Category: trends

  • Bar Eras in San Francisco and Beyond

    I have a great-looking four-page story in the August Eat + Drink issue of 7×7 Magazine. 

    The story splits up old bars and new bars inspired by old bars into five types/eras: Barbary Coast, Speakeasy,  Martini Bar, Tiki Bar, and Fern Bar. In each category I list some identifying factors and a few era-appropriate drinks. 

     There are also tons of great pictures by photographer Erin Kunkel, including these yanked from the 7×7 website. 

    Read the story online here or pick up the magazine on the newsstand for even more pictures than on the website. 

    Barbary coast bars in san francisco
    Fern bars in san franicsco history
      
    Tiki bars in san francisco history
     

  • Tiki Drinks in Fine Cooking Magazine

    Oh hey, my latest story for Fine Cooking magazine is online already. 

    Tiki Time

    Showstopping tiki drinks are back on the menu, and they’re causing quite a stir. Here’s how to create these tasty cocktails at home—don’t forget the swizzle sticks and umbrellas.

    by Camper English

    Sipping from opposite sides of a cocktail served in a hollowed-out pineapple, a young couple poses for a photo by a waterfall. This isn’t a scene from a Hawaiian vacation in the 1960s, but one I observed earlier this year at Smuggler’s Cove, a buzzing new San Francisco bar. This establishment, and the many others just like it springing up across the country, is a tiki lounge, serving classic Polynesian-themed cocktails. These once-out-of-favor joints and their kitschy cocktails, like the mai tai, zombie, and planter’s punch, are making quite a comeback.

    So what makes a cocktail a tiki cocktail? These drinks have several common characteristics…. 

    Read the rest of my feature on the return of tiki

    Liftoff 
    Chi chi pache 
    Barbaryswizzle 

     
     
    Not only does it contain thrilling information on tiki, it has recipes from three people you may have heard of:

  • The Great Debate Continues

    You may recall a few weeks ago I wrote a piece for the San Francisco Chronicle about bartenders being less snobby that proved a bit controversial.  Now a few others have taken up the conversation.

    My initial story had the following quote from Erick Castro of Rickhouse that touched a few nerves:

    "Three years ago it was OK to be rude. It used to be 'I'm not making a cosmo and you're a horrible person.' Now we say, 'I'm not making a cosmo, but I'm making you something better than a cosmo.' And if they like (the drink) they trust you for the whole night."

    So then I wrote a blog post called, "Why Can't I Get a McDonald's Hamburger at Chez Panisse?" and that gave birth to more discussion.

    The Paul Clarke picked up the topic at Serious Eats in a post called "Serious Cocktails: Is the Customer Always Right?" In it he asks:

    Just as it'd be ridiculous to enter a dive bar and ask for a Last Word, isn't there something at least slightly wrong with going to a bar with a spectacular selection of spirits—an ambitious and balanced cocktail menu and a carefully developed mixological aesthetic—and asking for the bibulous equivalent of a baloney sandwich?

    This story picked up another 67 comments so far. 

    Then Lauren Clark picked up the topic on DrinkBoston.com in a post called "We've Seen This Before" and adds a very good point- that this whole debate is nothing new and has been seen in food, beer, and wine.

    I experienced this kind of change first-hand during my brief stint in the craft brewing industry in the late ’90s. Even though craft beer had been proliferating for over a decade at that point, people would still walk into a brewpub and order a Miller Lite. The bartender would explain that there was no Miller Lite on tap, that the establishment sold only beer that was made on the premises, and he would suggest a golden ale — milder than the pub’s other beers but still way more flavorful than mass-produced light lager. The customer would either leave or try the golden ale. If he tried it and liked it enough, he might get adventuresome later on and order an IPA or a porter. It was a process, and it didn’t happen overnight.

    This is fun. I hope this discussion continues on and offline.

  • Why Can’t I Get a McDonald’s Hamburger at Chez Panisse?

    In response to my recent story in the San Francisco Chronicle on high-end bars becoming more accommodating to patrons' requests, many people wrote into the comments about how snooty bartenders are who won't give you the drinks that you want.

    The Chronicle's commenters are a notoriously (and often hilariously) opinionated bunch, so I don't take offense to anything they say. By and large, they were all terribly upset with Erick Castro of Rickhouse's quote:

    "Three years ago it was OK to be rude. It used to be 'I'm not making a
    cosmo and you're a horrible person.' Now we say, 'I'm not making a
    cosmo, but I'm making you something better than a cosmo.' And if they
    like (the drink) they trust you for the whole night."

    Commenters were offended that a bartender is so arrogant as to think he knows better than the customer, and offended that a bartender wouldn't make the customer what he wants.

    I know that in the case of Rickhouse they don't carry cranberry juice, so they actually can't make a Cosmo. I believe all of the other drinks cited by commenters cannot be made at Rickhouse either- drinks with Midori, 7UP, Malibu, etc. They do not carry these products on principle, and thus cannot make drinks with them.

    So Rickhouse can't/won't make a Cosmo, and that makes people mad. But does it also infuriate them that Chez Panisse (probably) can't make a McDonald's hamburger?

    Would you be surprised at Chez Panisse if you asked your waiter for a McDonald's hamburger and they steered your toward something similar and better, like a grass-fed, free-range beef burger on a fresh-baked bread roll with organic ketchup? Would you consider them arrogant? Call for the waiter to lose their job?

    Only if you can't see the difference between McDonald's and Chez Panisse; between fast food and fine dining. And that is the image problem that cocktail bars have. Many people still think every bar is a McDonalds, when most bars that make the news are evolving toward something better. 

    The better cocktail bars are not actually suffering from this lack of understanding- there's a huge demand for them, in fact, and in my experience the places selling $10 cocktails are affected less in this recession than places selling $6 ones. So despite complaints, better cocktail bars are safe, for now.

    The funny thing is that speakeasy bars were originally a theme concept,
    but evolved into a practical concept: hiding the bars from people who
    don't yet know that not every bar serves Bud and has sports on TV.

    Some people worry that the perceived arrogance of the bartenders in these places will make this better-drinking era a trend rather than an ongoing movement. I think that's a valid concern, as fine cocktails are very trendy right now. I'd hate to see this movement lose momentum as there is so, so much further to go with it.

    As was the point in my original article, bartenders are learning how to talk to patrons in a nicer way to steer them away from lesser-quality or marketing-driven drink choices and into better ones. But is there more that can be done- in the media or by bartenders/bar owners- to make a clearer break between the fast food version of bars and the ones more like fine dining?

  • User-Generated Cocktails

    Here is my latest story in the San Francisco Chronicle, December 27th 2009 edition.

    Bartenders shift from lecture to nurture

    Camper English, Special to The Chronicle

    Friday, December 25, 2009

    A common sight in the nation's speakeasy-themed bars is a list of rules about what one can and cannot do – and can and cannot order. But among a newer batch of bars, the trendiest design feature is dialogue.

    "Three years ago it was OK to be rude. It used to be 'I'm not making a cosmo and you're a horrible person.' Now we say, 'I'm not making a cosmo, but I'm making you something better than a cosmo.' And if they like (the drink) they trust you for the whole night," says Erick Castro, general manager at Rickhouse in San Francisco's Financial District.

    Bartenders at top cocktail spots have shifted from a lecturing mode into more of a nurturing one, and Castro says the strategy has paid off.

    "The same people who used to complain that we didn't have Bud Light and Grey Goose are now our biggest customers, coming in three times a week and ordering rye Manhattans," he says.

    speakeasy rules cocktail bar with rules

    Read the rest of the story here. The story centers on how bartenders are trusting consumers to trust them more, instead of focusing on lists of rules of behavior. The story namechecks Heaven's Dog, Bourbon & Branch, Rickhouse, The Alembic in San Francisco, Copa d'Oro in Santa Monica, Drink in Boston, Klee in Singapore, and door74 in Amsterdam.

    Yeah, I get around.

  • Bartenders Hitting Their Hoes

    For some reason, the San Francisco Chronicle didn't choose the above title for my story that comes out Sunday August 30th. I can't think of why.

    More bars growing own cocktail ingredients

    Camper English, Special to The Chronicle

    Friday, August 28, 2009

     Victoria D'Amato-Moran grows tomatoes, Asian pears, Fuji apples, blackberries, roses and many herbs in her South San Francisco garden. Sooner or later, everything in it winds up in her cocktails.

    "Except the zucchinis," she says. "I haven't figured out how to use those yet."

    Gartenders2

    The Bay Area has long been home to the farm-forward cocktail movement – initially personified by Scott Beattie, then of Cyrus restaurant, who sourced produce from neighbors' fruit trees for his bar. Lately, more bartenders are doing the gardening work themselves, for the same reason that backyard gardeners seem to have appeared everywhere.

    The extra effort may not save money, and the drinks may not taste noticeably fresher to the customer, but you can bet they do to the proud garden tender who grew part of your gimlet from seed.

    Read the rest of my story in this Sunday's Chronicle about bartenders who also tend to gardens, including Duggan McDonnell, H. Joseph Ehrmann, Daniel Hyatt, Scott Stewart, Thad Vogler, and Lane Ford, and the bars Fairway Cocktail Lounge, Cyrus, Elixir, Alembic, Cantina, Fifth Floor, Bar Agricole, Starbelly, Sprcue, Brix, and Etoile. Gosh I'm thorough.

    Also: there's a recipe for Jacques Bezuidenhout's Sagerac, a version of the Sazerac made with fresh picked sage, and Scott Stewart's Lonsdale No. 3 made with fresh basil.

    Gartenders1

  • Heirloom Tomatoes, Ripe for Drinking

    It's tomato season and all the local restaurants are rolling out the tomato carts and tomato specialty dinners. The bartenders are getting in on the action too.

    Zing At Range, Carlos Yturria's famous Sungold Zinger is back on the menu, made with Sungold Zinger cherry tomatoes, No. 209 gin, lemon, agave syrup, and salt.

    The bartenders at Range restaurant in San Francisco have started two blogs, by the way. Cocktail of the Day lists the daily cocktail served at the restaurant, and Inside the Blood Bank (from which I stole the picture) is a more general bartender and drink blog.

    Elsewhere in tomato drink news, Carneros Bistro & Wine Bar in Sonoma is serving a tomato basil martini with your choice of gin or vodka.

    And as part of the tomato dinner Sent Sovi in Saratoga greets guests with a Lemon Boy Bellini. Tomato Bellini? That sounds oddly delicious.

  • 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.