The second annual Tales of the Cocktail swag awards!

Times change, swag changes. This year at Tales of the Cocktail, my swag haul was quite different than last year, but perhaps the presenters' bag o' swag was different than for the media. (Can't I be both?) This year I brought home 3 t-shirts, 4 drinking vessels, 3 types of garnish, 2 absinthe spoons, 8 mini bottles (I drank two in the room), and 2 keychains. Amazingly, I didn't get a single muddler, compared with last year's seven. For last year's awards, click here.

Second Annual Tales of the Cocktail Swag Awards

Oddest promotional tie-in: Rain Vodka's emery board (last year they gave an umbrella, which made more sense given the brand name) Best t-shirt: Hangar One Most useful: Kegworks' citrus peeler (from the garnish seminar) Best (and only) Book: The Soul of Brasil by Anistatia Miller and Jared Brown (Sagatiba seminar) Best Coupon Code: 10% off Mud Puddle Books (Charles H. Baker seminar) Best Garnish: Wild Hibiscus Flowers in Syrup Weirdest/Most Expensive/Best Overall Swag: Hendrick's gin's metal croquet mallet stir stick, mar-tea-ni glass, and handheld cell phone extension were odd on their own, let alone combined. Hendrick's continues to live up to their "unusual gin" campaign with unusual events, swag, and their website, without looking like they're trying to hard. Congratulations on winning this year's Swag Awards! I heard there was a gift bag cocktail contest up at the pool, where people had to make drinks using only the items in their swag bags. Those bartenders, they're a crafty (and thirsty) bunch.

Tales round-up in the Washington Post

Jason Wilson did a terrific write-up of Tales of the Cocktail in the Washington Post.

All in all, this remains the best place to find out about the state of the cocktail in America. And by all accounts, that's a fairly dynamic state.

Amen! Tales of the Cocktail is a week's worth of information and a year's worth of homework.

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?

National shot-and-a-beer week

Tales of the Cocktail begins in New Orleans this Wednesday. It's a terrible week to go cocktailing anywhere else since all the best bartenders will be drinking hard in the Big Easy. Do yourself a favor and don't order anything more complicated than shots and chasers until Wednesday of next week when everyone's hangover wears off. That said, in San Francisco Jon Gasparini will be holding down the fort at Rye, Jeff Hollinger (who proved his party credentials at last year's Tales) will stay in town working at Absinthe this year, and Marco Dionysos will be here getting Clock Bar up and running. Share a drink and commiserate with these poor fellows keeping SF running while we're running ragged. Anyone else not going and want to encourage business? Post in the comments.

Tales website getting into shape

The Tales of the Cocktail 2008 website is finally shaping up, and now has a gallery of presenters and special guests. It is gallery of sexy, sexy people; most especially me. I am one of those presenters, giving a talk with Jeffrey Lindenmuth on "Regional American Cocktails." Are you coming to see me? Here is my bio:

Camper English is a freelance cocktails and spirits writer for publications including the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine, Wine & Spirits, and Best Life, as well as the cocktail blog Alcademics.com. He has covered everything from urban moonshiners to drinks with maple syrup. His work has taken him to places like Warsaw (vodka), Barbados (rum), and Mexico (tequila), though he most enjoys the cities where they can mix a mean drink at happy hour. He is oddly obsessed with distillery waste product recycling and cocktails with black pepper.

Mark your calendars

According to the signature on Ann Rogers' email, Tales of the Cocktail 2008 will take place July 16-20. So write it down on your vacation schedule next year, and see you then.

Bay Area bartenders earn toasts at New Orleans cocktail event

Bay Area bartenders earn toasts at New Orleans cocktail event Camper English, Special to The Chronicle Friday, July 27, 2007 We like to think our bartenders and their drink creations are extraordinary here in the Bay Area. Last weekend at the Tales of the Cocktail event held in New Orleans, we found validation that it's not just too many Negronis triggering our hometown pride -- the Bay Area's bartenders are finally getting respect at the national level.

In its fifth year, the Tales of the Cocktail conference celebrates the history of cocktails in New Orleans and the practice of making them around the world. Though open to the public, the event is heavily attended by people in the beverage industry, from small-city bartenders on up to major spirits distributors. Approximately 12,000 people were at the event July 18 to 22.

Esquire magazine cocktail correspondent and historian David Wondrich, who gave several talks at Tales of the Cocktail, said: "In San Francisco (the bars) tend to have that neighborhoody feel but they specialize much more in cocktails. It's like cocktail culture never went away."

Read it here.

The Tales of the Cocktail Swag Awards

It became clear at Tales of the Cocktail that the amount of swag was going to be unmanageable, so I started declining freebies unless I was prepared to lug them home. Not everything made it (hope the hotel maid likes vodka!) and I still had two additional pieces of luggage on the way back. My end tally was 9 pens, 6 keychains, 4 bottle openers, 2 shaker sets, 11 pieces of glassware, 4 DVDs, 4 CDs, 5 mini-bottles, 7 muddlers, 4 books, and a heck of a lot of miscellaneous. And I now present: The Tales of the Cocktail Swag Awards

• Most over-gifted swag category: muddler
• Best muddler: Plymouth Gin's long unfinished wood mallet
• Most unnecessary swag category: keychains
• Most unexpected item: Twelve ounces of Dancing Goats coffee, not ground
• Best item for brownosing journalists (tie): Bombay Sapphire reporter's notebook and Ciroc light-up pen
• Most practical item I didn't already own: jigger (unbranded, donated by Barsol Pisco)
• Biggest missed branding opportunity: see above
• Most practical item I didn't know I wanted: Rums of Puerto Rico cocktail apron
• Most expensive swag: set of 9 Riedel spirits tasting glasses
• Most unwieldy swag: full-sized bottle of Absolut New Orleans vodka
• Best use of brand name in swag item: Rain Vodka umbrella

Tales of the Cocktail 4 - The last two days

I think I'm a rare person that made it through all of Tales of the Cocktail without a hangover. But then I drank a lot on the plane and have one today back in San Francisco. Still, the conference was exhausting and I was starting to feel it on Saturday. At the Cocktails and the Blogosphere talk, they touched on a few interesting things:

• Blogs' strong points are they're both updated regularly and interactive, and can reach a lot of people fast.
• They have the ability to spread the word about great recipes (for drinks or drink ingredients) and products, and effect cocktail menus and consumption on a pretty large scale.
• PR people haven't been so good at paying attention to blogs and pitching the appropriate ones.

The vermouth section was pretty advanced so I'm going to need to parse through the handouts to get up to speed. The Riedel spirits glassware tasting was terrific. In three different types of glasses we had three different wood-aged spirits and we tasted through to find the glass that brought out the best aspects of the spirit, while minimizing the alcohol burn. While tasting the Islay scotch, one glass made the nose smoke first, then fruit behind it while another glass achieved the opposite. It makes me want to re-taste everything in my liquor cabinet in different glasses! Then we went out drinking. I bowed out relatively early but many others saw the sun come up. The next day I first packed up my swag, which took some time. I had lunch at Riche in the Harrah's where we were staying, and managed to get to the Tales of the Cocktail Spirit Awards late enough that it was over. Drat! Many people looked like hell at this point and lept out of bed showing up at the awards ceremony in yesterday's clothes. I guess that's an appropriate ending to the event. And I'm definitely planning on going again next year.

Tales of the Cocktail 3 - Day 3

Day 3 Recap: On Thursday I attended a lot more seminars:

• Organic and local cocktails- Alison Evanow of Square One organic vodka says, "Vodka is like butter." There are some really interesting non-profit healthy food programs happening in New Orleans post-Katrina.
• The future of mixology, with bar stars Todd Thrasher, James Meehan, and John Kinder. One of them said, "We've all been claiming gin is going to be the next big thing for years now and it just hasn't happened."
• The effects of Prohibition on cocktails- This was a casual, hilarious conversation between booze historians. John K. Hall of 40 Creek Whisky was asked why they don't do a rum. He answered, "We don't grow any sugarcane in Canada." David Wondrich replied mocking global warming, "You will soon!" I also learned that prepackaged sour mix was available as early as 1905.

Then I had a fabulous dinner at The Commander's Palace, a swanky restaurant in the Garden District. The waiters were like ninjas- there were none and then suddenly 8 of them would jump out of the shadows and take care of all of our needs and disappear.

Tales of the Cocktail 2 - So far, sooooo good

It's day two of Tales of the Cocktail and I'm still going strong. Currently I'm skipping the "spirited dinners" drinks-and-food pairing dinners happening all over town because as a vegetarian they don't make these things for me. ("Can you pair this vermouth with a salad?") So I had my own beer and pizza pairing at a microbrewery chain. It was good until they brought the "pizza," which was like a salty Boboli bread with sweet pasta sauce and uncooked tomatoes on top. Yeah, not so great. So far I've attended seminars on:

• Cocktail history ("I didn't bring any ice tools because they're really sharp and really hard to get on airplanes" - David Wondrich),
• The history of the Napoleon House cocktail bar ("It's like a New Orleans day spa" - David Wondrich)
• Ice ("An honest ice cube became impossible to find."- Sasha Petraske, speaking about ice machines up until a few years ago)
• Rum (so much good information it's hard to put it down)
• Forgotten and lost cocktail ingredients (Much like the Imbibe article by Paul Clarke of the same name)
• Pisco (my favorite seminar so far- great info and great swag too.)

Pisco is the new gin. I'm just going to call it out. (Take note of the date.) And I've hung out with Paul Clarke, Tony Abou-Ganim, Jamie Boudreau, the Liquid Muse, Stephen Beaumont, Robert Hess, Ted Haigh, Beachbum Berry, and more other people than I can name. And tomorrow at the Cocktails and the Blogosphere event it should be an even more ridiculous clusterf**k. I'm in heaven.

Tales of the Cocktail 1- Holy bag of swag

Yes, that's four shirts, 5 muddlers, several pieces of glassware, uncountable pens, and more. Good thing I brought an extra bag to carry it all home.

Tales of the Cocktail Roll Call

So many bloggers, bartenders, and other cocktailians are coming to Tales of the Cocktail that it's hard to keep track. I was going to start making a to-meet list, but then thought this would be useful for others also. I created a TOTC Attendee list so we can all see each other. Check it out here and email me with your info if you're coming to the event! Tales of the Cocktail Unofficial Attendee List Then link to the list from your own blog we'll all be on the same page. Web page, that is.

It's official: TOTC

I was granted my media credentials today and I'll be heading to Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans July 18-22. Hooray! Anyone else going? I'll be the dude too old to be wearing high-tops, running back to the hotel to eat Ramen Noodles in between sessions.