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Certified Virtual Bartender

Remember when I trained for and passed the BARSmarts Advanced course? Well now they've opened up the course to non-bartenders (and press).

The new BARSmarts Wired program goes live on Saturday, August 1. You sign up and pay $45 that gets you not just the course workbook but also the bag of bar tools like shaker, strainers, muddler, etc.

The course was developed by the folks from the B.A.R., some of the biggest names in the industry- Doug Frost, Steve Olson, David Wondrich, Dale DeGroff, Andy Seymour, and Paul Pacult.

Unlike the BARSmarts Advanced that I took, the Wired version has no live testing component. Instead it has an online "drink builder" application that you use to select the spirits, quantities, methodology, garnish, and glassware to each of the drinks you need to know to complete the course- about 30 of them. I believe you have two months from the beginning to the end of the course to complete it. The first part of the course is four modules of reading in the workbook, and then additional videos and testing online. The last module is the drink builder test.

The course is sponsored by Pernod-Ricard, so the bottles you're choosing in the drink builder tend to be Pernod products, but they're not exclusively. As David Wondrich said in an online preview of the course this week, "We use the brands we need to teach people."

If you take the course seriously and practice making the drinks, it's a really good not-so-basic level of spirits education and bartending skills. Though I would definitely recommend the Live session for bartenders if it comes to their city, the Wired version could be of great use to bartenders in other cities and enthusiasts everywhere. If I hadn't taken it already, I would definitely sign up.

Heirloom Tomatoes, Ripe for Drinking

It's tomato season and all the local restaurants are rolling out the tomato carts and tomato specialty dinners. The bartenders are getting in on the action too.

At Range, Carlos Yturria's famous Sungold Zinger is back on the menu, made with Sungold Zinger cherry tomatoes, No. 209 gin, lemon, agave syrup, and salt.

The bartenders at Range restaurant in San Francisco have started two blogs, by the way. Cocktail of the Day lists the daily cocktail served at the restaurant, and Inside the Blood Bank (from which I stole the picture) is a more general bartender and drink blog.

Elsewhere in tomato drink news, Carneros Bistro & Wine Bar in Sonoma is serving a tomato basil martini with your choice of gin or vodka.

And as part of the tomato dinner Sent Sovi in Saratoga greets guests with a Lemon Boy Bellini. Tomato Bellini? That sounds oddly delicious.

Tequila Coverage in Details and Esquire

In August, both Details and GQ did big tequila stories. Yum.

In Details tequila piece, they recommend El Tesoro Anejo, Siete Legua Blanco, El Jimador Reposado, and Sombra Mezcal. They also write about Phil Ward's bar Mayahuel (using the spelling mezcal), Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Cocktail Bitters, and list drink recipes for classic and improved versions of the Paloma, plus a strawberry drink called La Vida Rosa and a mezcal-beer cocktail called A Beer and a Smoke. The entire story is online here.

Let's compare that with Esquire, where they did their own big tequila story. In this one they have Things we think we know about tequila, which was sort of a waste of space if you've ever had 100% agave tequila. (Wondrich didn't write it.) They also have a sidebar on mescal (spelled mescal), and quick recipes for the Paloma and Margarita. Then they list ten tequilas as the best examples within their category- Highland and Lowland in each aging category. The reviews are online here in slideshow format to make you click a lot. Here's the short answers though:

	Highland	Lowland
Blanco	El Tesoro Platinum	Arette Blanco Suave
Reposado	Siete Leguas and Gran Centenario	Partida and Cuervo Tradicional
Anejo	Chinaco	Herradura
Extra Anejo	Gran Centenario Leyenda	Cabo Uno

Glossy Booze: Late July Edition

Glossy Booze is a regular Alcademics feature in which I talk about the alcohol coverage in magazines.

Gourmet (July) has a ton of liquor content this month: an essay on cocktail parties, a Negroni recipe, a brief mention of big ice, a recipe for Fresh Tomato Bloody Marys in a brunch story, Fresh Mint Juleps in an American party story, a Black and Tan recipe in an afternoon meal story, and several recipes for cocktail-flavored ice pops. (More ice pop recipes here.)

Saveur (July) has six drink recipes on one page: Book Club Sangria, Kentucky Club Margarita, Michelada, Longhorn Bull Shot, Cucumber Cooler, and the Chico.

Food & Wine (August) lists light wines for hot days and big balanced reds.

Chilled Magazine, which is more of a drinking magazine for nightclub types, has several stories on vodka and stories on the Thirsty Traveler, Sam Adams, molecular mixology, and flair bartending.

GQ (August) has a quick note on lower alcohol wines for summer. In the July issue, they list recipes for the Ramos Gin Fizz, Rum Fizz, and Gin Fizz.

Entrepreneur (July) has an entirely lackluster cover story interview with John DeJoria of Patron.

 Bon Appetit (August) has a great profile of Boston bartender Misty Kalkofen, a quick recommendation of swizzle sticks, a story on fizzy drinks, and perhaps the spookiest picture of a Bellini ever taken.

What Would You Ask Cuervo's Maestro Tequilero?

Alcademics has very intelligent readers. Oh yes you are! And I am lucky to have access to some top distillers, brand ambassadors, and other industry people and meet up with tons of them when they come into town. So I thought I would see if Alcademics readers had questions for industry folks I am meeting. I'll take your questions to my meetings and get responses to post here. This could be an ongoing series if it works out.

On Thursday (July 30, 2009) I am meeting Francicso Hanal Alfaro, Cuervo's Maestro Tequilero and Araceli Ramos, Director at La Rojeña, the Cuervo Distillery. What would you ask them?

Cuervo, as we all know, puts out that mixto tequila product that all tequila lovers love to hate. (Mixto tequila is fermented and distilled from a mix of at least 51% agave plus other sugars.) They also put out several lines of 100% agave tequilas including Reserva de la Familia, and some of them are quite delicious.  Yet many people's college memories of drinking Cuervo turn them off tequila for life. It must be a tough (though hugely profitable) situation when your low-end product gets all the attention.

Do you have any questions for the Cuervo reps? Agriculture, production, products, economic climate, etc? Put your questions in the comments section (or email me to keep them anonymous). Just keep it classy, okay?

Hey You Kids, Get Off My Bog

It may surprise anyone who knows me to learn that I've recently become a property owner. It's true!

I certainly couldn't afford to buy property on a freelance writer's pay- I can't even afford basic cable. And no rich relative died and left property to me, as I don't have any rich relatives.  

Thankfully, the good people of Laphroaig single-malt scotch whisky bequeathed to me one square foot of Islay, near the distillery. You get this when you sign up for their customer loyalty program, Friends of Laphroaig.

When you sign up, you get a certificate mailed. It says they'll take care of the land for me, and I can collect the rent of one dram of Laphroaig per year at the distillery.

Then the fun part starts. You can go online and look at your plot on satellite map:

As you can see, they gave me a plot of land somewhere along the fence. Then I looked up my neighbors:

I'm surrounded by foreigners! This is terrible. What about my property value?

In an effort to avoid conflicts, I have developed a set of rules that I'll be handing out at the next neighborhood association meeting.

Neighborhood Rules

1. Keep your own yard mowed. I don't want your peat patch looking like a barley field.
2. No horseplay. No running. 
3. No parking on the dancefloor.
4. Keep your decorations to a minimum- flags only permitted on flag day, Christmas trees on Christmas, and never any lawn umbrellas.
5. Absolutely no Jarts.

Ginger Beer Gives a Buck more Bang

My latest story in the San Francisco Chronicle (from Sunday's paper) went online today. Read it here.

Ginger beer gives a buck more bang

Camper English, Special to The Chronicle

Friday, July 24, 2009

When ginger ale or beer is mixed with citrus in a drink, it is - or more accurately, was - known as a buck.

Early cocktail books list recipes for the gin buck or London buck cocktail, and variations of rum bucks were called the Shanghai buck, Jamaica buck or Barbados buck, depending on the type of rum used. If you squeeze your lime garnish into a Dark 'n' Stormy, you've got a rum buck.

"The buck is one of those cocktails that works with every base spirit," says Erick Castro, beverage director at Rickhouse, the new Financial District bar. "Most cocktails don't work with gin and scotch and vodka and rum."

Read more about bucks and mules and get the recipe for Erick Castro's Kentucky Buck here.

Technique vs. Terroir

My wine knowledge is... limited, so maybe this happens all the time: A group of five winemakers in Oregon took grapes from five vineyards and each made wine from it. Now those wines are ready for release and you can buy them as a set (for $1250). The experiment explores the technique of the wine maker versus the terroir of the vineyard as each winemaker puts his stamp on the same set of grapes. Cool stuff, says me.

Willamette Valley, Oregon (July 22, 2009) - Five renowned Oregon winemakers have tapped five Willamette Valley vineyards to create 25 unique expressions of Oregon's signature Pinot Noir - these are the wines of the Cellar Crawl. Designed to explore how soil, geology and the winemaker's approach impacts the expression of wine, this collection of 25 Oregon Pinot Noirs will be unveiled at the annual International Pinot Noir Celebration (IPNC) held in Oregon's Willamette Valley on July 24 - 26, and available for purchase as a set at the participating wineries.

In 2006, five winemaker friends - Terry and Ted Casteel (Bethel Heights Vineyard), Steve Doerner (Cristom Vineyards), Ken Wright (Ken Wright Cellars), Lynn Penner-Ash (Penner-Ash Wine Cellars) and Laurent Montalieu (Soléna Cellars) - picked fruit from the same five vineyards, with each winemaker creating their own barrel from each lot, then bottled and named it after their tasting group Cellar Crawl. Now, after three years, it's ready to be released.

"This is the first time that winemakers have joined forces and created a platform to help us better understand the influence that soil and individual style have on Oregon Pinot Noir," says Ted Casteel of Bethel Heights Vineyard. "This project is about education and transparency, so we're bringing it out of the cellar and making it available to the public."