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The Downtown Vortex

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 so good at returning email or phone calls so I had to go to the source. ) The Rouge No. 10 (black pepper-infused gin and strawberries) is still on the menu temporarily, as is another farmer's market drink with peaches and the pepper gin. I'm all about the pepper so I had the peach drink as a change, which was good but the Rouge is better. I'm going back on Monday and they better still have it or I'm going to voice a strong objection. Fear my wrath!

I left with good intentions of going to the library afterwards but somehow I never made it there and stopped into Cantina instead. I'd missed the pisco party they held the previous Saturday, but Aaron was nice enough to make me one of the drinks from the special menu they served. Okay, two drinks. The Galapagos had peppercorn-infused syrup in it so you know I wanted that. The Blushing Lima had Cherry Heering in it, which I never knew actually tasted like cherries as it's usually used in small amount in classic cocktails. But in this drink it was alive. Alive!

Labels: cocktails, SanFrancisco

Introducing the Shotzi

While waiting for flights back to San Francisco from New Orleans, some of the hungover travelers were trying to piece together what happened the previous evening.

Him: "I remember we were all doing shots..."

Her: "You were making us all drink tequila shots, and you started freaking out when I wanted Jack. You went off for like five minutes about how we all had to do the same shot. You were like a shot Nazi!"

Me: "What's up, Shotzi!"

Labels: funny

Sick Day Sommelier

Career fantasy vacations are growing in popularity, with people signing on to be interns as chocolatiers, fashion designers, brewmasters, and other dream jobs. Now the Fifth Floor Restaurant and Hotel Palomar offers a Weekend Sommelier package. For $250 guests work with Fifth Floor wine director (and excellent teacher- I've taken one of her "Wines on Wine" classes) Emily Wines, visiting the wine cellar, sampling the night’s dinner with the staff to develop the daily wine specials, serving wine alongside Wines during the dinner course, and of course, engaging in a couple of tasting sessions throughout the day. And you don’t need to be from out of town or stay at the Palomar to do it- the Weekend Sommelier program is open to the public, and you can complete the program on a weekday if you want. That way, locals can enroll in the program as a Sick-Day Sommelier.

They don't have any information about the program on the Fifth Floor website, but you can call (415) 348-1555 for the goods.

Labels: SanFrancisco, training, wine

New drinks in the city

Thursday and Friday of this week I did some (PR-sponsored) investigative drinking at these spots.

Sudachi, the new sushi bar on the Polk Street (near the Hemlock, R Bar, Vertigo, Lush Lounge barhopping district) recently opened with a sushi bar room and a front restaurant/entertainment room. They have DJs and live jazz playing a few nights of the week in the front room, with additional programming to come. They have only a beer and wine license now but have made soju cocktails to compensate. The Blueberry Aloe Mojito was fairly tasty, but not as impressive once we asked to see the aloe juice and found it's some strange grape flavored product rather than a natural product like agave nectar. The Plum Ginger Mojito I liked best of the drinks we tried, with the Watermelon3 (that should be "watermelon cubed") tasting like watermelon juice and the Nigori Sunrise needing something else to bring it together (orange bitters, perhaps?).

Anyway, the food I tried there was delicious- I had the mushroom salad. But oh, the tofu fries! They made me a very happy vegetarian in a sushi restaurant. Sudachi should be a good spot to stop off and refuel on your next Polk pub crawl.

The next day I met for happy hour at Bacar, the wine-centric restaurant revamping with some management, space, and menu changes if I understand correctly. I saw Zack from Frisson and Jason from Mecca working the bars, so that was a good sign. They're changing the cocktail menu too, and I got a sneak peak at the new drinks. (They said the names may change so the drinks may be called something else when you visit. ) They shook up about seven of them all at the same time and left us to sample. Hey, this is work!

Three of them really stood out as terrific: the sweet Basil & Buca (vodka, sambuca, basil, and lime, served up), the solid Herradura Nectar (nectarine and lemon verbena-infused anejo tequila with lime and a ginger sugar rim, on the rocks) , and the ultimate combination of trendy ingredients Monk's Flower (Chartreuse, St. Germain Elderflower, and rose champagne, on the rocks).

Bacar is quite a long walk from Market Street, but it is close to Tres Agaves and Coco500. And if you hit all three you're surely need to sobering walk back to the BART station.

Labels: bars, cocktails, SanFrancisco

The New Clubs (Are Actually Bars)

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 theme)

Another interesting note is venues that are more crowded and clubby, such as Harlot and Etiquette, have a specialty cocktail menu at happy hour that they then hide at night when there isn't time for muddling and squeezing fresh juice.

Labels: bars, camper_clips, SanFrancisco

Bay Area bartenders earn toasts at New Orleans cocktail event

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 not just too many Negronis triggering our hometown pride -- the Bay Area's bartenders are finally getting respect at the national level.

In its fifth year, the Tales of the Cocktail conference celebrates the history of cocktails in New Orleans and the practice of making them around the world. Though open to the public, the event is heavily attended by people in the beverage industry, from small-city bartenders on up to major spirits distributors. Approximately 12,000 people were at the event July 18 to 22.

Esquire magazine cocktail correspondent and historian David Wondrich, who gave several talks at Tales of the Cocktail, said: "In San Francisco (the bars) tend to have that neighborhoody feel but they specialize much more in cocktails. It's like cocktail culture never went away."

Read it here.

Labels: bartending, camper_clips, SanFrancisco, tales_of_the_cocktail

The Tales of the Cocktail Swag Awards

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 end tally was 9 pens, 6 keychains, 4 bottle openers, 2 shaker sets, 11 pieces of glassware, 4 DVDs, 4 CDs, 5 mini-bottles, 7 muddlers, 4 books, and a heck of a lot of miscellaneous. And I now present:

The Tales of the Cocktail Swag Awards

• Most over-gifted swag category: muddler
• Best muddler: Plymouth Gin's long unfinished wood mallet
• Most unnecessary swag category: keychains
  
• Most unexpected item: Twelve ounces of Dancing Goats coffee, not ground
• Best item for brownosing journalists (tie): Bombay Sapphire reporter's notebook and Ciroc light-up pen
• Most practical item I didn't already own: jigger (unbranded, donated by Barsol Pisco)
• Biggest missed branding opportunity: see above
• Most practical item I didn't know I wanted: Rums of Puerto Rico cocktail apron
• Most expensive swag: set of 9 Riedel spirits tasting glasses
• Most unwieldy swag: full-sized bottle of Absolut New Orleans vodka
  
• Best use of brand name in swag item: Rain Vodka umbrella

Labels: swag, tales_of_the_cocktail

Tales of the Cocktail 4 - The last two days

I think I'm a rare person that made it through all of Tales of the Cocktail without a hangover. But then I drank a lot on the plane and have one today back in San Francisco. Still, the conference was exhausting and I was starting to feel it on Saturday.

At the Cocktails and the Blogosphere talk, they touched on a few interesting things:

• Blogs' strong points are they're both updated regularly and interactive, and can reach a lot of people fast.
  
• They have the ability to spread the word about great recipes (for drinks or drink ingredients) and products, and effect cocktail menus and consumption on a pretty large scale.
  
• PR people haven't been so good at paying attention to blogs and pitching the appropriate ones.

The vermouth section was pretty advanced so I'm going to need to parse through the handouts to get up to speed.

The Riedel spirits glassware tasting was terrific. In three different types of glasses we had three different wood-aged spirits and we tasted through to find the glass that brought out the best aspects of the spirit, while minimizing the alcohol burn. While tasting the Islay scotch, one glass made the nose smoke first, then fruit behind it while another glass achieved the opposite. It makes me want to re-taste everything in my liquor cabinet in different glasses!

Then we went out drinking. I bowed out relatively early but many others saw the sun come up.

The next day I first packed up my swag, which took some time. I had lunch at Riche in the Harrah's where we were staying, and managed to get to the Tales of the Cocktail Spirit Awards late enough that it was over. Drat! Many people looked like hell at this point and lept out of bed showing up at the awards ceremony in yesterday's clothes. I guess that's an appropriate ending to the event.

And I'm definitely planning on going again next year.

Labels: tales_of_the_cocktail