Alcademics

Category: camper_clips

  • Alcademics in Mutineer Magazine

    Mutineercover In the April/May issue of Mutineer magazine, there is a 12-question survey with a bunch of cocktail bloggers, including your pal Camper of Alcademics.

    It's fun to see how different answers are on some topics (making your own ingredients, ingredients we'd like to see used more) and how similar on others (absinthe, vodka vs. gin).

    The magazine, while still finding itself editorially, seems to be coming together rapidly. This issue is a big improvement over the others I've seen. They've got a more equal distribution of writing on wine, beer, and spirits, and have expanded into coffee as well.

    A subscription is ten bucks for one year (six issues)- less than the price of a cocktail in many bars.

  • Top 5 Beer Cocktails on Epicurious.com

    Happymich Hey look, I wrote another story for Epicurious.com!

    It's the Top 5 Beer Cocktails, including ones you know like the Shandy and Black Velvet, plus ones that are probably new to you:

    • The Stout Diplomat by Yanni Kehagiaras
    • The Happy Mich by the Tippling Brothers
    • The Cure by Gina Chersevani

    My previous story for Epicurious was the Top 5 Absinthe Cocktails.

  • How Sweetened It Is

    Here's the second of my two stories in the San Francisco Chronicle this weekend.

    Codydrink


    Spirits: Bartenders find new ways to sweeten the deal

    Camper English, Special to The Chronicle
    Friday, April 10, 2009

    Nearly all cocktails contain a sweetening agent, the simplest of which is raw sugar or simple syrup. Other, newer options include ginger, elderflower, and blood orange liqueurs, floral sugar syrups, fresh grenadine, flavored honey, and syrups made from ingredients like agave and gum Arabic.

    As usual, San Francisco bartenders are not satisfied with the selection.

    Read the story here.

  • Bartender Style

    I have two stories in this Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle. The first one is on bartender style, with man-on-the-street shots taken at the St. George Spirits distillery during the American Distilling Institute conference last weekend.

    Bartenderstyleanimated
    On Location: Bartenders' personal style

    Camper English, Special to The Chronicle
    Friday, April 10, 2009

    Bartenders' outfits are largely dictated by the venues in which they work: dapper attire in hotel bars, uniforms in chain restaurants, trendier fashions in nightclubs and rumpled T-shirts in dive bars. And one gets the impression that bartenders choose their employers based on their personal style, rather than the other way around.

    Read the rest and look at the pics here.

  • Hello, Wall Street!

    Hey, did y'all see Alcademics quoted in the Wall Street Journal this weekend? Wahoo!

    Why Do Mocktails Fall Flat?
    By Eric Felten

    Last year the Dry Soda brand of very lightly sweetened fizzy drinks
    came out with a new flavor, "juniper berry," which it advertised as
    "the perfect 'non-alcoholic gin and tonic.'" Juniper, of course, is the
    distinctive, piney flavoring that distinguishes gin. And so might a
    juniper soda appeal to gin lovers? The definitive response came from
    drinks blogger Camper English: "The problem with non-alcoholic drinks
    is their complete lack of alcohol," he wrote at his site,
    Alcademics.com. "To me, this product sounds like it will pair
    magnificently with leftover vodka to make a gin-free G&T." In other
    words, what's the point?

    Read it here.

  • Camper’s Clampers Bonus: Plaque Pics

    As a bonus supplement to my story in the SF Chronicle on E Clampus Vitus, here are pictures I took of the historic plaques located around SF. I didn't get a picture of the Anchor Brewing or Molloy's Tavern in Colma, but here are the other four.

    SF Brewing Cos
    Old Ship Saloon PlaqueS
    Hotaling BuildingS
    PiscopunchS

    Bonus: Bummer and Lazarus plaque.

    Bummer and lazarusS

  • Camper Meets the Clampers

    Though we like to think the interest in classic cocktails is a recent one, the members of E Clampus Vitus have been celebrating drink history since the year 5937.

    That date – 1932 in our years – corresponds with the rebirth of an organization commonly called ECV, or the Clampers, whose motto, Credo Quia Absurdum, translates (though not exactly) into "I believe because it is absurd."

    Here is the rest of this story I wrote in today's San Francisco Chronicle about E Camplus Vitus, a drinking historical society or a historical drinking society- they can't decide which.

    Clampers1

  • Bar Stars of SF

    The SF Chronicle's Bar Stars 2009 feature just came out, and the introduction to the winners is here.

    The 2009 Bar Stars are:

    I did the write-up of Thad Vogler.

    I think the combination of profiles came out really terrific. I didn't know who the other chosen Bar Stars were or who was writing about them (I assume they were selected by my editor- it was all very top-secret), but in the end the stories reflect the different styles of the bartenders: Brooke creating a new drink of the day, Reza using food flavors, Marco's geekery, Thad's back-to-nature approach, and Cate Whalen's homemade creations.

    So congrats to everybody.

  • Bay Area Distillers Messing with Agave

    Hey, it's double-bonus tequila Friday here at Alcademics!

    I just learned that my Chronicle story on Bay Area distillers and business owners making tequila here or in Mexico went live today. The print story should be out this Sunday, in the newly-merged Food & Wine sections.

    Tequilatime copy

    Read the story here.

    Highlights

    • Julio Bermejo of Tommy's Mexican Restaurant is building his own distillery in Mexico.
    • Miles and Marko Karakasevic of Charbay Distillery and Winery made tequila in Mexico at the famous La Altena distillery.
    • Lance Winters and Jorg Rupf shipped agave to Alameda and distilled it there. This lead to a series of unusual efforts.

    Each distiller is taking an entirely different approach to the process.

    Go read it, there are some juicy news items in there.

  • Drinking by Degree

    Check out my story in the February issue of San Francisco Magazine. It's about tasting clubs around the city where you earn prizes or a degree by working your way through the menu.

    TresAgavesfull

    I focus on the Tequila Passport program at Tres Agaves, but also mention programs at Tommy's Mexican Restaurant, Forbidden Island, and Barclay's in Oakland.

    Read the story here.