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By me, in today’s SF Chronicle: Help celebrate Speakeasy Ales and Lagers’ 10-year anniversary Saturday with a “rousing, riveting, and spine-tingling blowout hullabaloo” party at the Bayview brewery. The free admission event features live music by Brittany Shane, Crosstops and other bands, a barbecue, and of course, beer. They’ll be debuting White Lightning Wheat Beer…

Last week at the Rye cocktail competition, Dominic Venegas was one of the judges. Dominic set up the bar program at Range, bartends at Bourbon & Branch and Cantina, and has designed/revamped cocktail menus for several restaurants around town. Oh, and also he’s the spirits buyer for John Walker & Sons liquor store. In other…

If you have anything to do with the booze industry, you’re probably drowning in muddlers right now. I brought home seven from Tales of the Cocktail, and over the past month I’ve been averaging one new muddler every week. Not on purpose. With so many muddlers (and so few friends to give them to) one…

I posted the story I wrote in 2001 about how to get your daily nutritional requirements in San Francisco from only free bar snacks. Page 1 is here. Page 2 is here. Labels: funny, SanFrancisco

Leblon is a cachaca (Brazilian sugar-cane-based rum) that’s aged 3-6 months in used cognac barrels in France. The last part has always been a confusing point to cachaca consumers. Or at least to me. If it’s aged in France, how can it be called cachaca? Last night I had dinner at Jardiniere with Gerry Schweitzer,…

By me, in today’s San Francisco Chronicle: Jammin’ cocktails Camper English Friday, August 3, 2007 With mixologists around town focusing on farmers’ market fruits and fresh herbs, we wouldn’t have guessed the hot new cocktail ingredients would be marmalade and jam. But we don’t make the trends, just report on them. — Bar Drake, the…

It’s hard for me to leave downtown without stopping into one of my favorite watering holes. And it’s hard for me to leave one of my favorite downtown watering holes without stumbling into one of my other favorite watering holes nearby. Yesterday I hit Bourbon & Branch for some investigative drinking. (The management is not…

I received the latest copy of San Francisco Magazine in the mail today, in which I have a story on the latest trend in nightlife- retro-opulent design bars with demoted dancefloors. In San Francisco, some of the hot new spots opened recently are: Harlot (Bordello theme) Slide (Speakeasy theme) Etiquette (Victorian-bondage theme) Ambassador (Rat Pack…

Bay Area bartenders earn toasts at New Orleans cocktail event Camper English, Special to The Chronicle Friday, July 27, 2007 We like to think our bartenders and their drink creations are extraordinary here in the Bay Area. Last weekend at the Tales of the Cocktail event held in New Orleans, we found validation that it’s…

It became clear at Tales of the Cocktail that the amount of swag was going to be unmanageable, so I started declining freebies unless I was prepared to lug them home. Not everything made it (hope the hotel maid likes vodka!) and I still had two additional pieces of luggage on the way back. My…