Blog

Piperwatch

Scotland Day One- Bagpipe count: 1

I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of bagpipes involved on this press trip. When I went to Mexico on a tequila trip we had one to three different mariachi groups per day. I think it’s gonna be like that with bagpipes, which are just as loud, but at least there’s no singing.

Whoops- scratch that. We had a singing Scotch harpist at dinner. But she was soft and gentle, like the rolling heathered hills of Dunkeld.

The folks at the Aberfeldy distillery (Aberfeldy single malt is the main flavor component of Dewar’s blended scotch whisky) claim that the soft and gentle countryside is reflected in their spirit, which has a heather-honey aspect to it, no real burn to speak of, and a dry, sandalwood with a touch of peat finish. Does whisky reflect terroir, or is this just convenient? We’ll see.

Labels: scotch, travel

May 10, 2008
SF Represent!

I picked up a copy of Food & Wine Cocktails 2008 to see what the representation of bars and cocktails around the country was. West Coast drinks have been getting more attention in the past year and it’s great to see this reflected in the book.

The cocktails from the Bay Area are:

Grapefruit Flamingo from Kieran Walsh at Solstice
Green with Envy from the Poleng Lounge
Amberjack from Le Colonial
Bergamont Shandy from NOPA
Zydeco Cocktail from Tres Agaves
Vanilla-Cucumber Limey from Jay Crabb at Martini Monkey in San Jose
Fog Cutter from Forbidden Island
Puerto de Cuba from Dominic Venegas (formerly of) Bourbon & Branch
Alsatian Daiquiri from Duggan McDonnell at Cantina
Thai Boxer from Scott Beattie at Cyrus in Healdsburg
Green Lantern from Range
Mi-So-Pretty from Elizabeth Falkner and Angie Heeney-Tunstall of Orson
Tommy Gun from Jacques Bezuidenhout of Bar Drake
Filibuster Cockatail from Erik Adkins of Flora in Oakland
Jose McGregor from Jimmy Patrick at Lion & Compass in Sunnyvale
Northern Spy from Josey Packard The Alembic
Off Kilter from Elixir
Babylon Sister from Jonny Raglin of Absinthe
Blackberry and Cabernet Caipirinha from Cantina
Strawberry and Ginger Cooler from Jeff Hollinger Absinthe
plus
Dark and Stormy Ribs from Presidio Social Club

That makes 17 SF and San Jose venues represented compared to 24 New York. Not bad for a city 5-10 times as small.

Other cities represented and their number of venues were:
Atlanta 4
Boston 7
Boulder 3
Chicago 8
Dallas 5
Houston 5
Las Vegas 5
Los Angeles 9
Louisville, KY 3
Madison, WI 4
Miami/ Ft. Lauderdale 5
New Jersey 4
New Orleans 5
Philadelphia 5
Phoenix/Tuscon 4
Portland, ME 3
Portland, OR 8
Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, NC 5
San Diego 4
Seattle 4
St. Louis 3
Washington, DC area 4

Note: Go Portland, Oregon! That place has had a great selection of local beer, wine, sake, and micro-distillers for a while now. The new cocktail bars like Beaker and Flask and TearDrop Lounge are taking it to the next level. And with Imbibe Magazine based out of Portland, it may soon be the most important drinking city in the nation. Props.

Labels: books, NewYork, SanFrancisco, trends

April 30, 2008
Grappa in the SF Chronicle

By me, in today’s SF Chronicle

Italy’s Fiery Grappa the Latest Spirit to Go Upscale
by Camper English

Several spirits have overhauled their previously negative reputations in recent years. Tequila lovers now pay up to several hundred dollars per bottle, and consumers who wouldn’t touch gin three years ago now shake it with egg whites into frothy cocktails at home.

But upon hearing the word “grappa,” many drinkers still wince. A beverage program built around the fiery spirit is thus a risky proposition, but that’s what you’ll find at Bar 888, the lobby bar that also serves the Italian restaurant Luce on the ground floor of the new Intercontinental Hotel in San Francisco’s SoMa area.

“In San Francisco, we think people are interested in learning something new,” says Rene Van Camp, corporate food and beverage director for the Intercontinental Hotels Group. “People are educated here about food and beverage, so we needed to find something that they don’t know about already.”

keep reading.

Labels: camper_clips, grappa

April 18, 2008
Dry Drunk: The Cocktails of Thad Vogler at Beretta

What’s up with my iPhone-tography skills? Do I have to be good at everything?

Anyway, Beretta. I was only thinking about the cocktails when I went there, but it turns out that with inexpensive food and lots of communal seating, this may be the one cocktail restaurant in which I can actually afford to eat. (Small plates priced as small plates- what a concept!)

But back to the important stuff: the drinks. Thad Vogler’s drinks, unlike many in San Francisco, eschew the farmer’s market fruit, flowers, and herbs in favor of the basics- lime, lemon, grapefruit, and pineapple. The flavor profile of most could be considered classic for that reason, but as opposed to classic derivative drinks that go wild with brown spirits and amaros or other unusual modifiers, these cocktails are more like simple drinks reconsidered.

What sticks out is the types of sweetening agents used in each drink- honey, gomme syrup (made by Slanted Door’s Jennifer Colliau), sugar cane syrup, agave syrup, etc. I don’t know if they use plain old simple syrup at all. But when you drink them, “sweet” isn’t a word that comes to mind. Vogler makes the driest drinks in town. He uses a lot of gin, rhum agricole, and maraschino liqueur, and even the Pisco Sour isn’t sweet (or all that sour- it’s almost earthy).

Of the drinks I tried, the Nuestra Paloma is the most pleasing and probably the safest bet for the less adventurous drinker (It’s delicious- don’t get me wrong). The Dolores Park Swizzle looks great with a few drops of bitters atop the crushed ice of the drink like a happy red treat, but packs a wallop of flavor. I like it more as the ice melts starts and dilutes it. The same is true of the Rangoon Gin Cobbler, my favorite drink on the menu so far that has a nice orange aspect to it from the Cointreau. I also liked the Single Village Fix, making this the second time I’ve ever enjoyed a drink with mescal in it.

Is anyone else bored of my typing? I am. Long story short: tasty dry drinks, go good with food, it’s in my neighborhood, I’ll be back lots.

Labels: bars, cocktails, SanFrancisco

April 16, 2008
At Beretta, less is more

When Beretta opens (currently scheduled for April 1), cocktail fans will recognize many familiar faces behind the bar. Thad Vogler (Slanted Door, Jardiniere, Bourbon & Branch) is leading the bar program, and some of the people taking shifts there will be Jon Santer (Bruno’s, Range, Tres Agaves, B&B), Todd Smith (Cortez, B&B), Ryan Fitzgerald (Tres Agaves, B&B, Brick), and Eric Johnson (Eastside West, B&B). Vogler says it’s coincidence that they were all looking to pick up a shift or two, but I’m already nicknaming the venue the Valencia Street All-Star Bar.

Though not finalized at this point, Vogler gave me the gist of his bar program: a paired-down spirits selection, quality valued more than quantity, and execution over innovation. They’ll be carrying only two brands of vodka (one local, the other organic), but a good selection of gins, rums, aperitifs, and liqueurs. The cocktail list looks like it will include a lot of classic profile drinks emphasizing the American, Latin, and Caribbean base spirits.

I think it’s going to be an interesting place, especially because this bar program is running in a pizzeria restaurant.

Labels: bars, SanFrancisco

March 26, 2008
Branch news
News from Bourbon & Branch:
- They’ve added classes on Cocktails 101, Rum, and Absinthe to the Beverage Academy
- Taking co-management positions after Todd Smith’s departure are Joel Baker and Yanni Kehagiaras (pictured)
- Russell’s Room, an additional private room built into the former barbershop next door, is scheduled to open in April.
Labels: bars, education, SanFrancisco
March 20, 2008
SF cocktail history

Plymouth gin is the bartender’s favorite brand here in San Francisco. What’s nice is that the brand sponsors events to thank them for it. In the winter they offered a lecture on molecular mixology techniques, and earlier this week they flew in David Wondrich to lead a big group on a cocktail history tour of San Francisco. Always the hanger-on, I crashed the party.

We started at the Buena Vista Cafe for an Irish Coffee to get us warmed up. We then each took a flask filled with Sydney Ducks Punch (named after San Francisco’s most notorious gang of the Gold Rush era), and headed off to North Beach.

We stopped into Vesuvio for a Negroni and pizza. None of these things have anything to do with San Francisco cocktail history but Vesuvio is a cool old bar. Then we headed to the site of the El Dorado (where the Hilton is on Kearny now), a bar/hotel with a tent ceiling, chandelier, and all-female orchestra. It is reported that Jerry Thomas worked there, though no proof has been found. It was so posh the bartender used a solid gold muddler, which someone suggested that Mr. Mojito recreate and sell online.

Close by at the site of the Transamerica building was the Bank Exchange where the Pisco Punch was invented. We called up pisco historian Guillermo Toro-Lira and yelled “cheers!” while he was on speakerphone.

Next up was the site of the Occidental Hotel at 130 Montgomery, where Jerry Thomas worked his second time living in San Francisco. Then we headed to the Palace Hotel where Cocktail Bill Boothby was the head bartender, and had the Palace Cocktail (gin, orange juice, pineapple syrup, egg white) while hearing about its pre-and post-quake history.

Our last stop for food, jazz, and many more drinks was the House of Shields, which will be celebrating its 100th anniversary this April. There we learned about the history of the Gibson cocktail, which was created in SF in the late 1890’s. It was simply London dry gin and dry vermouth, without the orange bitters and garnish that defined a Martini. A Gibson with an olive was called a St. Francis Cocktail and popularized at the St. Francis Hotel. The Gibson eventually became the Martini, so to distinguish the old drink from the new martini they added a cocktail onion as in the Gibson we know today.

Luckily I wrote that down because on our sixth hour of drinking the details got fuzzy. I continued to stay and hang out with the crew until long after it was reasonable, then spent the next day reflecting quietly on the previous night’s adventures.

Labels: cocktails, gin

March 7, 2008
Beyond the Branch

Big news in SF barland: Todd Smith has turned in his resignation at Bourbon & Branch. He’s been with them since long before they opened but said, “It’s time for me to move on and do another project.”

He told me he plans to take some time off and work on some consulting gigs he’s firming up now, as well as potentially opening his own space with some other bartenders down the road. And though the details are still being hammered out, he plans to remain with the Beverage Academy teaching classes there.

Speaking of the Beverage Academy, they added their first scotch whisky class on March 25th with Dominic Venegas as the instructor. The rum class will likely start in April with Thad Vogler at the helm.

Best of luck both the Bourbon & Branch and Todd Smith!

Labels: bars, news, SanFrancisco

March 6, 2008
Belgian text

The text of my Belgian beer bars story from San Francisco Magazine is now online here. And if you’re interested, my Aspen travel piece is here.

Labels: beer, camper_clips, travel

March 5, 2008
What a wild, wonderful year
This past year has been busy, crazy, and wonderful. I realize it’s only been a little over a year since I started writing about cocktails and spirits full-time. That seems ludicrous, as I’ve learned so much since my first big feature in the SF Chronicle in October of 2006. And the thing is, I still don’t feel like I know anything. That’s great because I get bored easily and it will be a very long time before I am sick of this topic. Cheers to that.

This year, I went on visits to the following distilleries/breweries:
- Canadian Mist (near Toronto)
- Blue Ice Vodka (Idaho)
- 209 Gin (San Francisco)
- Genevieve/Junipero/Old Potrero (San Francisco)
- Mount Gay Rum (Barbados)
- Chopin Vodka (Warsaw, Poland)
- Finlandia Vodka (near Helsinki, Finland)
- Don Julio Tequila (Jalisco, Mexico)
- 4 Copas Tequila (Jalisco, Mexico)
- Partida Tequila (Jalisco, Mexico)
- El Tesoro Tequila (Jalisco, Mexico)
- Herradura Tequila (Jalisco, Mexico)
- Cazadores Tequila (Jalisco, Mexico)
- Sake One Sake (near Portland, Oregon)
- Takara Sake (Berkeley, California)
Plus additional trips to New York, Aspen, and Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans.

Wow. I’d like to thank the sponsors of those trips. Thanks! You learn so much more about products from visiting the distillery and especially talking to the distillers at each.

I hope that the next year is pretty close to this one in content and adventure, but perhaps with a little more cash and health insurance and book deals added in there somewhere. Here’s to continued good drinking in ’08!

Labels: travel, writing_life
January 1, 2008