Different ways to get stinko on Cinco

The Chronicle does a nice round-up of non-margaritas in SF, including several versions of the Paloma, the Mescal gimlet, the fabulous Carter Beats the Devil at Flora, and the spicy Toro del Fuego at Laiola.

Light drinks

New York magazine mentions wine bar Terroir and Marshall Altier's non-hard-alcohol cocktails. (I just met Marshall last week in SF. I think he likes it.)

His concoctions incorporate port, sherry, vermouth, whipped egg white, and bracingly smoky Lapsang Souchong tea. They even display a touch of molecular mixology in the La Terra Ferma’s Nebbiolo-porcini spuma—otherwise known as foam.

Out here, of course, the big opening this week was Uva Enoteca, where Camber Lay (Range, Frisson, Laiola, Epic) did the drink list with the same restrictions. Here are some of the cocktails:

MIELE FRIZZANTE Carpano antique, orange, peach bitters & heidrum sage blossom mead

EVVIVA Tahitian green tea infused vya dry vermouth, lemon bitters, pinot bianco & lemon

IN BOCCA AL LUPO Lillet blanc, chilies, basil, prosecco & coconut salt

ULTRAS Birra bionda, ginger beer, lime, lemongrass & terragon

Lookin' good.

Boozy goodness from the internet

- Ibar lists 1,000 drink recipes on your ipod. So now you can be that annoying guy who asks the bartenders for drinks they don't know, like the Frascati's Jubilee Flip. [via LiquorSnob]

- Dos Equis launched a hilarious campaign to find an assistant to the "most interesting man in the world." The previous assistant, Steve, was killed in an archery accident. His memory will be honored on April 23, by Dos Equis and the Association of Celebrity Personal Assistants.

- Drink Dogma has a ton of info about rhubarb cocktails.

- The Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails in Boston have put out a cocktail book.

- Nightclub and lifestyle brand Ministry of Sound put out their own vodka. I bet we'll see tons of branded vodkas coming out soon, just like the branded bottled water they have at the Gap. [via Martini Groove]

- Neyah White lists a recipe for homemade Rose Vermouth.

- More vodkas are coming out that list what's in them. This one is made from Malbec grapes. They also have a Chardonnay and Cabernet variety not available in the US. [via Martini Groove]

- 10 Cane rum is sponsoring a 10k race in Portland this June. There's nothing like a little rum to cure leg cramps.

- All about arrack.

- Scorpion-infused vodka "imparts a pleasant soft, woody taste" and "makes a dramatic scorpion martini." I bet it does. [via Complex]

- Here's a new one: absinthe-flavored vodka. I'll have mine without the scorpion, thanks. [via Martini Groove]

Dry Drunk: The Cocktails of Thad Vogler at Beretta

What's up with my iPhone-tography skills? Do I have to be good at everything?

Anyway, Beretta. I was only thinking about the cocktails when I went there, but it turns out that with inexpensive food and lots of communal seating, this may be the one cocktail restaurant in which I can actually afford to eat. (Small plates priced as small plates- what a concept!)

But back to the important stuff: the drinks. Thad Vogler's drinks, unlike many in San Francisco, eschew the farmer's market fruit, flowers, and herbs in favor of the basics- lime, lemon, grapefruit, and pineapple. The flavor profile of most could be considered classic for that reason, but as opposed to classic derivative drinks that go wild with brown spirits and amaros or other unusual modifiers, these cocktails are more like simple drinks reconsidered.

What sticks out is the types of sweetening agents used in each drink- honey, gomme syrup (made by Slanted Door's Jennifer Colliau), sugar cane syrup, agave syrup, etc. I don't know if they use plain old simple syrup at all. But when you drink them, "sweet" isn't a word that comes to mind. Vogler makes the driest drinks in town. He uses a lot of gin, rhum agricole, and maraschino liqueur, and even the Pisco Sour isn't sweet (or all that sour- it's almost earthy).

Of the drinks I tried, the Nuestra Paloma is the most pleasing and probably the safest bet for the less adventurous drinker (It's delicious- don't get me wrong). The Dolores Park Swizzle looks great with a few drops of bitters atop the crushed ice of the drink like a happy red treat, but packs a wallop of flavor. I like it more as the ice melts starts and dilutes it. The same is true of the Rangoon Gin Cobbler, my favorite drink on the menu so far that has a nice orange aspect to it from the Cointreau. I also liked the Single Village Fix, making this the second time I've ever enjoyed a drink with mescal in it.

Is anyone else bored of my typing? I am. Long story short: tasty dry drinks, go good with food, it's in my neighborhood, I'll be back lots.

SF cocktail history

Plymouth gin is the bartender's favorite brand here in San Francisco. What's nice is that the brand sponsors events to thank them for it. In the winter they offered a lecture on molecular mixology techniques, and earlier this week they flew in David Wondrich to lead a big group on a cocktail history tour of San Francisco. Always the hanger-on, I crashed the party.

We started at the Buena Vista Cafe for an Irish Coffee to get us warmed up. We then each took a flask filled with Sydney Ducks Punch (named after San Francisco's most notorious gang of the Gold Rush era), and headed off to North Beach.

We stopped into Vesuvio for a Negroni and pizza. None of these things have anything to do with San Francisco cocktail history but Vesuvio is a cool old bar. Then we headed to the site of the El Dorado (where the Hilton is on Kearny now), a bar/hotel with a tent ceiling, chandelier, and all-female orchestra. It is reported that Jerry Thomas worked there, though no proof has been found. It was so posh the bartender used a solid gold muddler, which someone suggested that Mr. Mojito recreate and sell online.

Close by at the site of the Transamerica building was the Bank Exchange where the Pisco Punch was invented. We called up pisco historian Guillermo Toro-Lira and yelled "cheers!" while he was on speakerphone.

Next up was the site of the Occidental Hotel at 130 Montgomery, where Jerry Thomas worked his second time living in San Francisco. Then we headed to the Palace Hotel where Cocktail Bill Boothby was the head bartender, and had the Palace Cocktail (gin, orange juice, pineapple syrup, egg white) while hearing about its pre-and post-quake history.

Our last stop for food, jazz, and many more drinks was the House of Shields, which will be celebrating its 100th anniversary this April. There we learned about the history of the Gibson cocktail, which was created in SF in the late 1890's. It was simply London dry gin and dry vermouth, without the orange bitters and garnish that defined a Martini. A Gibson with an olive was called a St. Francis Cocktail and popularized at the St. Francis Hotel. The Gibson eventually became the Martini, so to distinguish the old drink from the new martini they added a cocktail onion as in the Gibson we know today.

Luckily I wrote that down because on our sixth hour of drinking the details got fuzzy. I continued to stay and hang out with the crew until long after it was reasonable, then spent the next day reflecting quietly on the previous night's adventures.

Molecular Mixology

Via Cocktails.About.com: Photomicrographic images of cocktails. The one on the left is a Sloe Gin Fizz. They have a whole page of them here, and you can order them in poster size. They'll make a lovely addition to your dorm room wall.

Brunch drinks

By me, in today's SF Chronicle:

Daytime Cocktails for New Years Brunch
Camper English, Special to the Chronicle

New Year's Day often arrives with one pondering the previous night's indulgences and the resulting aftereffects. On the upside, this can also be done with a cocktail in hand.

Whether consuming them to nurse the previous night's hangover or just to pass the lazy New Year's holiday, adults have a free pass to enjoy cocktails before noon on Tuesday.

Typical brunch cocktails include the bloody Mary, mimosa, screwdriver and Irish coffee, with fresh derivations of these standards now on morning menus throughout the Bay Area. Additionally, frothy Southern breakfast drinks like the Ramos gin fizz are coming back into vogue, though drinkers' aversions to raw eggs and the negative associations with imbibing in the morning may be obstacles to their popularity.

In "The Joy of Drinking," author Barbara Holland addresses the National Institutes of Health's "pompous treatise" against readministration of alcohol (more widely known as "the hair of the dog that bit you") to cure the hangover, for fear that it encourages alcoholism.

She writes, "I don't know what social circles the NIH travels in, but I myself have never seen any sufferer, after shakily sipping his bloody Mary, let out a whoop, grab the vodka bottle and chug it down."

Read the rest of the story here.

Boozeless Cocktails

By me, in today's SF Chronicle:

Drink Menus Explore Virgin Territory with Alcohol-Free Cocktails
Camper English, Special to the Chronicle

Bay Area restaurants and bars are increasingly devoting space on their menus to alcohol-free drinks. These concoctions are more complicated than simple sodas and juices, involving the same glassware, seasonal ingredients and fresh garnishes as drinks with the hard stuff.

This trend of enticing consumers with nonalcoholic cocktails, rather than leaving it to them to request a virgin version of another drink, owes much to the current emphasis in better cocktail bars on creating drinks with seasonal ingredients. These fresh drinks can be translated fairly easily into alcohol-free versions, whereas in other bars, a nonalcoholic Jack and Coke is just a Coke.

Josh Harris, bar manager of Palmetto on Union Street in Cow Hollow, says that in the first month or so of being open, the menu listed only drinks with alcohol, but patrons would see the fresh cocktails being made and request alcohol-free versions.

"Some of them translated (to nonalcoholic drinks) very well, and some of them not well at all," he says.

Read the rest of the story here.

Don't click here

Forbes.com has a list of "unhealthiest holiday cocktails," where they list the number of calories, carbs, and fat in a bunch of winter drinks. It's nice and shocking that a mudslide (at least the way they make it) has 851 calories, but overall I think this story topic is just annoying.

There is no healthy cocktail. It's booze. Forbes has written this story before with highest-calorie cocktails and here they've spun it for the holidays. I think it's the word "unhealthiest" that bugs me, since there is so flip side to that. One could write about cocktails with the least amount of calories, but they still wouldn't be healthy.

But the real point is this: I freaking love eggnog. Why doesn't everybody? Stop picking on my eggnog. Perhaps next year I'll start a campaign to repopularize the drink. I need a slogan for the campaign though- any suggestions?

Two big nights, two slow days

On Monday I hit up Absinthe to drink some absinthe. Lucid was having a launch party for the Bay Area. A couple of weeks ago there was a launch for Kubler at Bix that I attended, and last week we saw St. George Spirits absinthe get approved. (It's been a big month for faeries.) I can't wait to do a comparison tasting, but for now I'm just trying to get my bearings with the stuff.

I tried drinking Lucid the standard way, with the louche, but I didn't put enough water in it. I had it in a cocktail or two as well. But my favorite way was the frappe they did at Absinthe. It seemed to be just absinthe over shaved ice with simple syrup and soda water, but it was really refreshing. Unfortunately the recipe for it isn't on the Lucid website (and unfortunately a recipe for absinthe and Red Bull is) so I'll have to hit up Absinthe for it.

After that I hit the town with Eric Seed of Haus Alpenz and Erik Ellestad of the Savoy Project. We popped in to Jardiniere for a a drink, then checked out Marlena's for the annual Santa display. We then thought it would be a good idea to get some food, which lead to us walking all the way to Church and Market to Sparky's, where we had more beer. (My decisions may have been clouded like louched absinthe.)

The next day passed very slowly and a bit painfully and I had some french fries then it was time to go out drinking.

I met Eric Seed and friend Debbie at NOPA for some cocktails by Neya White. We also got snacks, and they do a mean plate of french fries so that made twice. Then, because I wanted to go home early, we went out drinking.

We headed to the Alembic for drinks by Josie Packard. Hooray! They put a few new drinks on the menu there, including the Vieux Carre I was digging in New Orleans this summer. But I loved the Oh Sweet Nothing with rum, Chartreuse, and root beer bitters. And because I had to get home and not be out late, we stayed until closing. Smartly, Debbie ordered a plate of fries, which were the best ones of the day.

And that made it a fry-fecta.

Alpine Cocktails

I'm back from a press trip to Aspen. This one wasn't drink-related but I did some drinking while I was there. (Not as much as I wanted to- the altitude turned me into a lightweight.) Here are some observations.

- Classic cocktails are nowhere to be found. I'm sure bartenders can mix a traditional martini or Manhattan, but they're not usually listed on cocktail menus. A sazerac is not gonna happen.

- Most cocktail menus in Aspen are filled with drinks lead by flavored vodkas and other flavored spirits. This is usually a bad sign.

- Several bars have decent collections of scotch and cognac.

- Considering the audience, though, these last three trends make sense. Aspen is full of young people working and partying after work or apres-ski. I was surprised at how much the workforce makes up the social scene in town. Events seemed to have a mix of young locals with visiting older people, sometimes mixed together in crowds. Young people tend toward fruity sweet drinks, so bars are serving what most people want. The moneyed crowd drink single-malt scotch and wine.

- However, not every fruity drink is a lemon/grape/jolly rancher/pop rocks-flavored cosmopolitan. I stayed at the Sky Hotel, where the 39 Degrees Lounge has cocktails that contain flavored vodkas, but also include items like ginger syrup, fresh lemongrass, bitters, cilantro, and serano (sp?) peppers. I also spoke with the assistant food and beverage director for the adjacent Little Nell hotel, where the guy was specifically revamping their cocktail program. He told me he was making real grenadine and fresh sweet and sour mix instead of bottled, as well as instituting other improvements. I talked to him endlessly about tonic water, as I tend to do. I also saw one venue (I can't remember which one) that had a list of hot cocktails for apres-ski.

- I told a couple of beverage directors they could stand out with a local drinks section. I found two organic vodkas while I was there- Vodka 14 and CapRock Organic Vodka, both made in Colorado. Peak Spirits, who make CapRock, also make an organic gin, organic grappa, and organic eau de vie. Colorado has wine and plenty of microbrew producers as well, so this would be a cinch to implement.

- Regional shots are fascinating to me, perhaps because in SF people drink shots of Fernet, which doesn't make any sense. Anyway, in Aspen a few people told me they drink shots of Pearl pomegranate vodka there.

- Also, three different people told me their favorite tequila was the Don Julio 1942.

Overall, I think Apsen has quite a way to go in the fine drinking department. Everything in Aspen is expensive anyway, so charging an extra buck or two for drinks at the high end spots probably wouldn't scare away customers, and that money could go towards better mixers, fresh ingredients, and supporting local producers. And none of that requires that they serve drinks that aren't fruity or sweet.

But this is not to say I was disappointed in my visit. Aspen is a gorgeous town and I want to come back. Maybe I'll do a follow-up visit sometime next summer when there isn't that inconvenient snow everywhere.

Classic Hotel Bars

Looks who's quoted on ForbesTraveler.com on classic cocktails in classic hotel bars: your old pal Camper English.

Smells like 'tini syrup

By me, in Friday's SF Chronicle:

For the past few years, cocktail consultant Jacques Bezuidenhout has been sneaking maple syrup into the drinks he invents for the Starlight Room and special events, and perhaps it's finally caught on, because now we see it on several menus about town.

At Bar Drake, downstairs from the Starlight Room, Bezuidenhout put maple syrup in the lobby bar's signature cocktail: the Bar Drake Manhattan. It contains Woodford Reserve bourbon, Port, Angostura bitters and maple syrup. 450 Powell St. (at Sutter), San Francisco; (415) 392-7755, Ext. 226, bardrake.com.

Across town at the Presidio Social Club, you'll find the breakfast ingredient in the Pays d'Auge Cocktail, along with Calvados and citrus. 563 Ruger St.(near the Presidio's Lombard Gate), San Francisco; (415) 885-1888, presidiosocialclub.com.

Maple syrup is an unexpected ingredient in any drink, let alone drinks at a tiki bar, but Forbidden Island in Alameda has added it to the fall drink menu. The Dead Reckoning also pairs maple syrup with Port, along with 12-year-old Cockspur rum, Navan vanilla liqueur and fresh citrus. 1304 Lincoln Ave. (at Sherman), Alameda; (510) 749-0332, forbiddenislandalameda.com.

And at the new Bar Johnny in Russian Hill, they make no secret of the syrup in the Bourbon and Maple. It includes those two ingredients, along with the nutty liqueur Nocino Della Cristina and Angostura bitters. Does anyone else want pie? 2209 Polk St. (at Vallejo), San Francisco; (415) 268-0140.

Cocktails and Cream

Darcy has a great post on how to use dairy products in cocktails. Essentially, you want to use high-fat milk or cream in cocktails to prevent curdling.

Felten takes down vodka

Here's a great article on vodka hype by the Wall Street Journal's Eric Felten. He makes the standard argument- that most of what sets one vodka apart from another is marketing. But in his case, he backs it up with all sorts of fun facts- like how he made a panel of executives try to identify their own brand in a blind tasting and they couldn't.

Felten also recently wrote a brief history of the Zombie and the upper-crusty Southside cocktail. His articles are the only things I ever read in the WSJ, and I look forward to them every week.

Getting to know you, and by "you" I mean "your drinks"

Last week at the Rye cocktail competition, Dominic Venegas was one of the judges. Dominic set up the bar program at Range, bartends at Bourbon & Branch and Cantina, and has designed/revamped cocktail menus for several restaurants around town. Oh, and also he's the spirits buyer for John Walker & Sons liquor store. In other words, he gets around.

The competition was to make a Campari-based cocktail. The judges are seated in a separate area so they are blind as to which bartender has prepared each drink. After the judging I asked Dominic how the cocktails were. "The problem with it," he said, "is that I know all of these guys and their styles already, so I could tell whose cocktail was whose."

I'm starting to know the feeling. If the drink has a pepper plus a fresh ingredient muddled together, it was likely created by Todd Smith of Bourbon & Branch. If the cocktail has wine when it seems completely unintuitive, check with Duggan McDonnell of Cantina. If it has maple syrup, it was almost definitely made by Jacques Bezuidenhout of the Starlight Room.

Today I was reading the Tablehopper newsletter and heard of a new restaurant called Laiola. I checked the website to look at the drink menu. (Am I the only person who reads food blogs for the drinks? I just don't care about food all that much.) This is the menu:

OLD WORLD
Sangria de la Dia, wine, sherry & seasonal fruit 7
Tinto de Verano, Laïola tinto & Lemonaide over ice 6
NEW WORLD
Colada, Sanctuary tea infused vodka, coconut cream, pineapple & bitters 8
Cuba Libre, Plantation grand reserve rum, cola & lime 8
Mojo, flor de caña limon rum, mint, apricot liquor, lime, and soda 8
Picasso Sour, Pisco, orange blossom water, lemon bitters, lime & egg whites 8
The Sun Also Rises, Orinoco rum, vanilla, grapefruit & lime 8
Toro de Fuego, Tequila, triple sec, lime and red pepper vinegar 8
Valentia, Vodka, sherry and caramelized orange 8

I hadn't heard of this restaurant or who was behind it, and the prices don't scream "celebrity mixologist," but I said to myself, I THINK THIS PERSON REALLY KNOWS WHAT THEY'RE DOING. (I always talk to myself in capslock.)

Back to the Tablehopper newsletter, I found that I was right- the menu was designed by Camber Lay, formerly of Frisson and Range. The clues I should have picked up were tea-infused vodka, and lime and red pepper vinegar. While other mixologists put together ingredients in new and fascinating ways, Camber is always creating weird new ingredients and techniques.

Last week I sat next to Deborah Parker-Wong, who writes for Tasting Panel Magazine (as do I now) at the El Tesoro Anniversario dinner at Slanted Door. Deborah has an amazing palate that I've witnessed at multiple tasting events. She was talking about blind tasting. "If you taste it when it's hot, when it's cold, in different glasses, when you're hungry, with food, in the morning- eventually, you just get it. So THAT's what [some brand of wine I'd never heard of] is all about."

I drink enough of these guys' cocktails in enough different situations that blind tasting cocktails sounds like a really fun challenge. Of course, it will involve much more "training of the palate," but luckily it's happy hour soon.

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.

Jam On It

By me, in today's San Francisco Chronicle:

Jammin' cocktails
Camper English
Friday, August 3, 2007

With mixologists around town focusing on farmers' market fruits and fresh herbs, we wouldn't have guessed the hot new cocktail ingredients would be marmalade and jam. But we don't make the trends, just report on them.

-- Bar Drake, the new lobby bar in the Sir Francis Drake hotel that opened last month, serves the Tommy Gun with Tullamore Dew Irish whiskey, Grand Marnier, apricot jam, lemon juice and fresh ginger, and the Breakfast at Tiffany's cocktail with Ketel One Citroen, orange marmalade, orange bitters, fresh lime juice and ginger beer. And since the bar opens at 11 a.m., you can actually have it for breakfast. 450 Powell St. (at Sutter), San Francisco; (415) 392-7755, Ext. 226, bardrake.com.

-- Cantina serves a Marmalade Cooler that sounds like a Latin version of the Breakfast at Tiffany's, with Appleton rum, Bonne Maman orange marmalade, lemon and California ginger brew. Since these venues are close to each other, it only makes sense to visit both and compare. 580 Sutter St. (at Mason), San Francisco; (415) 398-0195, cantinasf.com.

-- The Marmalade Whiskey Sour has been on the menu at Bourbon & Branch since it opened last year, and the bar is only a few blocks from these other two venues should you feel motivated to go on a marmalade bar crawl. The drink is made with bourbon, lemon, orange marmalade and orange bitters. 501 Jones St. (at O'Farrell), San Francisco; bourbonandbranch.com.

-- Sino Restaurant at Santana Row currently offers two unusual drinks with their house ginger marmalade in the mix. One is Seduction, with Smirnoff vodka, Vermeer chocolate liqueur and ginger marmalade, and the other is the Sinodriver, with Wasabe vodka, orange juice and ginger marmalade. The drink menu is scheduled to change soon and we don't know if these drinks will still be on the new list, so get them while they're hot. 377 Santana Row, Suite 1000, San Jose; (408) 247-8880, www.sinorestaurant.com.

Wine and Gin?

Night Harvest wines recently hired H. Joseph Ehrmann of San Francisco's Elixir to invent five wine-based cocktails. He'll have one on the menu each season in the bar, but last night they were all available for tasting.

And when booze news breaks, Camper English is there to mop up the spill and drink from the bucket. I went to Elixir and sampled the selection.

Though wine cocktails are beginning to be popular, usually the wine is used in small amounts in place of vermouth or as an agent to smooth out the burn of high-alcohol/acidy citrus drinks. The drinks H invented are all wine-forward in volume and taste, and are some of the first non-champagne cocktails I've tried that are designed to highlight the wine.

The Stargazer is made with chardonnay and dark rum, the Yuletide Moon with merlot and bourbon, the Sunset on Dunnigan with Sauvignon Blanc and gin, The Red White and Night with cabernet sauvignon and vodka, and the Vinter's Nightcap with shiraz and coffee and cherry liqueurs. Don't they all sound terrible? It turns out they're not.

You can find some of the recipes here.

(Photo copyright Night Harvest .)

The Downtown Vortex

It's hard for me to leave downtown without stopping into one of my favorite watering holes. And it's hard for me to leave one of my favorite downtown watering holes without stumbling into one of my other favorite watering holes nearby.

Yesterday I hit Bourbon & Branch for some investigative drinking. (The management is not so good at returning email or phone calls so I had to go to the source. ) The Rouge No. 10 (black pepper-infused gin and strawberries) is still on the menu temporarily, as is another farmer's market drink with peaches and the pepper gin. I'm all about the pepper so I had the peach drink as a change, which was good but the Rouge is better. I'm going back on Monday and they better still have it or I'm going to voice a strong objection. Fear my wrath!

I left with good intentions of going to the library afterwards but somehow I never made it there and stopped into Cantina instead. I'd missed the pisco party they held the previous Saturday, but Aaron was nice enough to make me one of the drinks from the special menu they served. Okay, two drinks. The Galapagos had peppercorn-infused syrup in it so you know I wanted that. The Blushing Lima had Cherry Heering in it, which I never knew actually tasted like cherries as it's usually used in small amount in classic cocktails. But in this drink it was alive. Alive!

New drinks in the city

Thursday and Friday of this week I did some (PR-sponsored) investigative drinking at these spots.

Sudachi, the new sushi bar on the Polk Street (near the Hemlock, R Bar, Vertigo, Lush Lounge barhopping district) recently opened with a sushi bar room and a front restaurant/entertainment room. They have DJs and live jazz playing a few nights of the week in the front room, with additional programming to come. They have only a beer and wine license now but have made soju cocktails to compensate. The Blueberry Aloe Mojito was fairly tasty, but not as impressive once we asked to see the aloe juice and found it's some strange grape flavored product rather than a natural product like agave nectar. The Plum Ginger Mojito I liked best of the drinks we tried, with the Watermelon3 (that should be "watermelon cubed") tasting like watermelon juice and the Nigori Sunrise needing something else to bring it together (orange bitters, perhaps?).

Anyway, the food I tried there was delicious- I had the mushroom salad. But oh, the tofu fries! They made me a very happy vegetarian in a sushi restaurant. Sudachi should be a good spot to stop off and refuel on your next Polk pub crawl.

The next day I met for happy hour at Bacar, the wine-centric restaurant revamping with some management, space, and menu changes if I understand correctly. I saw Zack from Frisson and Jason from Mecca working the bars, so that was a good sign. They're changing the cocktail menu too, and I got a sneak peak at the new drinks. (They said the names may change so the drinks may be called something else when you visit. ) They shook up about seven of them all at the same time and left us to sample. Hey, this is work!

Three of them really stood out as terrific: the sweet Basil & Buca (vodka, sambuca, basil, and lime, served up), the solid Herradura Nectar (nectarine and lemon verbena-infused anejo tequila with lime and a ginger sugar rim, on the rocks) , and the ultimate combination of trendy ingredients Monk's Flower (Chartreuse, St. Germain Elderflower, and rose champagne, on the rocks).

Bacar is quite a long walk from Market Street, but it is close to Tres Agaves and Coco500. And if you hit all three you're surely need to sobering walk back to the BART station.

A matter of trust

Do you have drinks that you love but won't order at a bar because you're worried the bartender will mess it up? I sure do, and the list keeps getting longer each time I figure out the perfect (or preferred, anyway) preparation of a cocktail.

It's not that my favorite bartenders can't make a classic drink extremely well, but that at the fancy bars I'll always opt for something untried on the cocktail menu over a classic drink. And it's not that everyone makes a bad Bloody Mary; it's that a bad one is worse than none at all.

Here are some drinks that I'd rather not have if they're made improperly. Feel free to add yours in the comments.

• The mojito and the mint julep. I think this has to do more with crushed ice than anything else- the ice takes up most of the room in the glass so the volume of liquid added is small. Thus, a small error in one ingredient throws the drink out of whack really easily. Add too much simple syrup and it tastes like a toothache; add too much soda water and it tastes like nothing.
  
• The Manhattan. I don't have this drink perfected at home, but after I had my first rye Manhattan (at the bar Rye, not coincidentally), I've not enjoyed one made with any other whiskey. Still very few everyday bars carry rye.
  
• The Bloody Mary. As I said in July's Out Magazine, "The Bloody Mary you want is thick with tomato juice and Worcestershire, lightened with vodka and lemon juice, made spicy with fresh ground black pepper, celery salt, and Tabasco, then mellowed with the tiniest splash of olive brine and garnished with half a dozen healthy vegetables. But the Bloody you have in your head is not the bland, warm, watery, wilted-celery wonder that arrives at your table."

Morty and the Mojito

I'm starting an internet campaign to start calling bartender/blogger sensation Jeffrey Morgenthaler "Morty," because that's just a hell of a lot easier to spell.

In any case, he has another great blog entry on The Dos and Don'ts of Mojitos. In particular, I think everyone needs to be aware that you should not over-muddle the mint. Crush; don't muddle. I got sick of mojitos tasting like a mouthful of grass years ago, so I only make them at home.

It's Pimm's Season

Wimbledon starts June 25th, and that means it time to start drinking Pimm's No. 1 Cups. I wrote about them for the Chronicle in the fall, but it's time to refresh your memory and start planning.

At San Francisco's Slanted Door restaurant, they make a Pimm's cup without Pimm's that's an approximation from the old Cocktails of the Ritz Paris book. According to Wikipedia, "A close approximation to Pimm's №1 can be prepared by mixing one measure of gin with one Orange Curacao and one red Vermouth."

I've had the Pimm's at Slanted Door and can testify to it's deliciousness. It would be especially nice on a day like today, when San Francisco is having a "heat wave" of temperatures in excess of 80 degrees! (You have to live here to appreciate the rarity of that.)

But this year someone upped the Pimm's Cup ante. At Alameda's Forbidden Island tiki bar, Martin Cate decided to make his Pimm's as an approximation as well. But he's adding extra-special garnish.

The traditional Pimm's as it was served in England was garnished with borage leaves. When they made a big push to promote the drink in America (I can't remember when- 1950's?) they sold the bottles with packets of borage seeds, since nobody here knows what the heck borage is. This picture from Wikipedia shows it's a big ugly weed.

Anyway, borage didn't exactly catch on here but it turns out that cucumber has a similar flavor to borage leaves. So that's why you get them in your Pimm's.

Diageo even changed the label on the bottle to reflect this and now recommend garnishing it with cucumber and even strawberries. Some people are not happy about this, and have started an internet petition to strip such blasphemy from the label. (Read the site for a ton of Pimm's info- good stuff.)

You can find borage leaves in dishes in some fancy restaurants, an internet search revealed. So Martin at Forbidden Island sent his minions in search of borage leaves. He tells me they ended up going to 11 different garden stores (note: not grocery stores) to find borage to serve in his Pimm's Cups. He also bought some borage seeds to plant outside the bar in the hopes they won't have to drive all over town in the future. That's some serious dedication to a drink.

And is anybody else really fricking thirsty right now?

Nectarini

I decided to make myself an early afternoon cocktail, just because I can. And it turns out I made one that was actually good. Naturally, the photo turned out bad, but here it is anyway.

I had a nectarine that I was going to eat, but then I figured, why not drink it instead? I muddled it up as best I could (it was juicy but didn't produce a whole lot of juice so much as mush), added the juice of half a lime, an ounce and a half or so of gin, and a splash of simple syrup.

The drink is fantastic. Not cloying and sweet, but not too juice+boozy either. Do try this at home.

Unfortunately now I'm out of nectarines and I'm not in the mood for a leftover-Indian-foodtini so I guess I'll get back to work.

I made a drink

...with my limoncello.

But it wasn't very good. The picture is better than the taste.

Sweetness and Spice

A trend piece by me in today's SF Chroncile:

Sweetness and spice

Cocktails in the city these days will taunt you with hotness then leave you cool -- just like some Internet dates. But at least these chile-spiked drinks give you a good buzz for the bus ride home.

-- Farmer Brown serves up a creamy Mango Margarita Mango with Tequila, mango puree, lime juice, agave nectar and cayenne salt around the rim. Often the bar serves a spicy watermelon variation as well. 25 Mason St., San Francisco; (415) 409-3276, farmerbrownsf.com

-- The base ingredients of the Agua Caliente at Rye (invented by Jackie Patterson of Le Colonial) are also Tequila, mango puree and lime; but this drink has triple sec and a dash of Campari beneath the chile rim. 688 Geary St., San Francisco; (415) 474-4448

-- At Poleng Lounge, hot Thai chile peppers and dry green tea are muddled with cooling cucumber, mint and vodka in the signature Po'my Leng cocktail to make the hot and cold ingredients battle for dominance in your mouth. 1751 Fulton St., San Francisco; (415) 441-1710, polenglounge.com

-- The Gunpowder Cocktail at Presidio Social Club is merely a gin gimlet (gin, lime juice, simple syrup), with a sprinkle of cayenne powder on top, served in a martini glass. Drink it and your date will call you "hot lips." 563 Ruger St., San Francisco; (415) 885-1888, presidiosocialclub.com.

-- Last week, the winning cocktail in Harry Denton's Starlight Room's cocktail contest joined the menu. The Pink Cream Soda (invented by Todd Smith of Bourbon & Branch) tastes like its name, with rosé Champagne, guava, lemon and vanilla syrup, but it's the muddled jalapeno pepper at the bottom that really makes it interesting. Sir Francis Drake Hotel, 450 Powell St., San Francisco; (415) 395-8595, harrydenton.com.

Once in a Blue Moon...you get a cheap drink at Tres Agaves

If the alcoholic product you’re promoting doesn't have a built-in annual event associated with it like the Kentucky Derby or New Years Eve, you might consider pulling a Hallmark and inventing your own drinking holiday. And since we’re in San Francisco, why not make it a tie-in to the lunar cycle?

Tres Agaves is promoting a one-day special coinciding with the blue moon May 31, during which they’ll be offering their Luna Azul cocktail (“valued at $18”) for the bargain price of seven bucks. I think one-day-only promoted cocktails are awesome, though I'm not sure why I think that. Anyway, here is the press release.

Tres Agaves To Celebrate Blue Moon With Rare Cocktail
“Luna Azul” cocktail to be offered once in a blue moon

SAN FRANCISCO — May 22, 2007 — According to modern folklore, a Blue Moon is the second full moon in a calendar month. Usually months have only one full moon, but very rarely a second one sneaks in. In the spirit of this rare occasion comes a rare cocktail created by Tres Agaves Mexican Kitchen and Tequila Lounge, which sold more Tequila than any other single restaurant in the country in its first year of operation and will be offered only once in a blue moon – or Thursday, May 31st, 2007.

Tres Agaves, winner of Sante Magazine’s highest award (Grand Award) for the best spirits program in the country (2006), has created the “Luna Azul,” or the Blue Moon cocktail. The Luna Azul is made with Penca Azul Tequila, which is named for the blue leaves of the agave plant. Penca Azul is very unique; only one batch is made per year, and all bottles are labeled with the year of production, making it a vintage-dated distilled spirit. It comes in a hand-blown glass bottle with a blue glass agave plant in the bottom of each bottle.

The Luna Azul, valued at $18 will be sold at the house margarita price of only $7 for this special evening.

Luna Azul - $7
=======
1 1/2 oz. Penca Azul reposado
2 oz. blueberry nectar
1/2 oz. fresh lime juice
1/4 oz. agave nectar

Located at 130 Townsend Street (at 2nd St.) San Francisco, CA 94107 (one block from AT&T Ball Park), Tres Agaves serves lunch, dinner and Tequila daily. Brunch service is offered on the weekends. Ample street parking is available on non-game days, as well as a convenient garage right around the next store. All major credit cards accepted, and walk-ins are always appreciated. For reservations, call 415.227.0500 or http://www.tresagaves.com

Non-Threatening Chatter

Are you a gay or just want to surf the internet like one? Then you should really join my groups on the website GLEE.com. It's a social networking site that's an acronym for Gays, Lesbians, and Everyone Else. I'm working with them to bring more people to the site and am in charge of the Cocktail Chatter and Wine, Beer, and Sake groups. So go sign up and say howdy (it's free, of course) and then not only will I look better to the boss-man, I won't be having conversations with myself on the bulletin boards anymore. I hate to be (typing about) drinking alone.

Week-end

Last night was the closing celebration for SF Cocktail Week. The party was held at Absinthe with booze and snacks for all. It was a delightful clusterfuck of San Francisco's finest bartenders and a lot of cocktail writers too. Around 8:30PM, people started asking, "Where are you going after this?" It hadn't occurred to me to go out afterwards, but Monday is industry night so the rest of the crowd was raring. Some people went for dinner, but more or less everyone ended up back at Elixir for the after-party.

I stopped by my house to drop off my coat, and noticed that all the other bars were empty on this Monday night. But Elixir was banging. Inside it was all shots and drinks and loudness and celebration and then it was 2AM and last call and lost jackets and cell phones. What? I was on my way out the door several times but then got called back into the fray.

Now it's Tuesday and I'm a little bit slow but not so hungover, and even though I didn't hit nearly as many bars for Cocktail Week as I had intended, last night's finale was a great end to a brand new tradition in San Francisco. So, what are we doing next year?

SF Cocktail Week Kickoff

Last night a group of bartenders escorted a group of journalists to several drinking venues in the city for a kick-off of San Francisco Cocktail Week. As each bar is doing one classic and one modern cocktail for the week, we had two drinks at each bar. Plus two bottles of tequila on the bus. Plus more drinks at the 209 Gin Distillery. That would have been about 12 drinks each if everyone had made it to the final bar.

We started at Elixir, where the Corpse Reviver #2, a hangover helper, made for a nice start. We then had their Eldersour, which had a terrific dry finish that I really enjoy in a sour drink.

Next up, we boarded the bus and headed to the 209 Distillery, where we had a tour of the place (and drinks). The distillery isn't open to the public so many of the writers saw it for the first time.

The next stop was The Alembic, where we started with a mint julep (served out of real julep cups!) and then had the Vow of Silence, a wonderful drink with bourbon and benedictine. This is where we lost our first writer- Marcia of Tablehopper had to head home to finish her story that came out today.

Next up was Cantina, where they've put up artwork since the last time I was there and the place looks even better. We had a Pisco Punch and were supposed to have a Marmalade Cooler but I don't think that's what was served (it was small and not a rocks drink). Whatever it was, it was my favorite drink of the night.

We stayed there for quite a while (methinks the organizers were as drunk as the writers) and a bunch of people disappeared. I think we lost two people from the Chronicle, the SF Weekly peeps, the Examiner/CHOW.com writer, the 7x7 writer, and even the publicists for the event. Actually, if memory serves me right (and there's no reason to think it should), there were only three writers left for the last two bars. Luckily though, we kept picking up more bartenders along the way so we still had quite the crowd.

At Rye, we had the Rye Manhattan that I always love at the venue, followed by The Dogpatch. The Dogpatch is a drink co-owner Greg Lindgren told me was built around Old Potrero Rye, but then Old Potrero ran out so they had to switch to another brand. Oops!

At this point, people were plenty tipsy so we stumbled down to Bourbon & Branch for our last cocktails. We were supposed to arrive there at 10PM, but it turns out we were nearly three hours late. Oops! The drinks they were serving were the 1896 Martini and Todd's Smoked Olive Martini. I don't think I wound up having either drink (I had the smoked martini before, and that olive is tasty), which was smart for me because I was ever-so-slightly intoxicated. Only myself, the Zagat's editor, and a Guardian writer were left out of all the writers. Still, I have a feeling that the people who left two bars earlier will have a better overall memory of what happened that evening than those of us to stayed. Some of the bartenders were getting rowdy and starting to talk after-hours, but in a rare moment of good decision making I chose to take my drunk ass home.

I encourage people to get out and try some of the 22 venues doing SF Cocktail Week. I guess I have 17 bars left to visit but after Monday night, I'm going to take Tuesday off.

Cantina Bebidas

Cantina, the long-awaited bar by Duggan McDonnell, is hosting a slew of pre-opening events. I've been invited to three parties in the next week and it doesn't open to the public until May 24. But I'm writing not to brag about being there early but to point out that the menu is now online.

You may begin salivating. They have pitchers of caipirinhas (that fill about 4 glasses, according to our experiments last night), two kinds of sangria, two margaritas, pisco punch, and a bunch of other culinary cocktails that I can't wait to try. The preview drinks were lively and tasty and the rest of the menu looks farmer's market fresh.

The space is the old Lucid Gallery on Sutter at Mason, made pretty with a rusty color scheme and comfy with seating and whiskey barrels to set your drinks on. And now with Rye, Bourbon & Branch, and Cantina in close proximity, it'll be hard to leave downtown sober or unhappy.

Ramost

I recently completed an article for Out Magazine in which I was naming new brunch cocktails that are in vogue or at least should be. When I was pondering what to include, the Ramos Gin Fizz sort of popped onto my radar.

In the next two weeks, the drink came up in conversation randomly or at the mention of brunch six different times. Everywhere I looked I'd see it, sort of like when you learn a new word then start hearing that word all the time used by strangers on the bus. So I decided it