The Tales end

I'm home from Tales of the Cocktail, the annual cocktail convention in New Orleans. This year was fast and confusing and pretty great, and I think it will take me a few days to process it all. I don't really go for the partying that happens at night, as I can do that every day in San Francisco, but for the lectures during the day. Some of the talk highlights for me were:

• The Sagatiba cachaca tasting room session by Jared Brown and Anistasia Miller, in which they talked about several of their new incredibly exciting (you know, to drink nerds) findings on cachaca history and how it predates rum. I think the information in their new Sagatiba-sponsored book will fuel many cachaca stories for the next year.
• Martin Cate's talk on Cocktail Garnish, which was so much fun and had great visuals in the presentation.
• St John Frizell's talk on Charles H. Baker, Jr. Not only was it fascinating to learn more about Baker- a well-read drink writer but largely unknown person- St. John's lecture was hilarious. Did you know he made the first literary reference to the word "Ho"?

For those who attended- what were your favorite talks?

Items of Interest

Gourmet has recipes for blue martini ice pops, strawberry margarita ice pops, and mango daiquiri ice pops. Eric Felten traces the history of the Cape Cod cocktail, along with its derivatives the Sea Breeze and the Madras. Colorado's Sunday alcohol sales ban law stopped this week. Congratulations! A new book publisher, CocktailKingdom.com, has announced a ton of reprints of vintage cocktail books. I haven't seen the hard copies of the books yet, but the selection is marvelous.

Book Titles AVAILABLE NOW: Bartender's Manual by Harry Johnson (an authentic reproduction of the 1900edition) with a new introduction by Robert Hess. Modern Bartender's Guide by O.H. Byron (an authentic reproduction of the 1884 edition) with an introduction by Brian Rea. American and Other Iced Drinks by Charlie Paul (an authentic reproduction of the 1902 edition) with a new introduction by Dale DeGroff. The Mixicologist by C.F. Lawlor (an authentic reproduction of the 1884 edition) with a new introduction by Ted "Dr. Cocktail" Haigh. Barflies and Cocktail by Harry McElhone (an authentic reproduction of the 1927 edition) with a new introduction by David Wondrich. AVAILABLE IN SEPTEMBER: The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks by David A. Embury with new introductions by Audrey Saunders and Robert Hess. How to Mix Drinks; A Bon Vivant's Companion by Jerry Thomas (an authentic reproduction of the 1862 edition) with a new introduction and appendix by David Wondrich. And introducing: The Essential Bartender's Guide by Robert Hess.

Literary hangover

The New Yorker dedicates five pages to the hangover. Most of the information is not new, but there are some interesting cultural anecdotes:

Elsewhere on the international front, many people in Asia and the Near East take strong tea. The Italians and the French prefer strong coffee. (Italian informant: add lemon. French informant: add salt. Alcohol researchers: stay away from coffee—it’s a diuretic and will make you more dehydrated.) Germans eat pickled herring; the Japanese turn to pickled plums; the Vietnamese drink a wax-gourd juice. Moroccans say to chew cumin seeds; Andeans, coca leaves. Russians swear by pickle brine. An ex-Soviet ballet dancer told me, “Pickle juice or a shot of vodka or pickle juice with a shot of vodka.”

...and a bit of discussion on what cures may work and why. Many of them one researcher dismisses as distraction cures:

Many of the cures probably work, she said, on the same distraction principle as the hair of the dog: “Take the spicy foods, for example. They divert the body’s attention away from coping with the alcohol to coping with the spices, which are also a toxin. So you have new problems—with your stomach, with your esophagus, with your respiration—rather than the problem with the headache, or that you are going to the washroom every five minutes.” The high-fat and high-protein meals operate in the same way, she said. The body turns to the food and forgets about the alcohol for the time being, thus delaying the hangover and possibly alleviating it.

Milk thistle as a liver helper comes up again. That's the only thing this article made me consider changing about my lifestyle. Lately, I've hardly been experiencing any hangovers. I attribute this not so much to reduced alcohol intake, but to two factors: 1. Drinking in venues where they serve a glass water with drinks. 2. Not staying out too late. I've noticed that even when not drinking heavily I feel worse after a late night out than I do after an early one with many cocktails. The New Yorker story mentions Kingsley Amis, the British writer of three books on drinking that were recently compiled into one volume called Everyday Drinking. I have the book, and it's a riot. The Wall Street Journal's Eric Felten also wrote about this book in a story last weekend called The Hangover Artist. Esquire's David Wondrich also reviews the book in the June issue. He says, "Kingsley Amis’s drink writing is better than anybody else’s, ever -- even though there wasn’t a single cocktail or category of booze he could write about without making a grievous factual error." Playboy takes on Amis as well, saying that in the book, "Many quaffs are more interesting in theory than in practice... but the old boy is charming enough to make you think about trying them anyway. " They include a recipe for the Salty Dog, a cocktail with gin, grapefruit juice, and salt.

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.

Links of possible interest

While catching up on my reading and email from vacation, I'll likely be doing lots of linking to other stories rather than the deeply intellectual thought-provoking essays you've come to expect from Alcademics.com. So it goes. I just discovered that the Wall Street Journal has a nice Food and Drink section page. On it right now, Eric Felten discusses the new Kingsley Amis compendium Everyday Drinking. I have the book at home but haven't had time to get into it. It's hilarious and deserves a thorough read. They also have a story on tips for wine tasting rooms, which is a follow up to tips for visitors to those rooms, and a very short review of some organic spirits. On other sites, Chow.com has a story on the history and return of punch. They mention that at Hawksmoor in London they serve punch at tables instead of bottle service. I think this sounds like a great idea, especially for all the new high-end cocktail bars. And the big shiny silver punch bowls would look better on a table in these places than a stupid light-up ice bucket for vodka.

SF Represent!

I picked up a copy of Food & Wine Cocktails 2008 to see what the representation of bars and cocktails around the country was. West Coast drinks have been getting more attention in the past year and it's great to see this reflected in the book. The cocktails from the Bay Area are: Grapefruit Flamingo from Kieran Walsh at Solstice Green with Envy from the Poleng Lounge Amberjack from Le Colonial Bergamont Shandy from NOPA Zydeco Cocktail from Tres Agaves Vanilla-Cucumber Limey from Jay Crabb at Martini Monkey in San Jose Fog Cutter from Forbidden Island Puerto de Cuba from Dominic Venegas (formerly of) Bourbon & Branch Alsatian Daiquiri from Duggan McDonnell at Cantina Thai Boxer from Scott Beattie at Cyrus in Healdsburg Green Lantern from Range Mi-So-Pretty from Elizabeth Falkner and Angie Heeney-Tunstall of Orson Tommy Gun from Jacques Bezuidenhout of Bar Drake Filibuster Cockatail from Erik Adkins of Flora in Oakland Jose McGregor from Jimmy Patrick at Lion & Compass in Sunnyvale Northern Spy from Josey Packard The Alembic Off Kilter from Elixir Babylon Sister from Jonny Raglin of Absinthe Blackberry and Cabernet Caipirinha from Cantina Strawberry and Ginger Cooler from Jeff Hollinger Absinthe plus Dark and Stormy Ribs from Presidio Social Club That makes 17 SF and San Jose venues represented compared to 24 New York. Not bad for a city 5-10 times as small. Other cities represented and their number of venues were: Atlanta 4 Boston 7 Boulder 3 Chicago 8 Dallas 5 Houston 5 Las Vegas 5 Los Angeles 9 Louisville, KY 3 Madison, WI 4 Miami/ Ft. Lauderdale 5 New Jersey 4 New Orleans 5 Philadelphia 5 Phoenix/Tuscon 4 Portland, ME 3 Portland, OR 8 Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, NC 5 San Diego 4 Seattle 4 St. Louis 3 Washington, DC area 4 Note: Go Portland, Oregon! That place has had a great selection of local beer, wine, sake, and micro-distillers for a while now. The new cocktail bars like Beaker and Flask and TearDrop Lounge are taking it to the next level. And with Imbibe Magazine based out of Portland, it may soon be the most important drinking city in the nation. Props.

Recession Reading

The New York Times reports that people are spending less on food and booze than usual.

Sales of inexpensive domestic beers, like Keystone Light, are up; sales of higher-price imports, like Corona Extra, are down, the firm said.

Some are skipping drinks altogether. The number of people ordering an alcoholic drink fell to 31 percent last month from 42 percent last summer, according to a survey of 2,500 people conducted by Technomic, a restaurant industry consulting firm.

Perhaps this is a good time to remind Alcademics readers that I authored one of the finest works of budget literature ever put into print: Party Like a Rock Star: Even When You're Poor As Dirt. Here's what people are saying:

Playboy.com

“Camper English [is] San Francisco's resident nightlife guru…. if anyone knows how to navigate the party scene with an almost empty wallet, it's English."

The San Francisco Weekly

“Smart and funny, the book makes for an easy and enlightening read.”

The San Francisco Chronicle’s SFGate.com

“English shares his hard-won financial advice for living the cash-poor high life… It's packed with ingenious and mostly legal tips on saving money (perhaps for rehab).”

Curve Magazine

"Well-written and freakin’ hysterical."

Customer review on Amazon.com

"I think "Party Like a Rock Star" should have been named "Party like an Egocentric Sociopath Who Thinks Laws Don't Exist for Him.""

Get your copy today!

Vodka is the new wine

I've been having a great time reading Lawrence Osbourne's The Accidental Connoisseur, a book about the wine world. It's been stimulating some thoughts in my small brain on spirits industry innovation and marketing based on what happened in the wine world. Around page 84, he's talking with winemaker Bill Cadman, who says:

"The sick thing is," he said, "that people want to spend more money. It makes them feel reassured."

The point he was making is that the price is the best indicator of quality to most people. (Heck, I still buy wine on price, lacking any real knowledge of it, but you know, the cheap price.) Thus, if you want your brand to stand as the highest-quality product in a crowded market, you need to charge the most. "Well, duh!" I said to myself on the elliptical trainer at the gym where I do all of my best reading. It was more of a "Duh me" than a "No duh." Absolut vodka set a high price point early on and was the standard of high-quality vodka until other brands caught up on price. Then Grey Goose took the next big leap in price and that's how people "knew" it was the best. And now we have a slew of vodkas priced at over 60 bucks for 750 ml, so those are now the best. I have in the recent past blamed the marketing departments for inflated vodka and other spirits prices, and would now like to issue a partial apology. It's consumers' fault too for needing to be told what is best. And it's also the many spirit tasting competitions' fault for telling us a new batch of spirits are the best each year, making the terms "best tasting" and "award-winning" nearly useless. Anyway, just some thoughts.

Black (Out) Friday

The SF Chronicle's Wine Section comes out with the now-annual gift guide today. To read the intro and all of the items, start here, then follow the links in the box on the right. I listed some suggestions for gift books (Felten, Wondrich, In the Land of Cocktails), Gary Regan tells us must-have bottles of each kind of booze for your liquor cabinet, Jay Brooks tells us his ideal beer imports, I give a list of essential glassware for the home bar, and in this list of miscellany I pick some whiskies and a calendar.

Cocktail book reprints being reprinted

The folks at New Day Publishing (cocktailbooks.com) just informed me that they'll be rerunning their classic cocktail books series. They print a copy of Jerry Thomas' Bar-Tenders' Guide, the Stork Club Bar Book, and the Old Waldorf Astoria Bar Book. The books should be available again (some of them are sold out on Amazon.com) in the first quarter of 2008.

Felten and Wondrich book reviews

By me, in today's SF Chronicle:

New books dedicated to old drinks Camper English

Many drink books published today are the "Behind the Music" of cocktails, telling the stories of the book authors and recipe histories rather than inventing a slew of new libations.

In the past few years we've seen titles including "Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails: From the Alamagoozulum Cocktail to the Zombie," "Straight Up or On the Rocks: The Story of the American Cocktail," "Sippin' Safari: In Search of the Great "Lost" Tropical Drink Recipes... And the People Behind Them," and "And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails." This fall, two more titles make that list.

"Imbibe!" by Esquire writer David Wondrich (Perigee Trade, $24) is an investigation into the first known cocktail recipe book, Jerry Thomas' "How to Mix Drinks" from 1862.

The majority of the text is a deconstruction of about 100 recipes from or inspired by "How to Mix Drinks." Wondrich translates the recipes into current measurement sizes, suggests substitutions and deletions of specific ingredients, and recommends specific brands to give the drinks authentic (or better tasting) flavor. But this is not just an updated recipe book: While each recipe may consist of only a few lines, Wondrich's historical analysis of the drink's origin, comparison with recipes from other texts, and suggested alterations and spin-offs can go on for several pages each. (And in a few places he refers to how much material he left out to save space.) Wondrich uncovered many new bits of information and has answered several lingering cocktail origin questions in the book. Cocktail connoisseurs and history buffs will find this book an essential addition to their reference libraries.

Eric Felten's "How's Your Drink? Cocktails, Culture, and the Art of Drinking Well" (Agate Surrey, $20; release date Nov. 28) is written in the breezy tone that defines his James Beard Award-winning column of the same name in the Wall Street Journal. The book consists of short essays on classic and modern cocktails with recipes at the end of each, grouped into chapters on ice drinks, holiday drinks, war drinks and the like. Though Felten also traces cocktail origins, he references fewer cocktail books and more literary sources like Broadway plays, novels and newspaper stories. It is a cultural study rather than a technical one, packed with great trivia and hilarious observations like calling gargantuan martinis "hazing, not hospitality." The best description of the book, and the study of cocktail history in general, comes from the conclusion. "If there is anything to be serious about in the way of drinks it is this only: that one's drink be delicious. If it can add to our pleasure by having a good story to tell, then all the better."

Vintage Cocktail Books

By me, in today's SF Chronicle:

Bartenders shake and stir their way through cocktail history Camper English, Special to the Chronicle

Because of their proximity to sticky liquids, well-used cocktail books often don't hold up over time, which may be why vintage cocktail books from the 1860s through the 1940s are rare and highly collectible.

These books hold more value than the recipes inside or their resale value, however. Modern cocktail enthusiasts use them to rediscover how and what people were drinking when the books were written, what bar life was like in the beginning of the last century, and the history of bartending as a profession.

Josey Packard, a bartender at Alembic in the Upper Haight who also studies recipe history, earned her master's degree in editorial studies at Boston University, during which she became interested in books about classic cocktails. She initially made drinks that she read about in newspapers, including the mojito and cosmopolitan, which lead her to try more gin-based and other complex drinks like the Corpse Reviver, Mary Pickford and Gansevoort fizz not widely made in bars at the time. "There was a point at which I realized I was more disappointed than delighted when going out for cocktails," she says. And thus began her career as a bartender.

Keep reading here.

Hip Tastes Review

By me, in today's SF Chronicle:

Is that a sommelier in your pocket?

This Thursday is the release of local "personal sommelier" and wine-tasting party host Courtney Cochran's first book, "Hip Tastes: The Fresh Guide to Wine" (Viking Studio, $18.95). The surprisingly practical wine tutorial for newbies and reference for shoppers is broken into memorable one-point paragraphs. (Perhaps a more appropriate title would have been "Wine: The Short Answers.")

Mixed in with the overview are useful solutions to modern dilemmas like what to drink when all the wine is lousy at the business reception (white, with a couple ice cubes), what to pair with Mexican food (depends on whether you're getting the carnitas), and how to shop for it online (try not to order anything in the peak of summer).

She keeps the endless lists of beginner-befuddling producers, regions, and French vocabulary out of the main text (so you can focus on the whys rather than the whats) and includes her recommendations instead in the Appendix, along with the pronunciation guide we may not admit we really want.

The website for the book is here.

All bar hands on deck

By me, in today's SF Chronicle:

All bar hands on deck The problem with cocktail recipe books is they get all sticky when you bring them into the kitchen. The problem with fun-sized, plastic-coated cocktail recipes is that the recipes are usually overly sweet and taste terrible. Finally someone figured out a sensible solution- a cocktail card deck with recipes from one of the most respected books on the market: Dale DeGroff's "The Craft of the Cocktail." The 50 tabbed cards in "The Craft of the Cocktail Deck" ($14.95, Potter Style), feature a drink on the front and the recipe on the back and are divided into tabbed sections for Martinis, Inspired Classics, DeGroff's Signature Classics and Frozen Cocktails. The margarita is unfortunately placed in the latter category but the cards are not laminated so cocktail snobs can black out the phrase, "Combine all ingredients in a blender."

Moonshine By the Bay

Bay Area home distillers make modern-day moonshine Camper English, Special to The Chronicle Friday, August 24, 2007

Moonshiners live among us. By day they appear to be respectable members of society, perhaps writing software to make your Internet experience run smoothly. But at night and on weekends, after a visit to the farmers' market or a nice brunch, they work in secret, sterilizing equipment, taking specific gravity and temperature measurements, and waiting impatiently as their illegal hooch drip, drip, drips out of tiny stills.

" 'Illegal' is such a judgmental word," jokes Doug (not his real name), who makes moonshine along with his friend Ron (also not his real name) at Ron's house in the Upper Haight.

The two have been distilling for less than a year. "We started home brewing, then we got into 'advanced brewing,' as we like to say to the neighbors," Ron says.

read the story here.

The book I refer to in the story is this one- Moonshine! by Matthew Rowley. It combines moonshine lore and history with tons of practical advice for building your own still and making your own booze.

Book delays

Last December I ordered a reproduction copy of the The Bartender's Guide from 1862 by Jerry Thomas, put out by a publisher called New Day Publishing. They also have a reproduction of The Stork Club Bar Book and the Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book. Every couple of months, I get an email saying that my order has been delayed and that it will be available in a another month. Today I received an email stating it's now delayed until December of this year. Amazon has marked it as "currently unavailable." I tried to reach New Day Publishing for a story I wrote a while back, but was unable to locate them. (I did reach a publisher with the same name, but they produce Christian literature. The receptionist said, "No, that wouldn't be us.") Does anyone have the scoop on what's up with them?

And for the new father...

Another small thing by me in today's Chronicle:

Father's little helper

Fatherhood is a lot of work. First you have to help make the baby, then you have to sit around and wait for nine months until it's ready to play with. After all that effort, new dads deserve a refreshing cocktail, and since there are extra hands around the house, it's about time baby started pitching in. "Baby Mix Me a Drink" ($9; McSweeney's), a 12-page board book from San Francisco resident Lisa Brown, will help Baby start to identify shapes and colors such as olives and red vermouth. Good baby!

-- C.E.

The Joy of Drinking

A third news item by me in today's SF Chronicle. This book rocks- there is so much good quotable material it makes for a lifetime of bar trivia and anecdotes. Buy a copy and start annoying your favorite bartender today!

Joy of reading about drinking

Carrie Nation was insane, the lack of a hangover cure can be blamed on the National Institutes of Health, and too much caffeine without booze likely contributes to terrorism, according to the new book "The Joy of Drinking" by Barbara Holland ($14.95; Bloomsbury).

The hilarious and opinionated history shows us all the good that alcohol has done for humanity since the dawn of time. Holland points out that "There are no good milk-drinking songs," but has a particular dislike for coffee culture compared with pub culture. "In the modern coffeehouse your fellow customers, edgy with caffeine, are hyperactive, suspicious by nature, busy with laptops. Avoiding eye contact."

The tiny book even includes a how-to on making your own booze, should you be so inspired after reading it, which you might not want to do down at Starbucks.

Cups and Their Customs

George Sinclair of Thinking Bartender has posted the contents of Cups and Their Customs, a cocktail book from 1863, online here. Thanks George!

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 needed to be included. When looking for a recipe for the drink to include, I researched newly-released cocktail books to quote from (this is called a "news hook" in the magazine world). The one that popped out is Southern Cocktails by Denise Gee. But her recipe is definitely not standard. She calls for a full ounce of orange flower water in the drink, whereas most other recipes call for two or three drops. She also only uses lemon juice, as opposed to both lemon and lime. She serves the drink over ice, which some people do but most I've seen don't. So in the end I went with Dale DeGroff's version from The Craft of the Cocktail. But then in the final version of the story the drink and recipe got cut out! All that work for nothing. Except inspiration- I'm going out brunching at The Alembic this weekend just to get one.

Beet Vodka

In this month's Wine & Spirits Magazine, I mention Lucy Brennan's Hip Sips and we printed her recipe for beet-infused vodka and the Ruby cocktail that uses it. Now Imbibe Magazine lists these recipes online. Try it! The recipe is here. *update* someone just pointed out another bar that serves a beet cocktail:

The Beet-nyk Martini (West Restaurant & Bar in Vancouver) Muddled Fresh Yellow Beets Luksusowa potato voda Giffard Manzana (French Apple Liqueur) Lemon Dill

Hip Sips

The book Hip Sips, by Lucy Brennan of Portland, Oregon's Mint and 820, is finally released. I've talked about the delicious beet-infused vodka martini I had there. I got a review copy of the book a while ago and made the beet-infused vodka. I think I let mine infuse about one day too long, but it was still pretty tasty. (Though not as tasty as it was at her bar.) You can actually find the recipe for the Ruby and the beet infusion in the April issue of Wine&Spirits Magazine, where I did a tiny write-up of the venue as well. Other drinks in the book include and Avocado Daiquiri and a Rhubarb Cooler- really unusual creations. Many of the drinks are labor-intensive (unless you already have fig puree around the house) but really unique. It's a nice alternative to books endlessly repeating classic recipes (Hip Sips lists 20 classic cocktails out of over 60 recipes) with impressive ingredients.