Alcademics

Category: San Francisco

  • 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

  • A Bar Contest You Don’t Want to Win

    Eater SF hosted a "Douchiest Bar in San Francisco" contest. The winner, unfortunately for them, was Medjool, the rooftop bar in the Mission. Filling out the Top 5 were Matrix Fillmore, Bar None, Americano, and Zeitgeist.

    The comments on the original post are priceless.

    "It's as if the marina suddenly puked up it's best and brightest in the
    fields of self-absorption, douchbaggery and cougardom into one
    consolidated spot… and then poured 1,000 cosmos into the mix."

    Oof.

  • The Craziest New Cocktail Menu in San Francisco

    DOSA Fillmore opens on Friday, but the drink menu for the restaurant has been released. The cocktails were created by Jonny Raglin of Absinthe, and they look insane. I can't wait to try them.

    Batsman
    Martin Miller’s Gin, Darjeeling tea cordial, lemon juice & ginger beer, served over ice with a mint sprig 9

    Bowler
    Marian Farms bio-dynamic Pisco, mango gastrique, “hell flower” tincture, served up with a lime twist 9

    Juhu
    Palm DH Krahn Gin, coconut milk, lime juice, Kaffir lime leaf, bird’s eye chili served up with a spanked curry leaf 10

    Bollywood Hills
    Sub Rosa Saffron Vodka, orgeat syrup, lime juice, allspice dram, served up with pickled mango 10

    Elephant Parade
    No. 209 Gin, pineapple gomme, ginger, cilantro, seltzer water, served long over ice with a pineapple flag 11

    Bengali Gimlet
    Tanqueray Rangpur Gin, ‘curried’ nectar, Kaffir lime leaf and lime juice, served up with a wedge of lime 10

    Laughing Lassi
    Bols Genever, Strauss yogurt, cucumber, grains of paradise, agave nectar, Angostura, served chilled with mint 12

    Faux Swizzle
    El Dorado Rum, St. Germain Elderflower, chicory bitters, served over crushed ice with a sugar-dusted mint sprig 9

    Mood Indigo
    Buffalo Trace Bourbon, jackfruit marmalade, Angostura bitters, chilled, topped with Champagne 10

    Smoked Cup
    Benesin Organic Mezcal, Pimm’s, black cardamon tincture, ginger beer, cucumber & smoked sea salt, over ice 11

  • Here’s that story I wrote about bartenders

    Bay Area's best mixologists leaving bars for brandsSanter

    Camper English, Special to The Chronicle

    Friday, September 19, 2008

    While you're still likely to run into many of San Francisco's best
    mixologists in the usual cocktail hot spots, increasingly they'll be
    standing on the other side of the bar.

    That's because many local bartenders have accepted full- or part-time
    positions as spirits brand ambassadors, bar consultants and sales
    representatives. David Nepove, Jon Santer, Jacques Bezuidenhout and
    Todd Smith are some of the top talent who are working behind the stick
    one night per week, if that. Even more are bartending three nights or
    fewer.  Smith

    Venegas

    (read the rest of the story here)

  • Who’s rocking at the clock?

    Not only is Bacar’s Joe Parrilli now working at the Clock Bar (note: hat-less!), Bourbon & Branch’s Kevin Diedrich will be pulling shifts there too starting today. He told me he’ll still be spending some time at Bourbon & Branch- after all, he’s the one creating a lot of the homemade syrups, tonic water, and other items on the list.

    With three good guys behind the bar, Clock Bar should make a swell addition to the downtown cocktail circuit- as if I needed another just-stop-in-for-a-drink place in the neighborhood. (I would like to ride the BART train home without a buzz on occasion.) I was in the place this past Friday night around 10PM and it was full but not packed- just the way  I like it. Actually, I like bars mostly empty, but there’s little chance of that happening there.