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Bay Area bartenders earn toasts at New Orleans cocktail event

Bay Area bartenders earn toasts at New Orleans cocktail event
Camper English, Special to The Chronicle
Friday, July 27, 2007

We like to think our bartenders and their drink creations are extraordinary here in the Bay Area. Last weekend at the Tales of the Cocktail event held in New Orleans, we found validation that it’s not just too many Negronis triggering our hometown pride — the Bay Area’s bartenders are finally getting respect at the national level.

In its fifth year, the Tales of the Cocktail conference celebrates the history of cocktails in New Orleans and the practice of making them around the world. Though open to the public, the event is heavily attended by people in the beverage industry, from small-city bartenders on up to major spirits distributors. Approximately 12,000 people were at the event July 18 to 22.

Esquire magazine cocktail correspondent and historian David Wondrich, who gave several talks at Tales of the Cocktail, said: “In San Francisco (the bars) tend to have that neighborhoody feel but they specialize much more in cocktails. It’s like cocktail culture never went away.”

Read it here.

Labels: bartending, camper_clips, SanFrancisco, tales_of_the_cocktail

July 27, 2007
The Tales of the Cocktail Swag Awards
It became clear at Tales of the Cocktail that the amount of swag was going to be unmanageable, so I started declining freebies unless I was prepared to lug them home. Not everything made it (hope the hotel maid likes vodka!) and I still had two additional pieces of luggage on the way back.

My end tally was 9 pens, 6 keychains, 4 bottle openers, 2 shaker sets, 11 pieces of glassware, 4 DVDs, 4 CDs, 5 mini-bottles, 7 muddlers, 4 books, and a heck of a lot of miscellaneous. And I now present:

The Tales of the Cocktail Swag Awards
- Most over-gifted swag category: muddler
- Best muddler: Plymouth Gin’s long unfinished wood mallet
- Most unnecessary swag category: keychains
- Most unexpected item: Twelve ounces of Dancing Goats coffee, not ground
- Best item for brownosing journalists (tie): Bombay Sapphire reporter’s notebook and Ciroc light-up pen
- Most practical item I didn’t already own: jigger (unbranded, donated by Barsol Pisco)
- Biggest missed branding opportunity: see above
- Most practical item I didn’t know I wanted: Rums of Puerto Rico cocktail apron
- Most expensive swag: set of 9 Riedel spirits tasting glasses
- Most unwieldy swag: full-sized bottle of Absolut New Orleans vodka
- Best use of brand name in swag item: Rain Vodka umbrella
Labels: swag, tales_of_the_cocktail
July 23, 2007
Tales of the Cocktail 4 – The last two days
I think I’m a rare person that made it through all of Tales of the Cocktail without a hangover. But then I drank a lot on the plane and have one today back in San Francisco. Still, the conference was exhausting and I was starting to feel it on Saturday.

At the Cocktails and the Blogosphere talk, they touched on a few interesting things:
- Blogs’ strong points are they’re both updated regularly and interactive, and can reach a lot of people fast.
- They have the ability to spread the word about great recipes (for drinks or drink ingredients) and products, and effect cocktail menus and consumption on a pretty large scale.
- PR people haven’t been so good at paying attention to blogs and pitching the appropriate ones.
The vermouth section was pretty advanced so I’m going to need to parse through the handouts to get up to speed.

The Riedel spirits glassware tasting was terrific. In three different types of glasses we had three different wood-aged spirits and we tasted through to find the glass that brought out the best aspects of the spirit, while minimizing the alcohol burn. While tasting the Islay scotch, one glass made the nose smoke first, then fruit behind it while another glass achieved the opposite. It makes me want to re-taste everything in my liquor cabinet in different glasses!

Then we went out drinking. I bowed out relatively early but many others saw the sun come up.

The next day I first packed up my swag, which took some time. I had lunch at Riche in the Harrah’s where we were staying, and managed to get to the Tales of the Cocktail Spirit Awards late enough that it was over. Drat! Many people looked like hell at this point and lept out of bed showing up at the awards ceremony in yesterday’s clothes. I guess that’s an appropriate ending to the event.

And I’m definitely planning on going again next year.

Labels: tales_of_the_cocktail
July 23, 2007
Eau my goodness

By me in today’s SF Chronicle:

St. George Spirits, the Alameda distillers behind Hangar One Vodka and several eaux-de-vie, liqueurs and one whiskey, have launched another small bottling with big flavor. Aqua Perfecta Basil Eau de Vie is made with Thai and other varieties of basil, soaked in unaged California grape brandy and redistilled. The product, which sells for $50 at the distillery (and in a few other venues soon) was launched July 14 and is a “refined accompaniment to caviar” according to the press release. The bold basil flavor is rather potent right out of the bottle and should make for some savory cocktails like the suggested Thai Fighter with lime juice and ginger simple syrup.

Available at the distillery, 2601 Monarch St. (at Alameda Point, the old Naval Air Station), Alameda; (510) 769-1601, or online at stgeorgespirits.com.

Update from St. George Spirits:

-The $50 price was a promotional thing for the open house, $65 is the regular price.

-For now it will only be available in 6 bars, no liquor stores except ours.

Labels: camper_clips

July 20, 2007
Tales of the Cocktail 3 – Day 3
Day 3 Recap:

On Thursday I attended a lot more seminars:
- Organic and local cocktails- Alison Evanow of Square One organic vodka says, “Vodka is like butter.” There are some really interesting non-profit healthy food programs happening in New Orleans post-Katrina.
- The future of mixology, with bar stars Todd Thrasher, James Meehan, and John Kinder. One of them said, “We’ve all been claiming gin is going to be the next big thing for years now and it just hasn’t happened.”
- The effects of Prohibition on cocktails- This was a casual, hilarious conversation between booze historians. John K. Hall of 40 Creek Whisky was asked why they don’t do a rum. He answered, “We don’t grow any sugarcane in Canada.” David Wondrich replied mocking global warming, “You will soon!” I also learned that prepackaged sour mix was available as early as 1905.
Then I had a fabulous dinner at The Commander’s Palace, a swanky restaurant in the Garden District. The waiters were like ninjas- there were none and then suddenly 8 of them would jump out of the shadows and take care of all of our needs and disappear.

Labels: tales_of_the_cocktail
July 20, 2007
Tales of the Cocktail 2 – So far, sooooo good
It’s day two of Tales of the Cocktail and I’m still going strong. Currently I’m skipping the “spirited dinners” drinks-and-food pairing dinners happening all over town because as a vegetarian they don’t make these things for me. (“Can you pair this vermouth with a salad?”) So I had my own beer and pizza pairing at a microbrewery chain. It was good until they brought the “pizza,” which was like a salty Boboli bread with sweet pasta sauce and uncooked tomatoes on top. Yeah, not so great.

So far I’ve attended seminars on:
- Cocktail history (“I didn’t bring any ice tools because they’re really sharp and really hard to get on airplanes” – David Wondrich),
- The history of the Napoleon House cocktail bar (“It’s like a New Orleans day spa” – David Wondrich)
- Ice (“An honest ice cube became impossible to find.”- Sasha Petraske, speaking about ice machines up until a few years ago)
- Rum (so much good information it’s hard to put it down)
- Forgotten and lost cocktail ingredients (Much like the Imbibe article by Paul Clarke of the same name)
- Pisco (my favorite seminar so far- great info and great swag too.)
Pisco is the new gin. I’m just going to call it out. (Take note of the date.)

And I’ve hung out with Paul Clarke, Tony Abou–Ganim, Jamie Boudreau, the Liquid Muse, Stephen Beaumont, Robert Hess, Ted Haigh, Beachbum Berry, and more other people than I can name. And tomorrow at the Cocktails and the Blogosphere event it should be an even more ridiculous clusterf**k. I’m in heaven.

Labels: events, tales_of_the_cocktail
July 19, 2007
Tales of the Cocktail 1- Holy bag of swag

Yes, that’s four shirts, 5 muddlers, several pieces of glassware, uncountable pens, and more. Good thing I brought an extra bag to carry it all home.

Labels: tales_of_the_cocktail

July 18, 2007
Boutique Tonic Water

Finally my tonic water story came out in today’s SF Chronicle:

The Evolution of Tonic Water

In the quest to make better cocktails, today’s bartenders rethink each ingredient in a drink and try to improve it — from the cheap, mass-produced version, to a higher-quality version, to the artisan version, to the locally made artisan version, and finally to the homemade version.

We’ve seen this with spirits (from Tanqueray to 209 Gin) and juices (from bottled juice to locally grown fruit). But until a few years ago, nobody had given too much thought to tonic water.

This bitter, sweetened, carbonated quinine-based beverage is an odd mixer. Unlike soda it’s rarely consumed alone, and unlike juices and seltzer water it’s rarely an ingredient in more complex cocktail recipes. Most of the time, tonic is served only with gin or vodka and a wedge of lemon or lime as garnish.

In the average bar, tonic comes spitting out of the “gun,” the squirter that mixes flavored syrup with seltzer water as it shoots into your glass. But now many venues pour boutique-brand tonic and other sodas from bottles. One venue even makes it in-house.

Read the full article here.

Labels: camper_clips, tonic

July 13, 2007
Wine-Finished Bourbon

Another piece by me in today’s Chronicle:

Bourbon with a Chardonnay chaser

Over in Scotland, wood-finished whiskies are all the rage. Most Scotch ages for years in barrels that previously held bourbon or sherry, and recently several distillers have been transferring the whisky in its final years to barrels that held Port, Madeira or Burgundy, where it picks up additional flavors. Now American whiskey producers are giving it a try.

Jim Beam released Port and Cognac-finished whiskies several years ago as part of their Distillers’ Masterpiece collection. This month, Woodford Reserve bourbon is rolling out a limited-edition Master’s Collection Sonoma-Cutrer finished whiskey that first aged for five years in new charred American oak barrels, then four more months in used Sonoma-Cutrer French oak Chardonnay wine barrels from which it picks up more fruit and citrus notes. It’s available in California stores for $89.99.

— Camper English

Labels: bourbon, camper_clips, whisky

July 13, 2007