Alcademics.com

Three Newish Bars in San Francisco

For WorldsBestBars.com I write the San Francisco newsletter, in which I round up new bars opening in the city. 

For the February newletter I've included write-ups on Trick Dog, The Armory Club, and Lolinda. 

Check it out on WorldsBestBars.com. 

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The Cocktails of Lolinda from Best to Worst

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Cocktail Menu: Trick Dog in San Francisco

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Drinkin' Like Lincoln: : 19th-Century Cocktail Trends That Are Trendy Again

My latest story for Details.com is up! It started as a story about how cocktails in Lincoln's day were different from what they are today, but then I realized that many of the drinks are trendy again.

 

Drinkin' Like Lincoln: : 19th-Century Cocktail Trends That Are Trendy Again

Daniel Day-Lewis wasn't sucking back any mai tais in Lincoln, so if you want to coordinate your Oscar-party cocktail menu with this Best Picture nominee, you'll have to think historically.

When our country's very first bartender's guide, How to Mix Drinks, was published the year after Abraham Lincoln took office in 1861, America entered a golden age of cocktails. As it turns out, a lot of what was available to drink back in the 16th president's day has now come back in fashion. (Today: cocktails. Tomorrow: top hats?)

Read the whole story here.

The Ice King of the Internet

I was interviewed recently for a story in a magazine for the iPad/iPhone called The Magazine.

During the interview we were joking that I'm the Ice King of the Internet. The quote didn't make it into the story, but I've adopted that as an official title. Hail your new king! 

 

In the story, writer Alison Hallet covers the history of ice in drinks, current ice machines, how bars are using big ice, and how to make big ice at home (with my cooler strategy). I get too much credit for bringing an iceberg from Newfoundland to last year's seminar at the Manhattan Cocktail Classic (that honor belongs to Wayne Curtis), but as long as my glory is increased it is for the greater good.  

A preview of the story is here, but you'll have to subscribe ($1.99) to get the whole thing. Or sign up for a free 7-day trial, read everything, then decide whether or not to cancel before the week is up. Looks like they have a good amount of booze coverage. 

 

Maximize Your Michelada

My latest story for Details.com is on the many forms that the Michelada beer cocktail takes and what you can do to imitate them. 

Restaurants are doing wild wacky things with the hot sauce, savory ingredients, citrus, and salt. 

Check it out!

 

New Cocktail Bars Opening in 2013 on Details Daily Blog

Over at Details.com, I wrote about some hotly-anticipated cocktail bars opening in the first part of 2013.

They are:

• Raven & Rose
• Trick Dog
• Dead Rabbit
• Polite Provisions
• Attaboy
• Tiki Iniki
• Motel
• Three Dots and a Dash
• Julep

Read it over at Details.com, and have a look at all the pretty pictures below that they didn't use despite making me track them all down.

 

 

• 
• 

  Motel, Austin
• 

  Dead Rabbit, NYC
• 

  Trick Dog, SF
• 

  Julep, Houston
• 

  Three Dots, Chicago
• 

  Raven & Rose, PDX
• 

  Attaboy, NYC
• 

  Polite Provisions, SD

Tiki Iniki, Hawaii (not the actual bar)

 

 

 

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Cocktails in the Champagne Style

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Cocktail Menu: Trick Dog in San Francisco

Cocktails in the Champagne Style

For CLASS Magazine/DiffordsGuide.com, I interviewed Jeff Josenhans of San Diego's US Grant Hotel.

He's been quietly doing pretty cool stuff over there. He implemented one of the first cocktail herb gardens, has barrel aged cocktails that he is able to sell commercially, and now features the "Cocktails Sur Lie" program. 

Cocktail ingredients (minus the base spirit) are fermented like wine, then put into champagne bottles and fermented a second time like champagne. Then they pop off the caps to get rid of the yeast and add base spirit in the 'dosage' step. 

As he partnered with a winery production center, he now has the winery do the production work after he develops the recipes, which not only ensures consistency in the bottled beverages, but they can legally sell them at retail. 

A truly clever part of this system is that the hotel does tons of events, and having these fancy bottled cocktails that pop open like champagne allows them to serve the same quality cocktails as you'd find in the bar at the events- just pop off the cork. 

Read the interview here. 

 

(normally the bottles have a cork unlike in this picture)

 

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Camper English's Favorite Booze Stories by Camper English in 2012

By looking over the camper_clips tag on Alcademics for 2012, I picked out a few of my favorite stories (on other websites) that I wrote over that last year. They are below.

• East Bay Sees a Cocktail Renaissance in the San Francisco Chronicle
• Liquid Smoke in the LA Times Magazine
• 50 Things to Drink in San Francisco Before you Die in 7x7 Magazine
• Is Carbonated Liqueur the new Cristal? on Details.com
• Summer Whisky Cocktails in Whisky Advocate (full story not online)
• Ironic Blue Cocktails on Details.com
• Carbonated Cocktails in the San Francisco Chronicle
• The world's 50 Best Bars 2012 in Drinks International
• Irish Whiskey Spikes in Popularity in the San Francisco Chronicle
• Eater.com's big interview with me about the state of the SF cocktail scene and predicitons for 2013. 

 

Strange Eggnogs from Around America- That Actually Sound Delicious

In my latest piece for Details.com, I round up some eggnogs that look weird enough to be interesting, including aged eggnog, smoky eggnog, one that sounds like you'd eat it at brunch, a super boozy one, and one made with two kinds of mushroom.

 

 

Ones that didn't make the cut (yet sound delicious) are Ian Cargill's Carbonated Eggnog from Vessel in Seattle, and Cynar Eggnog from The Passenger in Washington, DC. 

Check out the story on Details.com.