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  • The curious case of the Clock Bar

    Clock Bar, the hyped Michael Mina cocktail lounge opening July 15 in San Francisco, is becoming a lesson in OOPS I FORGOT ABOUT THE COCKTAILS.

    Early on the project was announced- historic space, famous chef, tasty bar snacks, high-end drinks, yadda, yadda, yadda- and nobody listed as being in charge of the cocktail program.

    Curious. The restaurant Gitane won’t be open for another two months and they’ve had a beverage manager and a cocktail consultant on retainer since the beginning of the year. But things were happening on the back end. Several people involved with the project were interviewed for a story in 944 magazine that just came out. The story is marvelous.

    In order to create the drink menu, Mina brought in legendary Las Vegas cocktail specialist Noah Ellis to help with the launch…. As the group’s beverage director, Ellis promises to ensure quality by creating a menu that features fresh-squeezed juices, house-made tonic and seltzer bottled sodas to complement the high-end alcohol. Additionally each drink will contain jagged wedges of ice, hand-cut from frozen blocks of mineral water…

    It sounds okay so far, right? Good, even. And then (cue sound of bomb dropping):

    “The lounge’s signature drink, the Clock Martini, will include frozen Ketel One Vodka shaken tableside and served with traditional garnishes.”

    Oooh, Ketel One! Don’t hurt your arm reaching so high up on the shelf! And traditional garnishes? Stop spoiling us! It seems they hired a guy to do their cocktail menu and he came up with a signature drink of a standard vodka martini. Refund!

    Now, before I read this I’d heard that Marco Dionysos got a job working there. Marco works at Tres Agaves, used to work at Absinthe, and is a huge cocktail nerd who often corrects brand representatives on factual errors about their own products. He’s invented at least one cocktail so good it’s on drink menus in New York. Oddly enough, Marco told me a while back that he wasn’t hired to be in charge but just on staff.

    That’s curious. Don’t they know who they’ve got? Of course they must- the article points out that they did their research. Just listen to Patric Yumul, VP of Operations for the Mina Group in the 944 Magazine story:

    “It’s about hitting on all cylinders,” he says. “None of the bars I saw were doing it though. Even in ones with great drinks, I didn’t want to actually sit down because I was afraid of getting hepatitis.“

    Curiouser. I wouldn’t think that suggesting your competitors’ venues teem with disease often spread by fecal-oral contact would be a good way to ingratiate yourself within the local cocktail community. But then again, the hepatitis prevents me from thinking clearly.

    Today I received the updated press release for the venue. There’s no mention of hand-cut ice or house-made tonic- or Noah Ellis and the signature vodka martini for that matter. And how’s this for not-a-raise:

    Lead by a veteran hospitality team of GM Matthew Meidinger, reputable San Francisco bartender Marco Dionysos (formerly of Tres Agaves) and seasoned bar team Ray Cortez Brown, Estanislado Orona and Maren West, the opening of CLOCK BAR marks the return of San Francisco tradition to the heart of Union Square.

    Well at least Marco is reputable now and singled out- though it doesn’t appear he’s been given a title/position such as Bar Manager or Head Bartender. Make that happen, Michael Mina people, and we’ll have our first clue that you might know what the heck you’re doing bragging about your super awesome new cocktail bar.

    Anyway, mistakes have been made, but they’re fixable. I hope everything turns out delicious and that they bring success and additional great cocktails to San Francisco- they’re just going to have to work a bit harder at it.

    [10:18 update: spelling of Ketel One corrected.]

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  • Plymouth

    Hello chums. The Plymouth gin distillery, it turns out, is just as
    beautiful as they say, but much smaller than I imagined. Just one big
    copper pot still makes all their gin, and they don't even need to run
    it full-time.

    Beyond the distillery tour, the building holds a restaurant and a
    cocktail bar, so you can just pop on in and hang out with the gin. I'd
    probably spend a lot of time there I'd I lived here.

    Alas, time is short. Today we're doing a hike to Plymouth's water
    source, taking the train back to London, then hitting more of the
    cocktail bars to ensure that I'm plenty hungover for the plane ride
    home on Saturday.

    Cheerio!

  • Chartreuse on the loose

    This week I helped judge a Chartreuse cocktail competition- tough job! Bartenders love making cocktails with the stuff, and I love drinking said cocktails. With my fellow judges Johnny Raglin of Absinthe and Carlos Yturria of Bacar/Grand Pu Bah I think we were in complete agreement with our top choices.

    Joel Baker of Bourbon & Branch made a phenomenal drink with Yellow Chartreuse, Manzanilla sherry, lemon, peach, and basil, but unfortunately he lost points for going past the time limit (such a perfectionist).

    Steven Liles of (is it Boulevard?) combined Yellow Chartreuse, St. Germain, gin, lemon, sugar, and cucumber with a lemon verbena garnish that was messy but delicious.

    Camber Lay of Epic pretty much always brings the thunder and her drink (pictured) with rose geranium, gin, lemon, lime, peach, Szechuan peppercorn, and Green Chartreuse was terrific. If they’d only let her bring her fruit dehydrator who knows what would have happened.

    And the big winner for the day was H. Ehrmann of Elixir, who combined bourbon, Green Chartreuse, muddled cherries, lavender, and vermouth, sort of like a sweet Chartreuse-cherry-lavender Manhattan. I don’t know how it worked, but it totally did. Lavender?

    Congratulations to the winners.

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  • 10 Trendsetting Mixologists

    In various editions of the Beverage Network’s magazines, I have the cover story on 10 Trendsetting Mixologists from across the country. I interviewed my picks at the Navan/Grand Marnier Mixology Summit this spring.

    This year’s batch of bartenders to watch have more in common than a penchant for inventing and shaking up tasty cocktails. They’re using fresh and often local ingredients, adding savory herbs to drinks, and making sure the execution of each cocktail is consistently stellar.

    These standout mixologists, some with impressive training under their belt, some the winners of national and international cocktail challenges, are also quite influential, both introducing quality cocktails to the underserved areas of the country, as well as impressing jaded vacationers in Vegas and Aspen. They impact the community through bartenders’ guilds, banding together to influence the purchases of control state boards, and educating the public with classes and seminars. These men and women help elevate both the craft of mixology and the consumer palate simultaneously. Let’s raise a glass to the class of 2008.

    The mixologists chosen were:

    Charles Joly from Chicago
    Patricia Richards from Las Vegas
    Matt Martinez from Los Angeles
    Jeremy Strungis from New Jersey
    Ted Kilgore from St. Louis
    Gina Chersevani from Washington, DC
    Lance Mayhew from Portland, OR
    Denis Cote from Aspen, CO
    Eric Simpkins from Atlanta
    Jon Santer from San Francisco

    Read interviews with these ten terrific bartenders here.

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  • Absinthe in Men’s Book

    Speaking of absinthe, I just noticed that the story I wrote on the subject (or as I call it, the subject that keeps on paying) for Men’s Book San Francisco is online. Go here and forward to page 80.

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  • Gin on the vine

    Immediately after my press trip to Jerez to study sherry, I flew to Bordeaux to learn about G’Vine gin. As far as I know, G’Vine is the only gin made from grape spirit instead of grain spirit, which gives it a round, soft texture and a touch of sweetness. It also has a huge burst of floral aroma coming from distilled vine flowers. This press trip was centered around seeing the vine flower harvest, but unfortunately the weather didn’t cooperate and the flowers weren’t yet in bloom.

    I flew in to Bordeaux and got a hotel room for the night, skipped dinner and slept from 8PM until 8AM recovering sleep and liver function from the last trip.

    The next morning I met the group- there were just five of us in total- and we headed to our hotel half-way between Bordeaux and Cognac. Our hotel, Chateau de Rimbaud, was more of a castle (which is always nice) that was filled with antiques and wallpaper that matched the curtains, bedspreads, and everything else in the room. Busy, but beautiful.

    That afternoon we had a short mixology session with G’vine. Because the gin is so floral, I find it overwhelming served in a martini and don’t think it mixes as well as other gins with tonic water. I learned on this trip that champagne works better than tonic with this product (grape with grape, after all), and that the Spanish make their tonic water go flat before drinking it- we didn’t try that but I could see it working.

    After a lazy afternoon we had a lazy dinner at the castle, and a good night’s sleep. Then we were off to Cognac. We visited the distillery where G’Vine is made, which is a cognac distillery that produces one percent of all Cognac in France, in addition to several other products. It was the first time I’ve seen Cognac stills, so I was a bit overexcited, but soon we were off to the traditional pot and column stills actually used for G’Vine.

    We drove out to a vineyard and fondled a vine, as the founder of EuroWineGate showed us where the blossoms would be if only they were blossoming. We all offered to stay two more weeks in the castle waiting for this to happen, but apparently G’vine’s generosity doesn’t extend quite that far.

    We had lunch at the funky and delicious La Ribaudiere restaurant near Cognac (you can pull up to it by boat if that’s how you roll), where they made gelato in different flavors that are found in the gin. (gin-lato?) Then we spent about an hour wandering through the city of Cognac. I found it nice and full of very old buildings, but smaller than I had imagined.

    The same is not true of Bordeaux, where we stayed the night. Bordeaux is huge and cosmopolitan and appears magnificent in the evening we spent there. We went out for dinner on one of the many pedestrian streets, had a beer later, and called it a trip.

    Now I have to make the next trip home. It’s gonna be a doozy. See you in a few days.

    In the meantime, feel free to look at all my trip photos here.

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  • Tequila Terroir

    Run screaming to your local newsstand to pick up the June issue of Wine & Spirits magazine, with the Top 100 Value Wines on the cover. Also on the cover is a mention of a story inside on Tequila Terroir, written by me. Hooray! My pal Jenn Farrington took the photos.

    Here’s the teaser:

    This February, a new Tequila called Ocho launched in Europe with a small but significant difference from other brands: each bottling is labeled with the harvest year and name of the agave field from which it came. Tequila is a spirit unusually ripe for the study of terroir as its raw ingredient does not vary, it is grown in a specified region with diverse soils, and it does not need to be aged like whisky or Cognac so it can be appreciated without the influence of wood. Yet until now brands have provided consumers with only broad clues as to the origin of the agave in each bottle.

    On the page after my story, you’ll be treated to a tasting story on tequila written by David Wondrich, in which he explains terroir in spirits better in three paragraphs than I did in 1200 words.

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  • Scotland Day Eight: Edinburgh and the castle

    We had a nearly four hour drive from Speyside to Edinburgh for our last day on the trip, but it wasn’t drama-free by any means. Once again, the back door of the van popped open while we were going down the highway and two peoples’ luggage fell out. I watched as one tumbled behind our bus and was run over by the truck behind us. The suitcase was ruined and the guy’s laptop’s screen was cracked, but the bottle of Pimm’s No. 3 and the Linn House bottling of 35 year-old scotch survived intact. Hooray!

    We stayed at the huge and impressive Balmoral hotel in Edinburgh, but I didn’t spend more than 20 minutes awake in the room. I had bars to see! My drinking pal for the day was Bill Dowd, and we stopped into about 7 venues in three hours. Not bad. I’ll have to reserve the write-up on those for a future story, but I loved Oloroso and Tonic most of all.

    Back in the room for a quick change into the first suit jacket I’ve owned since First Communion (50 bucks at H&M), I was ready for a private dinner in Edinburgh Castle. Several of the distillers and blenders from earlier in the week joined us, and it was like everything else in the week: ultra-fancy. The people at Old Pulteney were kind enough to contribute some 31 year-old scotch for us to drink at dinner and at the after-party at the Balmoral Hotel.

    It was almost a beautiful ending to a fantastic (and educational) trip, but alas, the trip home was not-so-fab. The combination of Delta and JFK airport caused delays, a missed connection, a night in New York, sleeping on a friend’s floor, and an early next-day flight 15 hours later than I was supposed to be home.

    Luckily when I arrived there, there was a bottle of scotch that had been delivered waiting for me.

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  • Scotland Day Seven: The real post

    This was our final distillery day in Scotland, but it was a double-header. We started off the morning with a tour of the Glenlivet distillery. By this time distillery tours were old hat, so we just stopped off at the points that deviate from other brands. The we had lunch and a demo of an old still that they set up on the driveway. It produced some pretty good new make spirit, as far as I can tell.

    After a tasting, we headed off on one of the new Smuggler’s Trails. These were set up as nature walks meant to be historically accurate trails that smugglers would take to get the whisky out in the days when distilling was illegal (without paying taxes, anyway). And due to our three hour walk, I actually came home from Scotland with a sunburn!

    We drove over to our hotel for the night, the Linn House. It’s the property of Pernod-Ricard, owners of Chivas, and it’s pretty darn fabulous. After a quick walk around the grounds and building, it was time for dinner. We walked over to the Strathisla Distillery, where the Chivas visitor center is. The distillery itself is gorgeous with the double pagoda roof and stone front. Inside, the visitor’s center is themed like an old grocery store, which is how the Chivas brothers started off.

    We were treated to access to the Chivas archives, where there were some great old product catalogs, then treated to dinner in a modern part of the distillery where they hold corporate meetings. For the afterparty, we returned to the Linn House’s Garden Bar, which is like a little club house in the gardens behind the house equipped with a pool table, jukebox, and a fully stocked bar. I stayed up to a sensible 2AM, unlike some of the less responsible writers who tried to re-rouse me for the after-after party in the living room.

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  • Scotland day seven: a quick note

    Yesterday at Glenlivet and Strathisla were amazing, but I've no time
    or Internet with which to post. The picture is of my hotel from last
    night, at which we were at the bar in the garden until the wee hours
    of the morning.

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