Category: camper_clips

A Little Overkill at my Tales of the Cocktail Seminar on Bitter Flavors
This year as usual I gave a seminar at Tales of the Cocktail (well this year I gave one myself and then was on a panel for another one; this post is about the one I gave solo). This one was called Bitter Flavors: Taste the Rainbow.

The idea was to give everyone information and tasting on individual bitter flavors- particularly the major ones of quinine/cinchona, wormwood, gentian, and rhubarb- because so often they're mixed together in amari and bitters. I chose for my tasting spirits that I thought were most indicative of the bitter flavors:
- Rhubarb: Zucca (they sponsored the seminar)
- Wormwood: Amaro Alta Verde
- Gentian: Saler's Gentiane
- Cinchona: Kina Aero d'Or
Plus Zucca wanted to feature a couple of cocktails, so at just 1 sample of each type of bitters I was worried that I wouldn't be able to ensure everyone could really isolate each type of bitter flavor.

So, as is my way, I panicked and went way overboard on homemade samples. By the end, everyone at their seat had 2 cocktails, 4 bitter beverages, 10 microtubes of bitter tasting samples, and 5 bitter solids.

The preparation took me (along with help from my pal Maria) dozens of hours. I made infusions of various bitter flavors in alcohol, then diluted those down with water so they were essentially non-alcoholic. Then we put them all in microtubes and the solids in little baggies (luckily I live near a bong store), labelled them all, and then made an index and assembled ziplocks of everything.

Oh, and I also created a print-out of most popular vermouth and amaro brands, and what the known and suspected bittering agents are in each. That project took me another 20 hours or so. Sometimes I think I might go too far.

So during the seminar we now had plenty to taste and in the case of those big four bitter flavors, a finished product to confirm that taste in a product they could find on the shelf. The seminar seemed to go really well (we'll see when I get the reviews back) and I certainly felt everyone got their money's worth- a big fear of mine when I'm presenting.

(photo stolen from Maggie Campbell)

I'm not sure that I'll ever do this seminar again in this format, but I may put together an ebook of some sort with the information from the seminar in it.
August 7, 2018
Three East Bay Drinking Itineraries in the July Issue of San Francisco Magazine
For my latest story in San Francisco Magazine, I wrote about three drinking itineraries in the East Bay. The five-page story is called The New Beverage Belt and it involves three tours:
- Cocktail bars in Uptown Oakland, including the just-opened Hello Stranger and forthcoming Here's How.
- Tasting Rooms of Alameda, with seven stops including the Hangar One and St. George Spirits distilleries.
- Day Drinking in Jack London Square, which was 100% an excuse to write about Heinold's First and Last Chance Saloon – and happily they took the photos of the bar to accompany the story.
I did a lot of drinking as research for the story, so out of respect for my liver go out and pick up a copy of the magazine or read it online!
June 29, 2018
Once Always Almond, Orgeat Has Gone Nutty!

In my new story for SevenFifty Daily, I wrote about how orgeat, the French almond syrup famously in the Mai Tai, is now being made with a range of nuts, seeds, and other ingredients.

The story cites examples from around the country and we come up with a new working definition for orgeat.

Check it out!

April 9, 2018
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.

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.

March 23, 2018
The Future of San Francisco Cocktails (Predicted By Me) in San Francisco Magazine

It 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.

February 3, 2018
Allergy Labelling Approaches on Cocktail Bar Menus in the US and Abroad

In 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.

January 26, 2018
Ice Tips in Southwest Airlines Magazine

If 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.

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

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!

December 13, 2017
That Time I was a Resident Ice-Pert

Last 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.

Photo by Dave Kotinsky:Getty Images for Hennessy

November 21, 2017
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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

October 23, 2017
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.

October 6, 2017