Alcademics.com

Carrot Cake Cocktail, Anyone?

Let's have a look at what Brian Livesay has been getting up to at Fish & Farm in San Francisco. Livesay makes all the liqueurs, syrups, vermouth, and other ingredients in-house to have a mostly-organic drink menu.

These are his new drinks for spring. I'm a vegetarian but even I am going to call the Bacon Drop a tempting drink. And roasted carrot vodka? Now that sounds rich.

The Bacon Drop ~ A big, meaty drink. The porterhouse steak of martinins. Very smooth and very flavorful.
Apple-Bacon Vodka, Sweet Potato-Molasses Bourbon, Smoked Hickory Bitters and Orange Extract. Served with a Bacon strip "swizzle stick" and a spicy sugar/salt rim.

Embe Tango ~ A very fresh, crisp and clean drink. Spring breeze in a glass...
A blend of Budda's Hand, Cucumber and Mango vodkas. Cilantro Extract, fresh lime, and just a hint of pepper spice on the finish. Served with an edible candied lime wheel.

Springtime Sazarac ~ Our version of the classic drink. It's a little lighter, a little softer and more diverse in it's flavors Apple, Orange and Spring-Blossom spiced Ryes. Orange Bitters, Absinthe wash. Flamed orange oil and orange blossoms.

And for dessert....

Carrot Cake ~ the name says it all...
Roasted Carrot vodka, Cake-Spice Brandy, Cream. Served with Brown Sugar Brandy plumped raisins.

Cocktail Snobs in 3D

I was fooling around with this XtraNormal.com player thing and decided to make an animation.

Two cocktail snobs walk into a bar and...

(this post contains a movie. click to alcademics.com if you can't see it.)

Top 5 Beer Cocktails on Epicurious.com

Hey look, I wrote another story for Epicurious.com!

It's the Top 5 Beer Cocktails, including ones you know like the Shandy and Black Velvet, plus ones that are probably new to you:

• The Stout Diplomat by Yanni Kehagiaras
• The Happy Mich by the Tippling Brothers
• The Cure by Gina Chersevani

My previous story for Epicurious was the Top 5 Absinthe Cocktails.

Introducing the Absinthe Tranquility Fountain

SF Event: There's Whiskey in this Easter Basket

The one and only Lenell Smothers of Lenell's liquor store in Brooklyn, the small-batch babe, the brassy bourbonestress, the bringer of booze, will become the slinger of booze as a guest bartender at Elixir on Easter Sunday from 8PM - 2AM. Come on down, y'all.

How Sweetened It Is

Here's the second of my two stories in the San Francisco Chronicle this weekend.

Spirits: Bartenders find new ways to sweeten the deal

Camper English, Special to The Chronicle
Friday, April 10, 2009

Nearly all cocktails contain a sweetening agent, the simplest of which is raw sugar or simple syrup. Other, newer options include ginger, elderflower, and blood orange liqueurs, floral sugar syrups, fresh grenadine, flavored honey, and syrups made from ingredients like agave and gum Arabic.

As usual, San Francisco bartenders are not satisfied with the selection.

Read the story here.

Bartender Style

I have two stories in this Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle. The first one is on bartender style, with man-on-the-street shots taken at the St. George Spirits distillery during the American Distilling Institute conference last weekend.

On Location: Bartenders' personal style

Camper English, Special to The Chronicle
Friday, April 10, 2009

Bartenders' outfits are largely dictated by the venues in which they work: dapper attire in hotel bars, uniforms in chain restaurants, trendier fashions in nightclubs and rumpled T-shirts in dive bars. And one gets the impression that bartenders choose their employers based on their personal style, rather than the other way around.

Read the rest and look at the pics here.

Not Every Experiment is a Success

Sometimes creative garnish experiments are a success. Sometimes, not so much.