Alcademics

I checked out the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco this weekend, so see what was new and fancy. The huge exhibition took over both the North and South halls of the Moscone Center. There were hundreds and hundreds of tables, the majority of which seemed to be hawking olive oil and vinegar, with a lot of mustard, jam, specialty salts, cheeses, honey, and barbecue sauces.

Since there were so many sauces, it was difficult to spot the booze products but I did my best. Here are some things I found:

• Aloe juice and water- there were many stands selling this. I think I've only had one cocktail with aloe juice in it before, a couple years ago at a Chopin Vodka event. I think they sell it at my local Latin grocery, so I'm not sure if this is something new at all.
• The Volcano vaporizing kit was a big attraction at the end of an aisle. They were promoting it as a way to vaporize things like herbs and essential oils and infuse them into things like fruit. We talked about potential cocktail applications, like bubbling orange flower water into a Ramos Gin Fizz. Then we pretty much realized that it's a vaporizer for smoking weed. Further confirmation is found here. 
• This company has a series of reduction sauces like blueberry merlot, mission fig, and pomegranate- also known as grenadine. Consider the possibilities...
• There were a couple of brands of cherries in sauce or maraschino style cherries that I would definitely like to see as alternatives to the typical low-end cocktail cherries and super expensive Luxardo ones.
• ModMix makes organic cocktail mixers, including a Bloody Mary Mix with real wasabi. Then you could use soy-wasabe pickled green beans as garnish.
• Lemon ginger beer sounds intriguing. As does prickly pear and mesquite syrups. 
• I got to try to Dry Soda juniper berry flavor. It was delicious.