Author: Camper English
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103 Things to Drink in San Francisco, 1855
I am reading the 1855 book Land of Gold, Reality Versus Fiction by Hinton Helper. You can find it online here. It talks a lot of smack about San Francisco and I love it. San Francisco was a brand new city in 1848 when gold was discovered in Sacramento, but by 1855 the population was…
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Ice in the South China Morning Post
I was interviewed for this story in the South China Morning Post, about ice yet again! Check it out here.
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How To Highball
For Men’s Journal, I wrote about the choice of sparkling water for your whiskey highball. Read it here.
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The Ice Book Gets a Four-Page Spread in Men’s Journal
I wrote up a relatively short article for Men’s Journal’s Fall 2025 issue but hadn’t seen the final copy until just now: turns out they gave it a four-page spread in the print magazine. As always the photographs from Allison Webber are stunning. Here’s a preview. For more information on The Ice Book, visit this…
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Speaking at the Museum of the Eye Dec 28
I’ll be giving a short talk at the event “Celebratory Bubbles, Not Eye Troubles” at the Museum of the Eye in San Francisco on December 28th. It’s an annual New Year event. My talk (probably a short one of 20ish minutes) is “Eye-Openers, Corpse Revivers, and Anti-Fogmatics: The Medicinal Morning Cocktail.” It’s based on stuff…
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Splitting Up My Instagram Account
My Alcademics Instagram account is looking a bit… scattered between my personal posts, promoting my cocktail history tours, books I’m reading, and stuff that comes in the mail. So I’ve decided to split it up: @Alcademics is my business account where you’ll hear news and updates about my talks, tours, classes, books, and writing. @Camper.English…
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How the Quest for Quinine Led to the Creation of Chemotherapy
My latest for AlcoholProfessor.com is the story of how the scientific quest to produce artificial quinine led to the invention of chemotherapy. It’s a cool story IMO. Read it here.
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Did the Original Cocktail Sauce Contain Angostura Bitters?
I am researching Prohibition and a search for “cocktails” in the San Francisco Chronicle turned up a story from 1920 on the origin of the “oyster cocktail” that I think is what today we call “cocktail sauce” that is used more on the shrimp cocktail. (I am a 30+ year vegetarian so I could be…
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A Good Bar Needs Good Ice
I gave some quotes about ice for a story on the website Shortlist. They also interviewed other people who are correct in saying that better ice makes a better drink, and that attention to quality of ice signifies attention to quality of cocktails. I have the final quote in the story, in response to the…