Month: August 2007

In September’s San Francisco Magazine I have a story on Cantina, a bar I may have mentioned here once or two hundred times already, as part of the Latin cocktail trend. The story isn’t online, so run screaming to your local newsstand to pick up the new issue. Labels: bars, camper_clips, SanFrancisco

Bay Area home distillers make modern-day moonshine Camper English, Special to The Chronicle Friday, August 24, 2007 Moonshiners live among us. By day they appear to be respectable members of society, perhaps writing software to make your Internet experience run smoothly. But at night and on weekends, after a visit to the farmers’ market or…

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…