Alcademics.com

Airbooze: Alcohol Selection on Airplanes

Because I am a geek who feels the need to categorize everything, I try to track which airlines carry which spirits. 

I started a page to share this, located at this link: Airline Drink Menus. 

I'll keep filling it out over the coming months, but should you feel like enabling my geekery you can help: snap a picture of the spirits and cocktail selection of your next flight (usually in the airline magazine) and email it to me. Make sure to let me know which airline, domestic or international, and what month you flew so I can categorize it correctly. 

Looking at the menus I have there already there are some interesting choices. As usual, Virgin is doing cool things. On Virgin America, they have craft beer: Black Star Beer, Gordon Biersch Mãrzen, 21st Amendment Brew Free or Die! IPA. On Virgin Atlantic, they have a guest spirit as a promotion: Akvinta vodka. 

I wish more airlines were more adventurous with their spirits selection- Virgin Upperclass has an actual bar with barstools where you can sit, but then the spirit selection is mostly well liquor. They should have rows of single-malt scotch and other high-end brands to try. They've got a captive audience of high income-earners (except when I'm on the plane) who can spend the money on bottle of the spirit when they land. 

In the meantime, let's keep watching to see where things stand.

Sleeves are IN this Season with Moet-Hennessy

Sleeves! Sleeves! Sleeves! Everything in sleeves! 

Moet-Hennessy found the hot new look of the season by putting sleeves on all their products.

Perhaps they were inspired by the champagnes they put in sleeves a few seasons ago, like this attractive ice jacket for Veuve-Clicquot.  Sassy!

 

Then they did the same thing with flasks of Hennessy V.S. just this year.

So fresh!  SO funky!

Thinking ahead for fall, they knew it would get chilly, and said,  "SLEEVES FOR EVERYONE. EVERYONE GETS A SLEEVE!"

So they did one for Chopin vodka. It's the puffy jacket for potato vodka. FABULOUS.

Bar Eras in San Francisco and Beyond

I have a great-looking four-page story in the August Eat + Drink issue of 7x7 Magazine. 

The story splits up old bars and new bars inspired by old bars into five types/eras: Barbary Coast, Speakeasy,  Martini Bar, Tiki Bar, and Fern Bar. In each category I list some identifying factors and a few era-appropriate drinks. 

 There are also tons of great pictures by photographer Erin Kunkel, including these yanked from the 7x7 website. 

Read the story online here or pick up the magazine on the newsstand for even more pictures than on the website. 

  
 

Tiki Drinks in Fine Cooking Magazine

Oh hey, my latest story for Fine Cooking magazine is online already. 

Tiki Time

Showstopping tiki drinks are back on the menu, and they’re causing quite a stir. Here’s how to create these tasty cocktails at home—don’t forget the swizzle sticks and umbrellas.

by Camper English

Sipping from opposite sides of a cocktail served in a hollowed-out pineapple, a young couple poses for a photo by a waterfall. This isn’t a scene from a Hawaiian vacation in the 1960s, but one I observed earlier this year at Smuggler’s Cove, a buzzing new San Francisco bar. This establishment, and the many others just like it springing up across the country, is a tiki lounge, serving classic Polynesian-themed cocktails. These once-out-of-favor joints and their kitschy cocktails, like the mai tai, zombie, and planter’s punch, are making quite a comeback.

So what makes a cocktail a tiki cocktail? These drinks have several common characteristics.... 

Read the rest of my feature on the return of tiki. 

     

 
 
Not only does it contain thrilling information on tiki, it has recipes from three people you may have heard of:

• Lift Off! by Blair Reynolds, alias Trader Tiki
• Chi Chi Pache by Martin Cate, alias Shoeless Martin Cate
• Barbary Swizzle by Jeff Berry, alias Beachbum Berry

Being Stalked by White Russians

White Russians are following me around in the past few weeks, and not the gangster kind. I am writing a story about coffee liqueurs, a crucial ingredient in the White Russian. I went to a bar in Glasgow called Lebowski's that serves nearly 20 variations of the White Russian. Lebowski Fest is in two weeks from now in Orlando. And I just got a press release from Kahlua with fancy, complicated versions of the White Russian.

I mention this because it's weird, but should you want several molecular variations of the White Russian provided by Kahlua they can be found after the break.

Now Trending: White Whiskey

Hey, have you heard about the white whiskey? Probably!

SF Chronicle: White whiskey drips into the mainstream

Washington Post: Of microdistillers and moonshine

New York Times: White Dog’s Day

Foodista Blog: Knocking Back Moonshine with Max Watman

Here are some brands of white whiskey:

• Corsair Artisan Wry Moon
• Death's Door White Whiskey
• Hudson Valley New York Corn Whiskey
• Wasmund's Single Malt Spirits

I think there are more brands. What am I missing?

Hot: Potato Cocktails

I stumbled across two cocktails made with sweet potatoes in one week.

The first one I actually tried. It was served at Beso, Eva Longoria-Parker's restaurant that recently opened in Las Vegas. It was surprisingly drinkable.

The Jimador Spice contains Chinaco Reposado tequila, Orange Curacao, Sweet Potato Puree, Lime Juice, Maple Syrup, and Angostura Bitters, with a Cinnamon Sugar Rim.

The second was a contest winner for Benedictine, created by Daniel Victory of New Orleans. If you know how to make sweet potato au jus and have unflavored pop rocks sitting around, the rest is a cinch.

Daniel Victory – New Orleans

BÉNÉDICTINE Harvest Sensation
1 1/2 part BÉNÉDICTINE Liqueur

1 part sweet potato au jus
Splash of heavy cream

 

In a mixing glass, stir above ingredients with ice.  Next, pour into a pony glass with a “Rim of Magie”*.  Finally garnish with a sweet potato chip.

*Rim of Magie
Sweet potato hay
Sea salt
Unflavored pop rocks

But it turns out these aren't the only sweet potato cocktails ever invented. I found two others from 2008.

The first is by John Kinder of Chicago, and you'll see it's slightly complicated, involving Homemade Grilled Sweet Potato Spirit, Homemade Demerara-fino Sherry Syrup, Homemade Cinnamon-Pecan Tincture, and Homemade Pumpkins in Demerara Syrup.

The second was printed in the Washington Post, and was created by Tiffany Short at PS 7's in Washington DC. The recipe is here. It involves a sweet potato reduction, rum, and cream.

So when you have leftover sweet potatoes during the harvest this year, you'll know what to do with them.

The Great Debate Continues

You may recall a few weeks ago I wrote a piece for the San Francisco Chronicle about bartenders being less snobby that proved a bit controversial.  Now a few others have taken up the conversation.

My initial story had the following quote from Erick Castro of Rickhouse that touched a few nerves:

"Three years ago it was OK to be rude. It used to be 'I'm not making a cosmo and you're a horrible person.' Now we say, 'I'm not making a cosmo, but I'm making you something better than a cosmo.' And if they like (the drink) they trust you for the whole night."

So then I wrote a blog post called, "Why Can't I Get a McDonald's Hamburger at Chez Panisse?" and that gave birth to more discussion.

The Paul Clarke picked up the topic at Serious Eats in a post called "Serious Cocktails: Is the Customer Always Right?" In it he asks:

Just as it'd be ridiculous to enter a dive bar and ask for a Last Word, isn't there something at least slightly wrong with going to a bar with a spectacular selection of spirits—an ambitious and balanced cocktail menu and a carefully developed mixological aesthetic—and asking for the bibulous equivalent of a baloney sandwich?

This story picked up another 67 comments so far. 

Then Lauren Clark picked up the topic on DrinkBoston.com in a post called "We've Seen This Before" and adds a very good point- that this whole debate is nothing new and has been seen in food, beer, and wine.

I experienced this kind of change first-hand during my brief stint in the craft brewing industry in the late ’90s. Even though craft beer had been proliferating for over a decade at that point, people would still walk into a brewpub and order a Miller Lite. The bartender would explain that there was no Miller Lite on tap, that the establishment sold only beer that was made on the premises, and he would suggest a golden ale — milder than the pub’s other beers but still way more flavorful than mass-produced light lager. The customer would either leave or try the golden ale. If he tried it and liked it enough, he might get adventuresome later on and order an IPA or a porter. It was a process, and it didn’t happen overnight.

This is fun. I hope this discussion continues on and offline.