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Bits and Pieces from Winter Drinking Guide in 7x7 Magazine

My San Francisco winter drinking guide in 7x7 Magazine is coming online in bits and pieces.

Here are some:

• Where to learn about whisky
• Hotel bars for fancy-time drinking
• Bars that rent private rooms

Hot Buttered Fun

Hot Buttered Fun would be a good party band name, right? 

My latest post on FineCooking.com is up. It's a recipe for the Hot Buttered Anejo, which is a hot buttered tequila that I had one night when the brand Avion was pouring drinks at Elixir. 

Check it out here. 

Fall Fun with Spiced Rum

My latest feature for the San Francisco Chronicle was in this Sunday (December 12, 2010)'s paper. 

The story is on spiced rum: both the proliferation of new brands and how some bartenders use it for its fall flavors. Read it here. 

("When the Leaves Fall" cocktail as seen in San Francisco, California, on December 7, 2010. Drink styled by Lindsay Patterson. Photo: Craig Lee / Special to The Chronicle)

The story features quotes and recipes from Clock Bar, the Burritt Room, and the Redwood Room, and includes quotes from Martin Cate, Kevin Diedrich, and Tommy Quimby. 

The story is here.

Cerveza Adventure Part Three: Out in Playa Del Carmen

Read Part I
Read Part II 

After a full day of jungle adventure, we hit the town of Playa Del Carmen on the last night of the Dos Equis Cargo Hunt winners' trip. Playa Del Carmen is a smaller city than nearby Cancun, near a long set of resorts down what they're calling the Mayan or Mexican Riviera. 

We started with dinner at a restaurant that specializes in flambe dishes. For dessert, some folks ordered the Mayan Coffee, made with coffee, Kahlua, Xtabentun (a local liqueur with anise and honey on a rum base), and sugar.

First one waiter lit it on fire in a metal gravy boat, then tossed the liquid between one boat and the other like the Blue Blazer. Then he started doing it while standing over the head of another waiter who was seated, and we were like, "Stop- you're going to light his freaking head on fire!" but it turns out it was all part of the act. A third waiter stepped in between the seated and the standing waiter and held out two of his own gravy boats. They poured the flaming alcohol from one gravy boat to the next down six levels and into the glasses on the table.

Take that, Jerry Thomas.

Then we went barhopping. We started at the Blue Parrot, a beachside disco with an impressive fire spinning show. I say impressive because living in Burning Man central, I've seen more lousy fire spinning shows than I can count and this one actually impressed. 

Next we headed to Coco Bongo, a place that's sort of like a vintage nightclub on crystal meth. A floor level and three levels of theater seating/standing crowds face a stage at the top level, on which a slew of dancers and lipsynchers in costume perform hits by chart-toppers from the last 40 years, from Elvis to Katy Perry.  

(Believe it or not, this is the Van Halen number.)

The acts change about every three minutes and a whole new set of dancers come out, or a troupe of aerial acrobats may drop down from the ceiling over the crowd like Cirque du Soleil, or it may be a musical comedy act reminiscent of Sabado Gigante. 

Then about every 5 minutes a huge blast of snake-shaped baloons or confetti will shoot at high volume from the ceiling, coating everyone. 

It's ridiculous and cheesy and so much fun. 

After that we headed to another bar for a quick final beer but most of the group was exhausted from two days of adventure and a couple hours of Coco Bongo.  

Thanks to Dos Equis for a most interesting trip. 

Cerveza Adventure, Part Two

Read Part I

When we last spoke, I was telling the tales of my trip to Playa Del Carmen with the winners of the Dos Equis Cargo Hunt.

At the end of the first big day, we had dinner on the beach outside the hotel with a drum show and fresh hand-rolled rolled cigars.

Fun fact: apparently one doesn't inhale cigars, unlike cigarettes, which is why other people don't get horribly barfy when they smoke them. The more you know.

 

In the morning, we were off to a second epic day of adventure. We began at Rio Secreto, a series of caves with an underground river running though them. We walked, crouched, and swam through a series of caves for an hour and a half. Beautiful.

 
(I'm up in your cave, swimming with your catfish.)

Then it was off to another spot in the jungle with a tour operator called Alltournative for a series of challenges. The first was walking through another cave and undergoing a Mayan ceremony asking nature for permission to enter and protecting us from evil spirits. It must have worked because I didn't die the rest of the day on the adventure sports. 

Then we rode mountain bikes through the jungle and swung on ziplines above it. 

(From this angle you can't hear me shrieking.)

Then we finished the day by repelling down into a cenote (sinkhole) like the beginning of The Descent and splashing around in the water. But with less cave monsters. 

An action-packed day, which was then followed by a night in Playa Del Carmen that I'll post about next. 

 Read Part III

Cerveza Adventure in Mexico

Hello from Mexico! Yes I was just in Kentucky yesterday morning but now I'm in mostly-sunny Playa Del Carmen, near Cancun. I'm hear on a trip with winners of the Dos Equis Cargo Hunt. They competed in an online treasure hunt to help The Most Interesting Man in the World (for the media shy of you, that's a very successful ad campaign) recover his lost items. 

I, on the other hand, am just a hanger-on traveling in the entourage. We're not visiting the Dos Equis distillery on this trip, so it's all about jungle adventure for these two days. 

Our hotel is on Playa Del Carmen. I've never been here before so I had no idea that every property down the beach is like a giant ultra-lounge/spa/beach club. 

We woke up early and took small planes (four people plus the pilot) to Chichen Itza, a famous and lovely set of Mayan ruins. This year I've been on 4 helicopter rides so I'm finally getting less screamy/panicky when riding on small aircraft.  

After Chichen Itza, we headed to one of the many cenotes, or sinkholes, that dot the area. You can see some large ones in the picture from the plane above. We went to a small one we had reserved for the Dos Equis group. 

It's hard to photograph, but it's a crystal blue pond about 100 feet below the surface level, and the pond is about 50 feet deep. Peaceful, lovely, amazing. I could float there all day if only there were umbrella drinks.

Then we took the planes home and we're waiting for dinner. They're not telling us what we're doing on this trip (unlike most press trips where they hand us an agenda down to the quarter-hour), so who knows what adventure awaits tonight and tomorrow!

Read Part II
Read Part III 

Four Roses Bourbon Distillery Visit

This week I was in Kentucky for a quick visit to the Four Roses distillery. For some history on this brand, see this post a I wrote a few years ago. In short, Four Roses was only a bourbon in Japan for many years, and has recently come back to the US market. They use two mashbills (grain makeup) and five strains of yeast to make ten recipes of bourbon. 

The ten recipes blended together ensure a consistent bourbon from batch to batch. Another way they help do this is by having single-story rickhouses. While other brands have several floors in their rickhouses with quite extreme temperature variations in them, at Four Roses they're only one floor high, six barrels tall, with a much less variation in temperature from top to bottom.

 We did two tastings at the distillery. One was tasting all ten recipes of the white dog. They have quite the wide range of flavor, from fruity to spicy. The second was tasting several barrels all with the same recipe from different barrels. This was fascinating as there was a surprisingly large difference: one tasted like oloroso sherry, one like apricot socks, one like creamed corn.

Largely because they've been selling mostly in Japan, they use all non-GMO corn. Distillery Jim Rutledge says they don't really advertise that because he doesn't expect they'll be able to get enough non-GMO corn to continue doing so: everything is being replaced by the modified stuff. 

Well I have to run to another event- more on this interesting brand another time. 

Sherry Bodega Visit: Bodegas Tradicion

In September 2010 I visited several sherry bodegas. Here are pictures and a few notes from Bodegas Tradicion. 

 (The small and beautiful bodega.)

(Drinking out of the barrel.)

(Criadera refers to the level of the barrel in the solera system. The 1/18 refers to the number of the barrel and the total of the set. )

(They also have an art gallery in the bodega. I call this painting "Laserdove".)

 

• Bodega only started in 1998
• Only produce old sherries -  VOS, VORS. 
• They buy them from other bodegas already aged and put them into their solera system.
• To my palate, older sherries are effervescent, literally. Very acidic. Lively jumps in your mouth.