Don't quit your day job

The title I wanted for this story in July's San Francisco Magazine was "Take a Shift Where You Eat," but I can see why they didn't go with that :)

Don't quit your day job
Thanks to new amateur hours, dilettantes can give their dream careers a trial run.
By Camper English, Photograph by John Curley

Most fantasy careers (astronaut, movie star, Mrs. Clooney) are a bit out of reach for the average desk jockey. But at least there are some new ways to take dream jobs in the service industry for a test spin.

Read the rest of the story, with information about guest bartending at Elixir, the guest sommelier program at Fifth Floor, being the guest chef at Kuleto's, and guest stripping at New Century Theatre here.

10 Trendsetting Mixologists

In various editions of the Beverage Network's magazines, I have the cover story on 10 Trendsetting Mixologists from across the country. I interviewed my picks at the Navan/Grand Marnier Mixology Summit this spring.

This year’s batch of bartenders to watch have more in common than a penchant for inventing and shaking up tasty cocktails. They’re using fresh and often local ingredients, adding savory herbs to drinks, and making sure the execution of each cocktail is consistently stellar.

These standout mixologists, some with impressive training under their belt, some the winners of national and international cocktail challenges, are also quite influential, both introducing quality cocktails to the underserved areas of the country, as well as impressing jaded vacationers in Vegas and Aspen. They impact the community through bartenders’ guilds, banding together to influence the purchases of control state boards, and educating the public with classes and seminars. These men and women help elevate both the craft of mixology and the consumer palate simultaneously. Let’s raise a glass to the class of 2008.

The mixologists chosen were:

Charles Joly from Chicago
Patricia Richards from Las Vegas
Matt Martinez from Los Angeles
Jeremy Strungis from New Jersey
Ted Kilgore from St. Louis
Gina Chersevani from Washington, DC
Lance Mayhew from Portland, OR
Denis Cote from Aspen, CO
Eric Simpkins from Atlanta
Jon Santer from San Francisco

Read interviews with these ten terrific bartenders here.

Beattie book and bar news

I ran into Scott Beattie of Cyrus last night at Absinthe's SF Cocktail Week finale event. He had big news to share- as of last weekend, he's no longer be working behind the bar there. He'll still be running the show, though, so your drinks will be just as tasty as ever. So from now on, he'll be a backseat muddler.

In other news, his book Artisnal Cocktails: Drinks Inspired by the Seasons from the Bar at Cyrus, will be released in November. It's available for pre-order on Amazon.com here. He gave me a sneak peak at the contents and it looks like great stuff, with photos like the one below (stolen from his website). It makes me very, very thirsty.

A shifty bunch

Those bartenders, they never stay put.

If you've been in Bourbon & Branch, surely you've noticed Eric Johnson from Eastside West toiling behind the bar, and recently Thad Vogler of Jardiniere has been seen there too. When last we spoke he was just doing a few shifts a week while consulting.

Speaking of consulting, Dominic Venegas from bacar, B&B, Range, etc. will be consulting on the forthcoming project Gitane- but you've got a long wait until it opens in May(ish).

You'll have to wait forever to see Alberta Straub behind the stick in SF: She's moved to Brooklyn. Boo! Her cocktail show on On Networks continues.

And Josh Harris from Palmetto is doing time at (I think) Pier 23, filling in shifts at Elixir, and I already overheard one bar manager talking to another saying, "You should hire that guy!" It's not easy being popular.

Bartender Swap

Via Eater via NY Mag, Daniel Hyatt of the Alembic (which was very busy this Saturday afternoon when it's usually nice and quiet- we need to stop giving them awards) will be doing a bartender exchange with a Death & Co. bartender from NYC next month.

Note to Alembic staff: Stock up on Yellow Chartreuse. Note to Death & Co. staff: Stock up on women.

In the comments, someone has suggested that they ship off J-Beau and Morty to NY next. Do you think that's someone in New York who wants to import them, or someone in the Northwest who wants to get rid of them?

Video Bartender: Fun-to-Know: Become a Professional Bartender (2005)

This is part of an ongoing series reviewing every booze DVD on Netflix.

Once this video starts playing, you quickly realize it's actually titled Bartending Made Simple and is part of an at-home bartending instruction kit. At a couple points they encourage you to follow along with your booklet... which you don't have if you rented the DVD from Netflix.

The video is an hour-and-a-talk tutorial on how to work at a bar without knowing many recipes. There are (apparently) 15 must-know drinks in the manual, then you should be able to remember others such as vodka tonics, because the ingredients are part of the name. (They remind you how easy this makes it several times.) They give tips such as setting-up the speed rack, bartending myths, and to make sure you have a neat and clean appearance. They say you'll be trained on the cash register, soda gun, and specific glassware to use for certain drinks when you get to work, so they skip those parts. Then the video leads us through several customer scenarios to show you questions they might ask at the bar.

I'm not sure who the intended audience for this video is- people who can just walk into a bar and get hired as a bartender without experience, but are nervous about it and want some video training in advance?

SF bar stars

The Chronicle has a big section on local bartenders defining cocktail culture in the city today.
There's one story each on:
Daniel Hyatt from the Alembic
Camber Lay from Epic Roasthouse
Martin Cate from Forbidden Island
Dominic and Carlos from Bacar
12 other bartenders doing cool stuff
"old masters" behind the bar

All in all, it's a pretty good selection with some obvious holes for next year's batch.

Local bartender makes good

It looks like Neya White of NOPA in San Francisco is the sole US contender in the "Bols Around the World" competition. As incentive for going here to vote for him, you could win a trip to Amsterdam for filling in your info. He probably needs an escort anyway.

Pisco Flamethrower

Morty has a great application for a trick J-Beau invented: He fills a mister with flammable-proof rum and Angostura bitters and flames it on a Pisco Sour. Not only does it look really cool, he says, "The fire will really open up the aromatics in the Anogstura, and when served immediately, the foam will be a real treat for the senses." I can see this trick really catching on in bars- what better way to sell a drink than to finish it with a flamethrower?

Check out the instructions on his website.

Beating me to the Punch

I was telling someone at a bar how I wanted to publish the San Francisco bartender family tree, showing how you can connect most bars in the city through bartenders who work at multiple venues. The person I was talking to said, "Have you seen the latest issue of 7x7?"

Naturally, Jordan Mackay had just published an article on bartenders working in multiple venues.

Though not exactly the same thing I was going to write, I've decided that this happens far too often for it to be coincidence. Obviously Jordan cannot come up with these brilliant topics months before I do, so he clearly has invented a time machine that allows him to go into the future, and another machine that allows him to plagiarize my thoughts while there. He's very crafty. If only he would use his powers for good.

Getting Schooled by the Best

On Saturday I attended a couple of sessions of Mixology Weekend at the Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay. Over the weekend courses were taught by Thad Vogler (Jardiniere), Todd Smith (Bourbon & Branch), Scott Beattie (Cyrus), Greg Lindgren (Rye), and David Nepove (Southern Wine & Spirits).

I got a ride down with Erik from eGullet and we attended Scott Beattie's "Farm Fresh Cocktails" class. Unlike the others taught this weekend, Scott made all the drinks for us as we watched, smelled his fresh herbs, and helped defoliate mint and flowers to use as ingredients. His creations were amazing and complex and gorgeous to look at as well. So it turns out what everybody says about his drinks is absolutely true. And it saved me a trip to Cyrus where I can't afford the food anyway.

And while Erik questioned, "Are these salads in a glass really cocktails?" my take-away was "Now I understand what you can really do with flavored vodka and rum." With all these different organic flavors in the glass he relies more on solid, simple spirits to provide the canvas for the drink.

Afterward I stayed for Greg Lindgren's "Rye Cocktails" class, in which we got a little bit of rye history then made a ton of drinks ourselves following his instructions. Hands-on classes like these are really useful to people looking into making drinks at home- you can ask all the stupid questions you want, question whether you're using the right fruit or muddling it properly, and then taste the drink you made versus the one your classmates made to see how it comes out differently if you use more or less syrup or other ingredients.

Overall it seems the students in the classes were really happy with what they learned, as was I. Initially I thought these courses were on the pricey side- $95 each- but I was wrong about that. Seven cocktails at Cyrus or Rye would cost nearly the price of the class alone. And learning from the best mixologists in San Francisco added great value.

If they do this series again, I'd recommend them in a heartbeat. I'll let you know if they're on the schedule.

Bay Area bartenders earn toasts at New Orleans cocktail event

Bay Area bartenders earn toasts at New Orleans cocktail event
Camper English, Special to The Chronicle
Friday, July 27, 2007

We like to think our bartenders and their drink creations are extraordinary here in the Bay Area. Last weekend at the Tales of the Cocktail event held in New Orleans, we found validation that it's not just too many Negronis triggering our hometown pride -- the Bay Area's bartenders are finally getting respect at the national level.

In its fifth year, the Tales of the Cocktail conference celebrates the history of cocktails in New Orleans and the practice of making them around the world. Though open to the public, the event is heavily attended by people in the beverage industry, from small-city bartenders on up to major spirits distributors. Approximately 12,000 people were at the event July 18 to 22.

Esquire magazine cocktail correspondent and historian David Wondrich, who gave several talks at Tales of the Cocktail, said: "In San Francisco (the bars) tend to have that neighborhoody feel but they specialize much more in cocktails. It's like cocktail culture never went away."

Read it here.

Summer camp- at a special discount

In today's Chronicle:

Summer camp for cocktail drinkers

The Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay hosts a Mixology Weekend Aug. 3-5 as part of its "Inside the Kitchen" summer series. The hotel offer five 2-hour courses taught by some of the Bay Areas best bartenders -- Thad Vogler (Jardiniere), Todd Smith (Bourbon & Branch), Scott Beattie (Cyrus), Greg Lindgren (Rye), and David Nepove (Southern Wine & Spirits, pictured at right).

Each session tackles a different topic ranging from Farm-Fresh Cocktails to the Spirits of Latin America, and all classes include hands-on cocktail-mixing instruction for several drinks.

Students can attend courses a la carte for $95 per class, or buy them all for $460. That's not cheap, but each class is limited to 14 students and includes free bar tools. With the skills learned, you might consider it a savings plan to reduce your future bar tab. Book early to ensure a spot at www.insidethekitchen.net.

-- Camper English

BONUS: They've allowed me to offer a discount! Alcademics readers get $10 off any of the classes at Mixology Weekend- just enter "cheers" as the promo code when you sign up at www.insidethekitchen.net. I'll be there attending at least one of the events.

Bartender vs. Mixologist

As I was writing up a story today for a tourist publication, I was reminded that several blogtenders are talking about the distinction between a bartender and a mixologist/bar chef. It seems that most of the bartenders I speak with would qualify as 'bar chefs' under any definition, as they're all doing creative stuff that takes a large amount of product knowledge and cocktail history to do. However, almost all of them feel silly using the term 'mixologist,' as it kind of sounds like when a garbage man calls himself a 'sanitation engineer.' It's not that they're unworthy of a better title; just that they feel a little embarrassed using one. Which is odd, because bartenders are rarely demure.

In any case, the reason this came to mind was because I was working on this story and you only want to use the word 'bartender' so many times in one paragraph. And next thing you know someone is a 'bartender' or 'mixologist' or 'cocktail wizard,' and it all had to do with a need for synonyms rather than anyone's inherent qualifications. (I wasn't writing about any dive bars so nobody got more credit than they were due.) So long story short, I think a lot of the reason anyone cares about who is called what is because people like me throw around terms willy-nilly.