Alcademics.com

The New Noilly

Cocktail nerds are abuzz these days with the news that the recipe for Noilly Prat vermouth has changed, as has the bottle. Word is that the American version, which was designed to be mixed into cocktails, will now be replaced with the European, which is more often sipped on its own and not mixed. It is said to be more intense and woody than the previous version.

Spirit Me Away compares the old and new formulas.

Major Map of Micro-Distillers

The American Distilling Institute put together this great map of craft distillers in America. I'm not sure if it's limited to members or what the criteria is to be included, but regardless this is a very cool (and for me, very useful) way to find small distillers in different locations. On the website, clicking on the map will take you to a PDF file that links to each of the distilleries numbered.

Out of the Bathtub and Into the Kitchen

Gourmet.com has a recipe for making gin out of vodka by infusing it with herbs and berries. I can't wait to try it.

I also think this would make an excellent gift for the gin lover in your life: Hand him or her a bottle of vodka to make them squirm, then in the card that comes with it have all the herbs and the recipe in the envelope. Tee hee!

Pisco Punch, By the Bowl

Check out this recipe for a relatively easy (no gum Arabic required!) bowl of Pisco Punch by the Pegu Club's Audrey Saunders. The recipe if for a bowl of punch but with the way it's put together you could make individual portions. It''s part of a series of holiday punches from New York Magazine.

Mmm, Holiday pisco.

Manhattan to Martinez to Martini

If you haven't already, check out Eric Felten's story tracing of the evolution of the drink from the Manhattan to the Martinez (the focus of the story, called the "missing link") to the Martini.

Great stuff as always from Felten.

Recommended Bottles in the SFBG

In the San Francisco Bay Guardian this week I have a story on some recommended bottles to pick up this winter season. Here's the picture.

Glossy Booze: Mid-December Edition

Glossy Booze is a round-up of alcohol stories in glossy magazines.

-Playboy (December) has a story on recommended bottles of scotch, divided into Speyside, island malt, Highlands, and blended whisky categories. There are recipes for the Roby Roy, Aberdeen Angus (scotch, honey, lime, Drambuie), and Black Jesus Shooters (one part Jagermeister to two parts scotch). Also in this issue, best winter brews.

-Best Life (December/January) has a story by Sang Yoon (owner of Father's Office restaurants) on recommended champagnes.

-Sunset (November, which just showed up to my house in December) has 10 wine-based mini-esapes.  In the December issue, there are three mocktails from Lucy Brennan of Mint and 820.

-Bon Appetit (January) lists the recipe for the Isle of Pines cocktail (pomegranate juice, rum, grapefruit juice), a list of essential bottles for the home bar, and a blurb on Mud Puddle Books' reprints.

- In 7x7 Magazine, Jordan Mackay has a story on half-bottles of wine, and another on hot drinks like the Spanish Coffee. The story and recipe are online. Also on the 7x7 website is a commercial eggnog taste test.

New Bars and Old New Bars

San Franciscans should immediately leave work and run screaming to their local newsbox to pick up this week's San Francisco Bay Guardian. Why? Because you'll find me waiting for you inside. In the Scene insert I have two stories. One of them is on some new recommended bottles of booze. The other is on new watering holes that have opened in the city this year.

I realized that I've written the New Bars story for the past three years. Maybe it will be fun to compare my brilliant observations over the years. Let's find out:

New Bars Story 2006

• "At least 15 bar-bars, five wine bars, and five clubs opened in the city, as did a bunch of restaurants that serve great drinks. It takes a strong liver to keep current, further blurring the line between journalism and alcoholism."
•  "Several bars went from upscale to downscale this year, proving that not every lounge needs to be ultra."
• "Three more art bars opened in 2006, following the success of all the other art bars in town."
• "American whiskey bars are big, big, big this year, and now there are three new venues in which you can order a sazerac cocktail or a rye Manhattan."
• "A large number of new restaurants have such great cocktail programs they cause certain writers to spend inordinate amounts of time and money in them without ever trying the food."
• "Now that every neighborhood in San Francisco has a wine bar or three, the new venues are starting to specialize."

New Bars Story 2007

• "Whereas in previous years the lines between bars and art galleries got blurry, this year it’s hard to categorize venues as bars or restaurants or wine bars or cocktail lounges or nightclubs."
•  "Most of the new wine bars are not really bars at all, though- they’re either wine retail outlets with tasting bars inside, or they’re small plates restaurants by another name."
• "Some of the best drinking is to be had in eateries with all those fresh fruits, vegetables, and other ingredients in the kitchen just begging to be muddled into cocktails where they belong."
• "The line between bar and club blurs ever more when there is DJ and bottle service and they serve light appetizers and are open at 5PM. Clubs are opening earlier for increased happy hour drink sales and are demoting space for the dancefloor; in effect becoming cocktail bars with a club crowd."
•  "For a while, all the beer and wine-only bars were selling soju and sake cocktails in an attempt to stay trendy. This is still true at restaurants without full liquor licenses, but now we’re seeing more beer-focused venues that build the concept around the brew, not the food."
• "It seems the least popular type of drinking establishment to open this year is the thing we used to know as a bar, where they don’t serve food (or the food only serves to keep you drinking, like the popcorn machine in Tenderloin bars) and there isn’t a dancefloor or cocktail waitresses or bottle service and there still exists a magic time called happy hour."

New Bars Story 2008

•  "Not too long ago I’d come home from a night of barhopping with ringing ears and smelling of cigarettes. Now half the time I get home reeking of braised calamari and elderflower with an earful of soft jazz. Most of the new watering holes to open this year were restaurants and hotel lobbies with extravagant bar programs and cocktail lists."
• "Now that good drinks are in demand at every new restaurant, bartenders are barhopping from venue to venue."
• "Though hotel lobby bars have traditionally been places to find traditional drinks, now many of them are promoting innovation and eco-cocktails."
• "A different grape spirit, pisco, a brandy from Peru or Chile, is showing up on the menu at dozens of the best bars in the city."
•  "Since sitting quietly and sipping is the new raving until dawn, there isn’t too much point in building new warehouse nightclubs. Instead, a few older spots were freshened up and sometimes renamed."

Hopefully the full story will go online soon for the not-in-SF readers. In the meantime, check out CitySearch's Top 10 New Bars of 2008- which includes a few of them I missed.