Cocktailing with Cameron Bogue, Part Two

So anyway, Cameron Bogue, Smirnoff Cocktail Consultant and I went out drinking in San Francisco. He had a map of all the places he wanted to visit but we didn't get all that far because we stayed too long at every place we did visit. Slanted Door- We were lucky enough to visit SD on a night when bar manager Erik Adkins was working, as he loves to talk shop and mix up a lot of drinks. (Both times when I spent more than 20 minutes talking with Erik I had more than six drinks in front of me, which seems normal to me but customers started making comments...) We tried a rhum agricole punch topped with grated nutmeg that was just great. I had a Casino, which is an Aviation with added orange bitters. These bitters were the homemade ones that I wrote about in the Chronicle, finally put to good use. They were also experimenting with homemade ginger beer, as Erik went off the menu and whipped us up so many more drinks. Eventually we had to flee as we had dinner reservations. Absinthe- Absinthe also has a Casino cocktail on their menu, so it turns out that I'm right about the Aviation being the new Negroni. We had a few other drinks with dinner there that were tasty, and I don't remember what they were but they were all terrific. Bourbon & Branch- It turns out that Cameron knows Todd Smith, and had considered working at B&B when it was going to open. That would have been stupendous. Anyway, we had several drinks and all were tasty. They've been brining their own olives for a while now, but recently made a brine with smoked salt and I think scotch. The smoky olives were fantastic, though I think they could find a better vehicle for them than a gin martini. In other news, Todd says that they're bringing back the Rouge No. 10 when strawberries are in season. Hooray! Rye- Normally Rye never dissapoints, but the execution of the cocktails we had there this time was off so we went back to B&B for a nightcap that I really didn't need but thought was a good idea at the time. The next day I was horribly, miserably, shamefully hungover. But I had a text message from Cameron before I'd crawled out of bed as they were headed to LA around 8AM. Yep, the guy is a pro.