Blog

San Francisco’s Next All-Star Bar
I recently spoke with Erik Adkins (Slanted Door, Flora) who is the bar manager of the soon-to-open Charles Phan (Slanted Door's chef/owner) restaurant next to the Soma Grand building on Mission Street. After much wavering on the name (the code name was "Phantom" at one point, get it), they seem to have settled on Heaven's Dog. That's pretty rock and roll.

Also great is the list of bartenders who've signed on to take shifts at the place:
- Thad Vogler (Slanted Door, Jardiniere, Beretta, the forthcoming Agricole)
- Eric Johnson (Eastside West, Bourbon & Branch, Beretta)
- Jackie Patterson (Orson, Zinnia)
- Jennifer Colliau (Slated Door, Small Hand Foods)
- Jon Santer (Bourbon & Branch, Beretta, Martin Miller's Gin)
- Lane Ford (Beretta, Flora)
The restaurant should be opening in early January. Adkins tells me that they'll keep the drink menu at a reasonable 12 or so drinks "focusing more on execution than on unusual recipes." They'll also have an emphasis on quality ice, with a Kold Draft machine for cubes, plus a freezer dedicated just to ice that they'll use to make spears for tall drinks and chunks for some of the rocks drinks.

Brrr, who's thirsty?
December 15, 2008
The Upsides of Prohibition

December 5th is Repeal Day, the anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition in the United States.

We hear a lot about the bummer that was Prohibition, but perhaps now is a good time to reflect on the upsides.

What about all the good things caused by Prohibition?

– Prohibition popularized Canadian Whisky that came over the border into the States, and it is still very popular especially in the Midwest.

– It also popularized tequila in the United States. Mmm, tequila.

– It set the stage for the tiki movement. Rum fell out of popularity in America long before Prohibition. But during those long years, tourists flocked to rum-producing countries like Cuba to enjoy Daiquiris and other rum drinks. After Repeal, a lot of rum sat around in barrels with nobody drinking it. After WWII, Donn the Beachcomber and Trader Vic used this cheap supply of inexpensive aged rum to create some of the best cocktails the world has ever known.

-It pushed American cocktails and American bartenders abroad to find employment. Yes, this sucked for America, but was great for the rest of the world as bartenders relocated in Europe and South America vastly improved the quality of drinking throughout the world.

-It ended the great sausage party. Speakeasies were integrated with both men and women, allowing the female gender to join the party for the first time. Bars without women are depressing and scary in one way or another.

-It created cocktail hour and cocktail parties and the demand for barware and all the other terms and practices and amenities for drinking at home and entertaining at home with cocktails. As people had to keep drinking on the DL during Prohibition, they turned to entertaining behind closed doors. I, for one, love a good house party, and enjoy the occasional happy hour cocktail.

-NASCAR. During Prohibition, moonshiners souped up their cars in order to evade the fuzz as they went to sell their product. A direct result of this was the sport of the car racing. (And also, The Dukes of Hazzard.) More history on that here.

So raise a glass to all the positive lasting effects of Prohibition!

December 4, 2008
Store and Pour

In the December issue of San Francisco Magazine, I have a story on venues like Taverna Aventine, Nihon, the San Francisco Wine Center, and the Occidental Cigar Club where you can store your poison of choice on-site. Read it online here.

December 3, 2008
I am BarSmart

You know that BarSmarts certification I was all stressed about, where we had to learn 25 drinks and a lot of information to pass the written and live bartending test?

I passed, and am officially BarSmarts Advanced certified. Congratulations to me.

Now I can put my new degree to use, backstool bartending by critiquing the drinks of others.

Of course, I already do that. So I hope they send me a badge or something to make it official.

December 2, 2008
Nerdiest Text Message of the Week

SAN FRANCISCO– New bar Gitane on Claude Lane has received delivery of a Kold Draft ice machine, according to reports to the Alcademics wire service.
—

The saddest part about this text message is not that it was sent, but that I was excited when I read it.

November 28, 2008
A Bar Contest You Don’t Want to Win

Eater SF hosted a "Douchiest Bar in San Francisco" contest. The winner, unfortunately for them, was Medjool, the rooftop bar in the Mission. Filling out the Top 5 were Matrix Fillmore, Bar None, Americano, and Zeitgeist.

The comments on the original post are priceless.

"It's as if the marina suddenly puked up it's best and brightest in the
fields of self-absorption, douchbaggery and cougardom into one
consolidated spot… and then poured 1,000 cosmos into the mix."

Oof.

November 27, 2008
Wild Tofurkey
It's almost Thanksgiving, and that means all the booze news is full of stories on what to pair with your turkey. Phooey.

As you know, the entire staff here at Alcademics HQ (me) is vegetarian, so I don't play that game. But I do like Thanksgiving, as it's a holiday centered around pigging out and drinking, followed by loafing around until your stomach stops hurting.

I like to participate in my own special way, by enjoying a healthy vegetarian meal of Wild Turkey bourbon. And this year, I thought I would pair it with food, and then I thought, why not enjoy it as food?

I made three styles of Wild Turkey marinade for tofu, then cooked them all.

Marinade 1: A Bourbon Sazerac, dumped into a bowl
- 3 ounces Wild Turkey 101
- 1 sugar cube
- dash of Pernod Absinthe
- 3 dashes Peychaud's bitters
Marinade 2: An Old-Fashioned, dumped into a bowl
- 1 tsp orange marmalade
- 2 maraschino cherries, muddled
- 1 sugar cube
- 2 dashes Angostura bitters
- 3 ounces Wild Turkey 101
Marinade 3: Bourbon Marinade
- 1/2 cup Wild Turkey 101
- 1 tbsp powdered ginger
- 1 tbsp vegetarian Worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/4 cup soy sauce (next time I'd go lighter on this)
- pinch black pepper
- 1/2 tsp sesame seeds
Marinate pressed (water squeezed out) tofu overnight. Bake on lightly oiled cookie sheet at 300 degrees for 30-40 minutes, turning at least once. Remove from oven before it starts to look crispy or charred. If I had to do it again, I would make thicker slices and cook it on the lighter side, as the less it's cooked inside the more bourbon flavor is retained.

Results

The Sazerac Tofurkey was not so great. I didn't like the baked minty-ness that I think came from the absinthe. The Old Fashioned Tofurkey was delicious, as was the regular Bourbon Marinated Tofurkey.

I'd make this again in a heartbeat- and probably will tomorrow for actual Thanksgiving. I may also experiment with a Manhattan Marinade and a Bourbon Sour Marinade. Why not? The best part about this is that after you're finished, you can drink the leftover sauce.
November 26, 2008
The Craziest New Cocktail Menu in San Francisco

DOSA Fillmore opens on Friday, but the drink menu for the restaurant has been released. The cocktails were created by Jonny Raglin of Absinthe, and they look insane. I can't wait to try them.

Batsman
Martin Miller’s Gin, Darjeeling tea cordial, lemon juice & ginger beer, served over ice with a mint sprig 9

Bowler
Marian Farms bio-dynamic Pisco, mango gastrique, “hell flower” tincture, served up with a lime twist 9

Juhu
Palm DH Krahn Gin, coconut milk, lime juice, Kaffir lime leaf, bird’s eye chili served up with a spanked curry leaf 10

Bollywood Hills
Sub Rosa Saffron Vodka, orgeat syrup, lime juice, allspice dram, served up with pickled mango 10

Elephant Parade
No. 209 Gin, pineapple gomme, ginger, cilantro, seltzer water, served long over ice with a pineapple flag 11

Bengali Gimlet
Tanqueray Rangpur Gin, ‘curried’ nectar, Kaffir lime leaf and lime juice, served up with a wedge of lime 10

Laughing Lassi
Bols Genever, Strauss yogurt, cucumber, grains of paradise, agave nectar, Angostura, served chilled with mint 12

Faux Swizzle
El Dorado Rum, St. Germain Elderflower, chicory bitters, served over crushed ice with a sugar-dusted mint sprig 9

Mood Indigo
Buffalo Trace Bourbon, jackfruit marmalade, Angostura bitters, chilled, topped with Champagne 10

Smoked Cup
Benesin Organic Mezcal, Pimm’s, black cardamon tincture, ginger beer, cucumber & smoked sea salt, over ice 11

November 26, 2008
Whisky + Shipwreck = Awesome

I have a fondness for booze, as you may have realized, but also for shipwrecks and pirates. (Old pirates, not Somali pirates.)

So I am particularly thrilled by the story of the SS Politician, a ship carrying 260,000 bottles of whisky that sank off the Outer Hebrides (islands off Scotland) in 1941. The local islanders rowed out to the partially-submerged wreck at night and stole all the whisky they could get their hands on. But the government was not happy about that so they searched peoples' homes and jailed some of them, even though they were just going to let the whisky sink with the ship. For years, hidden bottles from the wreck would turn up when someone cleaned out their attic or dug up a shed.

The tale was made into the book Whisky Galore
by Compton Mackenzie, then a later books Scotch on the Rocks: The True Story Behind Whisky Galore and Polly: The True Story Behind Whisky Galore, retracing the story of that book. It was also made into the movie Whisky Galore, sometimes known as Tight Little Island.

In 1970, the newspaper The Mirror led a diving expedition to the ship to find any bottles that were still on it. They did find them, and rewarded a diver Bob Pert with a few bottles for his efforts. He's auctioning off one of those (unopened but evaporating through the cork) bottles December 3rd. [Props to Lyke 2 Drink for finding news of the auction.]

This bottle would make an excellent holiday gift for someone obsessed with booze. Or shipwrecks. Or both.

November 26, 2008
Alcademics on Epicurious on Absinthe

Hey Look! It's my first story for Epicurious.com! Wahoo!

The Top Five Absinthe Cocktails

Now that absinthe is legal in America, what are you going to do with it?

I share some information about absinthe and suggest the five best cocktails in which to use it.

November 18, 2008