My first story for the LA Times Magazine is now online. It is in the Sunday, December 7, 2010 print edition.
(Photo by Bartholomew Cooke)
The story is a brief airing of a pet peeve: Why are there so few cognac cocktails being served when we're supposedly in the midst of a classic cocktail renaissance?
The article also includes four recipes from Damian Windsor of the Roger Room.
Read and enjoy!
I'm in Berlin, Germany blogging for the bar show Bar Convent Berlin. I had a few extra hours today, so I decided to see some of the city. I visited a remaining portion of the Berlin Wall, passed by some sausage stands, had a beer, and saw the sign for the famous cocktail snakes.
The cocktail snakes have a rich history dating back to Second Reich, but were largely unknown outside of the Eastern part of Berlin until after Reunification in 1957.
Today they are some of the most popular tourist destinations in all of Germany, with signs on many street corners directing enthusiasts to the nearest snake bar, known as Snackbarleichten. (American tourists are often confused by the name, expecting to find a snack bar but receiving a poisonous bite instead. Because of the resulting lawsuits, German parliament passed a resolution in 2003 requiring all snake bars to stock plenty of antidote and have nurses on staff.)
In the traditional Snackbarleichten, the snakes are kept in a glass aquarium with an open top at the same level as the bar counter. The bartender ("snackfrau") pours cocktails in oversized glasses; typically a blend of the local schnapps with sugar and a drop of fresh mouse blood. She puts the drink on the bar and then the wait begins.
Eventually one of the snakes will coil itself around the cocktail glass and reach its forked tongue in for a sip of the drink. The snake will take only a few slurps, becoming instantly intoxicated and passing out coiled around the stem of the glass. (Cold-blooded animals have no livers, so alcohol goes directly to the brain.) Only after the snake has fallen asleep do you get your turn to drink- with a straw so you don't wake the snake.
Recently some modern snake bars have opened to cater to the younger generation. These venues (called "ultrasnackbarleichten") house only specially-bred albino snakes that glow in the nightclub-style black light. There, the mouse blood is replaced with Red Bull and the snakes do not sleep, but jitter in a rhythmic motion to the industrial dance music piped in over loudspeakers.
Anyway, that's what I was imagining on my walk following the cocktail snake sign to see what could possibly be at the end of it. Turns out, it's a pharmacy.
I didn't ask if they carried anti-venom kits.
My new story for the San Francisco Chronicle is online.
Latest cocktail trend is low-alcohol drinks
Camper English, Special to The Chronicle
Friday, September 17, 2010
Like a food menu, a proper cocktail list reflects a chosen theme while catering to a variety of diners. The low-alcohol drinks now showing up around San Francisco are designed to satisfy cocktail flexitarians who aren't avoiding alcohol but who don't want the calories, the rapid buzz or that full feeling.
For some drinkers, it's like small-plates dining.
"I like cocktails so much that sometimes I wish all booze was lower in proof because I want to drink more and not feel (the) effects as intensely," says Brooke Arthur, who placed two low-alcohol cocktails on the bar menu she developed for Prospect restaurant.
Go here to read the whole thing and learn about the forthcoming cocktail from Comstock Saloon that sounds ins-a-a-a-ane.
(Photos by Michael Macor / The Chronicle)
Jay Barmann from SFist.com attended my talk at SF Chefs.Food.Wine and kept the handout. Today he's posted my categorization of nearly every type of cocktail program in the city, which is good, because formatting html is a pain.
The categories I made up so don't get too hung up on them- it's just how I see them.
I've been thinking of giving that talk again, because PowerPoint is forever. Let me know if you're into it and maybe I can put something together.
Run screaming to your local newsstand to pick up November's issue of Everyday With Rachael Ray
magazine. I have a story in the issue about how to go out drinking with your hometown friends on the night before Thanksgiving without ending up hungover when you've got to cook all the next day.
Naturally, the advice works for any long night of barhopping and when you don't have to do diddly squat the next day, and there is even a quick and tasty mocktail recipe included.
My latest story in San Francisco Magazine is online here. The pictures are way better in the print version.
Beverages by the bowlful
Though
punch predates the classic cocktails San Franciscans have been sipping
for the past few years, it has taken a while for local mixologists to
commit to it. But in this post-ultralounge era of quieter celebration
and more complicated drinks, well-crafted booze in bulk makes a lot
more sense than the overplayed bling of bottle service at nightclubs.
With punch, you’re paying for an expertly prepared, jumbo-size
cocktail, instead of a marked-up and underchilled bottle of vodka (plus
mixers).
I describe what's going on, the punch at Rickhouse, and where else to drink from the bowl around town. The rest is online here, and in the September issue of San Francisco Magazine.
