Alcademics

Category: San Francisco

  • 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.

  • Bar-Bary Coast

    Barbarycoastmap
    Wolfgang Weber from the Spume blog and Wine & Spirits Magazine has started a Google map of "classic" (in one way or another) eateries and drinkeries along the Barbary Coast Trail in San Francisco.

    I've never walked the trail myself but now that he's turned it into a bar crawl I'm much more likely to give it a try.

    The map is editable If you happen to know of any classic spots along the path that aren't labeled yet I think you can add them.

  • Heaven’s Dog Preview

    On Monday I had the chance to check out Heaven's Dog, the new Charles Phan (Slanted Door) restaurant and bar opening on in San Francisco on Friday.

    On closer inspection, bar and restaurant would be a more adequate description of the place. There's a small noodle bar/kitchen on one side- almost an adjacent business connected by the bathroom hallway, and a section of the larger, L-shaped room for seating. The long part of the "L" is the bar, cut out of a beautiful, curving vertical slice of a tree, and there is so much room behind it there were more than eight bartenders working at the same time on Monday night. The small part of the "L" is the seating for the restaurant.

    HeavensDogBarDarkSmall

     

    The cocktail menu consists entirely of Charles H. Baker (author of The Gentleman's Companion) drinks. I forgot to bring home a drink menu but the drinks I tried were largely acidic citrus rather than juicy, and very booze-heavy. One drink is simply dark rum with honey syrup and a twist of lemon stirred over a huge hand-carved chunk of ice. Another drink uses the pineapple gum syrup made by Small Hand Foods for Pisco Punch all over town, but in a different way… that I can't recall exactly but it was my favorite drink of the night.

    HeavensDogIceSmall

    When I last wrote about this bar, I noted the all-star staff. Well, it got even starrier. Erick Castro of Bourbon & Branch will be joining for a couple days a week. Also working one shift will be Erik Ellestad, the blogger making every cocktail in the Savoy Cocktail Book, whom I wrote about in a Chronicle story a while back. 

    That also makes it a four-Eric bar. Erik Adkins, Eric Johnson, Erick Castro, and Erik Ellestad. So when you check out the place, make sure to ask for Eri(c)(k).

  • New Bars and Old New Bars

    Sfbgcover
    San Franciscans should immediately leave work and run screaming to their local newsbox to pick up this week's San Francisco Bay Guardian. Why? Because you'll find me waiting for you inside. In the Scene insert I have two stories. One of them is on some new recommended bottles of booze. The other is on new watering holes that have opened in the city this year.

    I realized that I've written the New Bars story for the past three years. Maybe it will be fun to compare my brilliant observations over the years. Let's find out:

    New Bars Story 2006

    • "At least 15 bar-bars, five wine bars, and five clubs opened in the city, as did a bunch of restaurants that serve great drinks. It takes a strong liver to keep current, further blurring the line between journalism and alcoholism."
    •  "Several bars went from upscale to downscale this year, proving that not every lounge needs to be ultra."
    • "Three more art bars opened in 2006, following the success of all the other art bars in town."
    • "American whiskey bars are big, big, big this year, and now there are three new venues in which you can order a sazerac cocktail or a rye Manhattan."
    • "A large number of new restaurants have such great cocktail programs they cause certain writers to spend inordinate amounts of time and money in them without ever trying the food."
    • "Now that every neighborhood in San Francisco has a wine bar or three, the new venues are starting to specialize."

    New Bars Story 2007

    • "Whereas in previous years the lines between bars and art galleries got blurry, this year it’s hard to categorize venues as bars or restaurants or wine bars or cocktail lounges or nightclubs."
    •  "Most of the new wine bars are not really bars at all, though- they’re either wine retail outlets with tasting bars inside, or they’re small plates restaurants by another name."
    • "Some of the best drinking is to be had in eateries with all those fresh fruits, vegetables, and other ingredients in the kitchen just begging to be muddled into cocktails where they belong."
    • "The line between bar and club blurs ever more when there is DJ and bottle service and they serve light appetizers and are open at 5PM. Clubs are opening earlier for increased happy hour drink sales and are demoting space for the dancefloor; in effect becoming cocktail bars with a club crowd."
    •  "For a while, all the beer and wine-only bars were selling soju and sake cocktails in an attempt to stay trendy. This is still true at restaurants without full liquor licenses, but now we’re seeing more beer-focused venues that build the concept around the brew, not the food."
    • "It seems the least popular type of drinking establishment to open this year is the thing we used to know as a bar, where they don’t serve food (or the food only serves to keep you drinking, like the popcorn machine in Tenderloin bars) and there isn’t a dancefloor or cocktail waitresses or bottle service and there still exists a magic time called happy hour."

    New Bars Story 2008

    •  "Not too long ago I’d come home from a night of barhopping with ringing ears and smelling of cigarettes. Now half the time I get home reeking of braised calamari and elderflower with an earful of soft jazz. Most of the new watering holes to open this year were restaurants and hotel lobbies with extravagant bar programs and cocktail lists."
    • "Now that good drinks are in demand at every new restaurant, bartenders are barhopping from venue to venue."
    • "Though hotel lobby bars have traditionally been places to find traditional drinks, now many of them are promoting innovation and eco-cocktails."
    • "A different grape spirit, pisco, a brandy from Peru or Chile, is showing up on the menu at dozens of the best bars in the city."
    •  "Since sitting quietly and sipping is the new raving until dawn, there isn’t too much point in building new warehouse nightclubs. Instead, a few older spots were freshened up and sometimes renamed."

    Hopefully the full story will go online soon for the not-in-SF readers. In the meantime, check out CitySearch's Top 10 New Bars of 2008– which includes a few of them I missed.

  • San Francisco’s Next All-Star Bar

    I recently spoke with Erik Adkins (Slanted Door, Flora) who is the bar manager of the soon-to-open Charles Phan (Slanted Door's chef/owner) restaurant next to the Soma Grand building on Mission Street. After much wavering on the name (the code name was "Phantom" at one point, get it), they seem to have settled on Heaven's Dog. That's pretty rock and roll.

    Kolddraft-cubeAlso great is the list of bartenders who've signed on to take shifts at the place:

    The restaurant should be opening in early January. Adkins tells me that they'll keep the drink menu at a reasonable 12 or so drinks "focusing more on execution than on unusual recipes." They'll also have an emphasis on quality ice, with a Kold Draft machine for cubes, plus a freezer dedicated just to ice that they'll use to make spears for tall drinks and chunks for some of the rocks drinks.

    Brrr, who's thirsty?

  • Store and Pour

    In the December issue of San Francisco Magazine, I have a story on venues like Taverna Aventine, Nihon, the San Francisco Wine Center, and the Occidental Cigar Club where you can store your poison of choice on-site. Read it online here.

    Tavernaaventine