Santa-tini (chili peppers + whipped cream)
Insomnia-tini (energy drink)
Peep-tini (Peeps candy)

For a change, reading about drinks doesn’t make me thirsty at all.

Labels: funny

In Eric Felten’s most recent Wall Street Journal article, he takes on bad, and badly-named drinks. He goes into one particular drink but takes an extra sentence to describe the name.

Popular in Australia, it seems, is a shooter made of Baileys and butterscotch liqueur. The drink’s elaborate and unprintable title vividly describes a “cowboy” engaged in an activity the Supreme Court adjudicated in Bowers v. Hardwick. Frankly, I can’t decide which is more distasteful — the lewd logo, or a drink of Baileys and butterscotch liqueur.

That’s a long way of saying “cowboy socksucker.” (I’m replacing the ‘c’ with an ‘s’, as I don’t want to get this blog banned from too many more places.)

When I moved to San Francisco they made this drink (and I was quite fond of it at the time, but I was dumb and pretty then) but they just called it the socksucker.

Back in Boston we called it the butterball. I wondered how many other names there were for this drink containing all of two ingredients, so I turned to DrinksMixer.com. This database has so many repeated and wrong recipes that finding other names for drinks is about the only thing it’s good for.

It turns out the drink of Irish cream liqueur and butterscotch liqueur is also called:

Bit ‘o Honey
Butterbee
Butterscotch Bomb
Butterscotch Cookie Shot
Buttery Nipple
Buttery Nipple #2
Camel Hump
Socksucking Cowboy
Copper Camel
Cowboy Socksucker
Oatmeal Cookie #2
Slippery Nipple

Labels: funny, liqueurs, recipes