Alcademics

Category: camper_clips

  • Black Cocktail Alternatives to Activated Charcoal

    In my latest story for SevenFifty Daily I wrote about how to turn cocktails black without using activated charcoal. 

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    While black cocktails may be extremely Instagram-worthy, the activated charcoal often used to give the drinks their inky hue could have serious health consequences. Activated charcoal can adsorb oral medications (and poisons, in the case of drug overdoses, for which it’s commonly used by emergency room doctors) so that the drugs never reach the bloodstream. It’s an uncomfortable fact that the sexy obsidian-colored old-fashioned you serve to a customer may affect the medication that person has taken shortly before, or after, imbibing.

    While one could add a medication-interaction warning about activated charcoal, like an allergen label on a drink menu, there are other ways to color a drink black that don’t require a scary-sounding note. SevenFifty Daily asked bartenders around the country for cocktail-darkening alternatives and learned that black sesame seeds, cuttlefish ink, and black food coloring are among the ingredients being used.

    The full story is here. 

     

     

  • The Future of San Francisco Cocktails (Predicted By Me) in San Francisco Magazine

    SF Mag cover Feb 2018It has been many years since I have contributed to San Francisco Magazine, but now I'm back! In the new February Bars & Nightlife issue, I have ten stories loosely themed around "Future proofing the cocktail: How Bay Area drink makers are reinventing our favorite alcoholic beverages."

    Below is the intro with links to all ten stories and brief intros from me. 

     

    Two decades into the Bay Area’s cocktail awakening, you’d think that bars would have settled into a comfortable middle age—the imbibing equivalent of staying home to Netflix and chill. But you’d be wrong.

    Creativity stirs all over the region, and drink makers and bar owners continue to spin out new ways to stay relevant and keep us guessing: with secret menus, popup concepts, and menu launch parties; with vibrant drinks, exotic ingredients, and bar-specific spirits; with quality concoctions served at double the speed, thanks to newfangled juices and outsourced ice. And to meet the expanding demand for quality, novelty, and expediency in booze consumption, new clusters of great bars have sprung up not just in the East Bay but also to the north and south. These changes are often nuanced but pervasive, taking place across many bars in many precincts throughout the ever-thirsty Bay Area.

    Scanning the cocktail horizon, you can spot the big ideas and the small revisions that are changing the way we drink in 2018 and beyond. Here are 10 of them.

    Bartenders Are Going Straight to the Source 

    How bartenders are directing spirits creation from distillers. 

    Forget The Simple Description: These Are Very Complicated Cocktails

    A look into the mind of Adam Chapman from The Gibson.

    Wine Country Has An Unofficial Cocktail AVA

    Drinks at the fantastic Duke's and other Healdsburg cocktail bars. 

    The Future (and Present, Actually) Is Female

    Who runs the bars? Girls. A sampling of ten women running things in Bay Area Bars. 

    Asian Restaurants Are the Center of Cocktail Innovation

    Once the home of sake bombs and soju immitations of real drinks, now Asian restaurants are some of the most forward-looking. 

    Viking Drinks Are So Hot Right Now

    Aquivit will be everywhere in 2018.

    You'll Be Spending the Night in San Jose

    Paper Plane and other great bars in San Jose.

    Your Highball Intake Is About to Increase Dramatically

    Whiskey and other highballs are happening. 

    Outsourcing Is In

    Blind Tiger Ice and Super Jugoso are going to have a major impact on prep work in SF bars. 

    The Mission Has Only Just Begun 

    So, so many new bars are opening in the Mission District. 

     

    I've already got my next assignment for San Francisco Magazine, so hopefully this will be a regular thing. 

     

     

     

  • Allergy Labelling Approaches on Cocktail Bar Menus in the US and Abroad

    AllergyIn an era when customers are more and more attuned to their allergies, aversions, and dietary restrictions, and as bartenders are using evermore exotic ingredients in their drinks, it may be time to consider adding warning labels to the cocktail menu.

    In a story I wrote for SevenFifty Daily, I took a look at some bars’ philosophies on the matter and the labeling schemes they’re employing to warn customers about potential dangers in their drinks.

    We looked at labelling for nuts, seafood, soy, gluten, vegan/vegetarian, how these are listed on various menus or handled only in person, and look at a few unusual things that need to be labelled in UK bars. 

    Bars I spoke to include Trick Dog, the Proper Hotel, and the Tonga Room in San Francisco, Bar Clacson in LA, Bresca in DC, Saint Ellie in Denver, Bar Fiori in NYC, The Aviary in Chicago and New York, and The Hide Bar in London. 

     I hope you get a lot out of the story, I had a great time researching it. Read it here. 

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  • Ice Tips in Southwest Airlines Magazine

    IMG_8963If you're traveling in December on Southwest, you may notice an illustration of an ice ball with a strawberry in it. That's based on a real strawberry inside a real ice ball, that you may have seen here on Alcademics. 

     

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    I don't see the story online, so I'll post it below.  

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    For more information on how to make awesome ice balls with stuff inside them, check out this post and this post, and of course the Index of Ice Experiments here on Alcademics.

    Thanks to writer Michael Cook for writing the story and thanks to my friends who spotted it in magazine and snapped pictures for me!

     

     

  • That Time I was a Resident Ice-Pert

    Screen Shot 2017-11-20 at 7.27.25 PMLast week in New York, I was the "resident ice-pert" for the Hennessy Le Grand Voyage. The experience was a walk-through super-Instagrammable introduction to the production of the cognac. 

    There was a rain room representing the vineyards, a color-changing still room, an aromatic barrel room, and an interstellar sort of tasting room, all before one arrived in the lounge where I was stationed on press preview day. 

    It was pretty cool. Here is a story about it from The Latin Times, and here is the press release on PR Newswire. 

     

     

    And here is another awesome picture of me. 

    Camper Hennessy Photo by Dave Kotinsky:Getty Images for Hennessy

    Photo by Dave Kotinsky:Getty Images for Hennessy

  • The Gin & Tonic Stage Show at Bar Convent Berlin

    I thought I'd share the awesome stage set-up put on for my talk at the recent Bar Convent Berlin, since it was awesome. I gave a talk on the Weird and Wild History of the Gin & Tonic. The talk was sponsored by Rutte Distillery, and they went all out in creating stage props. 

     

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    The talk was divided into six chapters, and for each chapter there was a corresponding panel on the side of the stage. The panels were about 10 feet tall, and my "assistant," brand ambassador Steffen Zimmermann, opened the panel to reveal the illustration. 

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    Steffen and I got matching suits so that he could be "Maxi-Me." I found suits that have tulips on them to play up the Holland connection of the gin. 

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    The panels were based on stories in my book. The first one is a pope transitioning into a blood-sucking mosquito. The most fun one is a scientist discovering the color mauve. The top panel is the scientist discovering the color; the bottom half that opens separately is the scientist wearing a dress as he abandons science for the fashion industry. 

     

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    Thanks to Hanna Lee for taking and sending me these pictures, and the Rutte for sponsoring the talk, the props, and the special printing of the book!

     

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  • Bugs are Back in Your Booze

    In my latest story for SevenFifty Daily, I wrote about the return of cochineal coloring in spirits. As you probably know, Campari removed the cochineal from their formula around 2006. Now a lot of brands – some of them Campari substitutes, some not – are putting it back in. 

    Read the story here. 

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  • This Guy will have Visited all the World’s 50 Best Bars

    Nico de Soto of Mace in New York has visited 49 out of the World's 50 Best Bars 2016 list. He'll hit the last one shortly, and if his predictions are correct, also finish the 2017 list (announced October 5th in London) soon afterward. 

    I interviewed him for SevenFifty Daily. 

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  • Sensors in the Whiskey Warehouse Sending Data in Real-Time

    In my latest story for SevenFifty Daily, I wrote about new temperature and humidity sensors installed in warehouses at Buffalo Trace, and what those could mean for studying aging of spirits and adjusting future blends.

    Check it out here.

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  • The ROI of TOTC

    TalesIn my latest piece for SevenFifty Daily, I asked a bunch of people about the return on investment of Tales of the Cocktail: How they measure it and how they maximize it. I also interviewed Tales' founder Ann Tuennerman to get her advice on how to maximize the event as an attendee or small brand sponsor, and addressing the question, "Is Tales too big?"

    I think there's some really good information and insight throughout the story, especially for people and brands experiencing some growing pains as Tales seems to grow ever larger. 

    Please check it out.