Now Imbibing

I just submitted my first two (very small) pieces to the best drinking magazine ever- Imbibe.

I'm very happy to be writing for this publication, as I've been a fan since it started. They take a unique approach to discussing wine, beer, liquor, coffee, tea, and other beverages. It's part DIY, part tour guide, and a lot of education.

The March/April issue just came out with stories on tequila, wine tasting, organic beer, drinking in Tokyo, and homemade tonic water.

Fashionable Drinking

Oh boy, another fashion vanity spirit! Tommy Bahama is launching a white and gold rum soon. Roberto Cavalli already has an incredibly expensive vodka. What's next, Gucci Grappa?

Tasting Tequila at Tommy's Mexican

Mastering Tequila, One Glass at a Time

Camper English, Special to The Chronicle

Friday, February 23, 2007

Tommy's Mexican Restaurant, with a mere 275 bottles squeezed onto its shelves, no longer has the largest selection of 100 percent blue agave Tequila outside of Mexico, but likely has the most Tequila-savvy clientele. The restaurant's Blue Agave tasting club is the nation's largest, with more than 6,000 members -- not too shabby considering the restaurant is located out in San Francisco's avenues and the bar has only nine stools.

The club began around 1989, according to beverage manager Julio Bermejo, who runs the family restaurant with his father Tommy, mother and two sisters. Bermejo got the idea for the tasting club while at UC Berkeley, when he frequented Raleigh's, a bar with a beer-drinking club.

He started the Blue Agave Club a bit later, but says that, at first, "it wasn't taken seriously at all."

The rest of the story is here.

My story in today's Chronicle talks about Tommy's famous tequila tasting club. Going into it I knew that there was no discount for being in the club, and in fact you have to pay to join, so I couldn't figure out why anyone would actually do it.

As the story hopefully shows, Julio Bermejo has created a warm environment conducive to learning about tequila from people who are also in the program above you. It's a mentoring community of tequila drinkers on Monday and Wednesday nights, where you pay for drinks but get the information for free. Now that I've been there I get it- and have my own tequila club card to prove it- but I sure wish it weren't so darn far away.

Update: The first line in the story said that Tommy's no longer carries the largest selection of 100% blue agave Tequila in the country, but I didn't have space to say why that is. This is from the Tommy's website by Julio Bermejo:

The article also mentioned that Tommy's no longer has the largest selection of 100% agave Tequila in the U.S. This is true. What I say is that we carry the best selection of legally imported 100% agave tequila in the U.S. How can this be? Well, first we refuse to play the game of carrying every single 100% agave Tequila available. We have seen many people try this approach and sooner than later they revert to carrying only the best products they can get. As most of you know, there are many distilleries that put out a plethora of Tequila labels. I refuse to carry seventy products from 1 producer whom I believe to only make mediocre products. Our list continues to have at least 30 selections that are no longer made that none of our competitors can get. Tommy's continues to be the premier Tequila bar on Earth. We are grateful the Tequila industry holds us in such high esteem and we are flattered that all of our competitors come to Tommy's to learn about Tequila!

Cheesy Beer

Last night I went to the beer and cheese pairing at the Rogue Ales Public House in North Beach. The event was great, and a bargain for $30. We had 8 beers paired with cheeses (and in one case, chocolate). Most of them were not full pints, but that would have been way too much beer anyway. While some of the pairings were straightforward- pairing a soba ale with soba cheddar, or a beer with a cheese that was washed in that same beer, other combinations had bitter hoppy beers with strong, mild cheeses that worked together to take the edge off of either. Well done. Before each course, a brewer from Rogue and Sheena Davis from Epicurean Connection spoke about the beer and the cheese that we were about to try.

Keep your eyes peeled for this event next year and other opportunities for beer and cheese pairings.

Here's last night's menu, although there were two substitutions and I can't find my notes that say what those were.

Rogue Morimoto Soba Ale
Rogue Creamery Soba Cheddar

Bison Belgian Ale
Bellwether Fromage Blanc

Rogue Monk Madness
Laura Chenel Chevre

Moylan's Moylander Double IPA
Bellwether Farms Carmody

Lagunitas Censored
Vella Italian Table Cheese

Marin Brewing Company San Quentin¹s Breakout Stout
Chocolate, Cherries and Almonds

Rogue Mocha Porter
Rogue Creamery Blue

Rogue Chocolate Stout
Rogue Creamery Chocolate Stout

Bitters are in Out

My latest piece for Out Magazine should be hitting newsstands about now. I wrote about the revival of bitters, what they can do for your drinks, and reviewed the major brands. It's a solid cocktail article that could go in any magazine, so it's cool Out doesn't require a gay angle to get printed.

Pick up a copy, and don't be shy about telling the editors how much you love it!

Fun Mugs

The Munktiki website is where Forbidden Island gets its Fugu for Two mugs, but they have a whole range of awesomeness. It's like Kid Robot but for booze vessels.

Drinking for Two

(In Today's San Francisco Chronicle)

Love Potions For Two

Dipping straws into a shared cocktail isn't the most romantic way to celebrate Valentine's Day, especially given the kitschy reputation of extra-large drinks. Yet some bartenders are trying to show that extra-big doesn't have to mean extra-bad.

The best known cocktail for two or (for the polyamorous) more is the scorpion bowl. The tropical drink, simply a fruit and rum punch in an oversized bowl with straws, is a popular leftover from the tiki food and drink fad that first swept America beginning in the 1930s. It's sometimes presented in a ceramic scorpion bowl with a volcano in the middle that's filled with a high-proof spirit and ignited -- a volatile combination that no doubt contributes to its enduring appeal.

The story goes on to discuss to origin of the scorpion bowl (Trader Vic's), what different people do with it, and why Forbidden Island does them right. We include the recipe for the popular Fugu for Two, shown in the picture.

Read the rest of the story here.

I wrote the story with Valentines Day in mind, and we made sure to include where else you can get shared cocktails. That way, you can skip the whole dinner aspect of the holiday, get drunk on jumbo cocktails, and go screw.

Double the pleasure

A few bars offering drinks for two or more:

Betelnut. Scorpion bowl. 2030 Union St. (at Buchanan), S.F.; (415) 929-8855.

Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge. Multiple tropical drinks. 1304 Lincoln Ave. (at Sherman), Alameda; (510) 749-0332.

Lingba Lounge. Bowl of Monkeys. 1469 18th St. (at Connecticut), S.F.; (415) 355-0001.

Luna Park, Volcanic scorpion bowl, Make Your Own Passion (Valentine's Day only). 694 Valencia St. (near 18th Street), S.F; (415) 553-8584.

Poleng Lounge. Emperor's Cup. 751 Fulton St. (at Masonic), S.F.; (415) 441-1710.

Ponzu. Godzilla. 401 Taylor St. (at O'Farrell), S.F.; (415) 775-7979.

Tonga Room. Multiple tropical drinks. 950 Mason St. (inside the Fairmont Hotel), S.F. (415) 772-5278.

Trad'r Sam's. Multiple tropical drinks. 6150 Geary Blvd. (at 26th Avenue), S.F.; (415) 221-0773.

Trader Vic's. Multiple tropical drinks. 9 Anchor Drive (at Powell), Emeryville; (510) 653-3400. 555 Golden Gate Ave. (near Van Ness), S.F.; (415) 775- 6300. 4269 El Camino Real (at Dinah's Garden Court), Palo Alto; (650) 849-9800.

Where to Drink in London

The New York Times runs a nice long piece on where to drink in London. (Print and save it before they make you pay!) There's not a whole lot of new information there as to why it's better than New York (or SF)- bartenders tend to be career bartenders rather than people passing through the profession so there is more consistency in the quality of drinks. The drinks themselves are what you might find in better bars everywhere, with fresh ingredients and bartenders trying to outdo each other by incorporating obscure liqueurs into their cocktails.

There is, however, a nice list of bars in which to drink, that includes more than the ones I've always heard about: Trailer Happiness, Milk and Honey, Lonsdale.

I wonder, though, if the drinks are better overall, or just more consistently good. How good can a cocktail get? Have I tasted perfection already, or is there further to go? I guess I'll have to wait for someone to fly me to London to investigate in person.

Here's a new one...

I was flipping through the current issue of GQ magazine and came across this ad for PAMA pomegranate liqueur. I almost missed that it has a scented perfume strip so you can smell what it tastes like. I haven't seen that trick before.

I have a bottle at home and can tell you that the stuff in the bottle smells different- pomegranate is syrupy and that doesn't come through on paper. The magazine smells more like pomegranate perfume.

Maybe I'll rub it on my neck before I go out tonight. Though I'm used to reeking of booze, it would be nice if that was actually a good smell.

Vanity Spirits update

This is getting a little out of control. Though celebrities have been buying up vineyards for years (I call them vainyards), more of them are getting into the spirits industry. One of the first was Sammy Hagar with Cabo Wabo tequila. Now we have Willie Nelson's Old Whiskey River bourbon, Trump Vodka, Jay-Z and Damon Dash's Armadale vodka, and I just read that Vince Neil bought a tequila Tres Rios.

The next pomegranate?

Recent Scientific Testing Shows Noni Juice May Help Fight Cancer and Lower Cholesterol

Recent medical studies have shown that noni juice may possess anti-cancer properties, as well as the ability to lower cholesterol and triglycerides in smokers. Natures Products Ltd. recently re-launched their pure, organic noni juice, and other noni products, in the US market after success in European markets. The noni juice is available through www.noninz.com.

This is pretty much what happened with pomegranate. A company that owned lots of plants paid for research to prove that they were beneficial, then started selling it as a health tonic, then everyone in Hollywood started drinking it, then it made its way into alcoholic cocktails, then it was the latest hip thing to infuse into vodka, tequila, schnapps, and liqueur. Though it's a total hype-based marketing trick, it worked amazingly well and resulted in a new flavor for bartenders to work with.

So what the heck does noni taste like?

North Side Dining

Tonight I went out for drinks and dinner with a rep from the Hime restaurant in the Marina. Though they have an interesting cocktail menu (bigger than what's online), we stuck with sake. We started with a sampler of 3 nama (unpasteurized) sakes not normally on the menu. The first one, Harushika, was our favorite, being smooth, round, and only slightly fruity.

After that , we compared the ginjo and daiginjo versions of the same sake- Wakatake. Ginjo sake has its rice polished to a certain percent, and daiginjo is further polished. The ginjo had the rice (an almost gamy, slightly overripe flavor that's usually present in sake but not my favorite flavor in the world) ever present in the taste, whereas the daiginjo opened with a fruity floral taste then followed with the rice flavor.

After that, we tried two junmai sakes: the very dry Otokoyama which was only outstanding for its dryness, and the Akitabare which was bold but didn't make a strong impression. Our server recommended we move from Daiginjos down to junmais since the palate gets tired, but I found that's not really true for me. The junmais just seem so bold as to be boring.

Anyway, they offer over 30 sakes total, with several seasonal or rotating off the menu.

The food we had was creative and pretty darn tasty. They asked me a ton of questions about what I do and don't eat since I'm a vegetarian- is fish broth okay? how about eggs? and so on. I was worried that they really didn't have anything vegetarian on the menu and were desperate. However, they brought us so much food we couldn't eat it all, from a mushroom salad to asparagus wrapped in something fried that tasted like peas altogether, to fried tofu topped with yuzu sauce, to tempura served as vegetable popsicles on long wooden skewers, which was a great touch. With the effort and presentation on the veggie stuff, I'd bet the fish is good too if you're into that sort of thing.

Afterwards we went for a cocktail at Mercury Appetizer Bar a good walk up the street. We had a dessert there, which was a chocolate and butterscotch pudding combo where the butterscotch is made from real scotch.

WAIT A MINUTE, YOU CAN MAKE BUTTERSCOTCH FROM SCOTCH? How did I not know this?

Anyway, I had their Green-tea'ni that is only vodka mixed with Zen Green Tea liqueur. At first I hated the drink, then liked it by the end, but maybe my taste buds were tired like the waiter said they would be earlier in the night. We also tried the Chai Iced Tea that has Phillips Union Vanilla Vodka (yuck) with Voyant Chai Liqueur (yum!) and iced tea and cream. It was really a drink built around the flavors of the Voyant, but I really like those flavors so I was all for it. Worth checking out.

Then I stumbled to the bus stop and took the 49 all the way home. One hour later I'm still a little tipsy. Occupational hazard, I guess.