Cocktails with Camper English

Please Update Your Browsers

2007-07-04T12:26:00.000-07:00

I've created a new website for my booze writing separate from the personal stuff on cramper.com- but you're welcome to read both. This blog is moving (and will be dead here) so you'll need to follow the link. This will be the last post here.

Please redirect your browsers to my new site:

alcademics.com

I'm full of it

2007-07-03T17:18:00.000-07:00

"It" meaning "ideas" instead of "liquor" for a change.

I'm trying to scrounge up some story assignments, as I need a lot more work to pay the bills here at Camper HQ. (If you happen to be an editor paying a decent per-word rate, call me, k?)

I've had a rash of story ideas based on recent travels and press releases and upcoming events and breaking news. As a writer I'm always trying to identify a theme or trend or extract useful information from my experiences, then pitch them to magazines and newspapers. In the past two days I've sent out 13 story pitches to editors and heard back on 3 of them. (They answer the no's fairly quickly). It should be noted that simultaneous pitches are not allowed, so these are 13 distinct story ideas in addition to the probably ten other pitches I'm still waiting to hear back on from the past several months. That's not an excessive amount of pitches to have out, since nobody is paying me very well, but it is a lot to keep track of.

In any case, the point it this: I've been doing a lot of really good thinking over the past week about booze but I can't share any of it until I hear back that my pitches were not accepted and I know I can't get paid for it. What you're getting here on this blog is the writing that I can't sell, along with a lot of information I post as I learn it. Perhaps one day I'll be the world's first independent online cocktail journalist (if you're a high-paying sponsor, call me, k?), but for now I have to hold out a little bit. It's hard, because I like to talk a lot.

Homemade tonic expiration date

2007-07-02T19:17:00.000-07:00

I hadn't really experimented with my homemade tonic water (or consumed much of it either) since I made it on May 31. Today I was thinking about tonic again and decided to have a look at the bottle in the refrigerator. Bad news- it had mold growing on top. (It was in a whiskey bottle with metal screw cap that I repurposed to hold the tonic water syrup.)

So for all of you wondering how long your homemade tonic syrup will last in the (my) refrigerator, the answer is less than a month.

Linkage

2007-07-01T20:31:00.000-07:00

To all the writers who've linked to this site recently- thanks! I read about 13 billion booze blogs right now and it would be common courtesy for me to link back to you all, but I'm working on spinning this blog off to a separate website where you'll get your due linkage. I just wanted to say it's an honor to get noticed by so many people I respect.

Every time an editor turns me down for a story (often), I assume it's because I'm stupid. At least now I know I'm stupid and at least mildly entertaining.

Blue Ice and Distilled Resources Trip

2007-07-01T17:24:00.000-07:00

Two days after I returned from Finland, I was off again visiting the Distilled Resources distillery in Rigby and Sun Valley, Idaho courtesy of Blue Ice Vodka.

At DRinc (Distilled Resources, Inc.- pretty clever) they produce about 17 different potato and grain vodkas and liqueurs, and also organic alcohol for use in food goods and processing. But we focused on potato vodka and Blue Ice, since they were footing the bill.

There was a great, small group of writers on the trip, including New York wine and spirits educator Harriet Lembeck , Chicagoan Sean Ludord of BevX.com, Louise Owens, booze writer from Dallas, and LA-based Meridith May, publisher/writer/co-owner of The Tasting Panel Magazine and former monster truck driver. (When we learned this, we all pretty much bowed to her awesomeness forever more.) These were really smart people who know their booze. But my relative ignorance meant I was learning the most. Here are some fun facts I picked up.

Distilling:

The DRinc distillery was a biofuel plant leftover from the Carter administration that they bought and turned in to the distillery.
They use a four-column distillation process. Column distillation does not scale down so that you can have a small column still. Also, pot stills only scale up so far, so that if someone needs to produce mass-quantities of a pot-distilled product they need to buy a whole bunch of pot stills.
After the raw material (potatoes in this case) is fermented into beer, they heat it up and distillation starts. The first distillation column just strips out all the solids from the beer. The rest break down the vapors into the desired components.
You could have just one giant column instead of four or five or whatever, but this way is more compact. So booze that's x-times distilled should refer to pot distillation instead of number of columns, but you never know with the vodka marketing craziness what's really up. Blue Ice compromises and labels their bottles as "four column distillation."

Bottling

The bottling process isn't just taking finished booze and sticking it in bottles. Bottling is often diluting, blending, filtering, flavoring, and bottling at a "bottling facility." Thus, one could order up alcohol from a distillery and flavor it at a separate bottling facility where it becomes distinct products/flavors. (At DRinc they bottle on site.)
Thus the water that brings the product to proof and the flavorings are added at the bottling facility. It is the bottling facility city that is legally required to be put on labels, not necessarily the distillery where the alcohol was first created.
The filtering and treatment of water is a big factor in the finished product- vodka is 60% water, after all. The line between "treating the water" and "flavoring the vodka" isn't terribly clear to me.
There are a lot of ways to filter the water and the final product. Many places run the vodka through a charcoal/carbon filter, but here they add carbon granules to the tanks then filter them out. They say their carbon filtering is actually a clarifying agent for the vodka rather than an important part of the flavoring (they use a "five stage filtration").

Waste Products (You know I love distillery waste products):

The name for the grains or potatoes leftover after fermentation is stillage DDG, or distillers dried grains. Except at Blue Ice they're still wet and they're potatoes, so I guess they should be called DWP. Anyway, this gets sold off as animal feed.
The heads and tails from the distilling process combined are called fusel oils, and are often sold off to be used in chemical processing and cosmetics. However, at DRinc they have to prove to the ATB (via purchase of testing equipment) that there is no more recoverable alcohol in the fusel oils before they do, and by "recoverable" they mean "taxable."
I had the opportunity to smell a jar of fusel oils!
Waste heat from the distillery (steam) is pumped under the floors of the storage warehouse in the winters to heat it.

Blue Ice

They have to get certified to say that they make the product from Idaho russet potatoes, as that term is trademarked, by proving that all their potatoes come from Idaho.
They don't make a lot of organic potatoes in Idaho, which is why DRinc makes organic grain-based vodkas for other brands but not an organic potato vodka. It would be just too expensive on the shelf.

Call me a sucker, but I love distillery tours. At every one I learn more, and also how much more I need to learn. It's an ongoing study of booze, and these are the field trips that keep it exciting.

Finland recap

2007-06-29T13:33:00.000-07:00

I filed my write-up of my trip to Finland with Finlandia Vodka in my personal blog, as there isn't too much information about vodka in it beyond the ridiculous amounts of it that were consumed while there. But if you're interested, you can read part 1, part 2, and part 3.

Imbibe Me

2007-06-29T12:43:00.000-07:00

The new issue of Imbibe is out, and it's wonderful as always. There are stories on lemonade, a rare amaro, rose wines, a channel knife test, tea cocktails, seltzer water, vintage cocktail ingredients, Peru and pisco, wine-collecting obsessives, beer for BBQ, coffee roasting, how to throw a spirit tasting party (written by me!), sangria, and mead. Mead!

Go. Subscribe. Now.

Bitter Summer in San Francisco

2007-06-29T12:02:00.000-07:00

I wrote a piece for the July issue of San Francisco Magazine about the city's summer love for Italian bitter aperitifs and digestifs that you can find here, though in the print edition it's in groovy chart format and they didn't omit the Aperol row.

I also wrote about our two San Francisco-distilled gins in the Best of the Bay section. Check me out!

New Infusions

2007-06-29T09:38:00.000-07:00

In today's Chronicle, I have a short trendicle about the new infusions. It's no longer about infusing one ingredient in vodka. Now to impress bar patrons you either need to infuse the modifying ingredient like the vermouth, infuse an unusual spirit like cachaca, or add a whole salad's worth of ingredients to your infusion jar.

Infusions 2.0
Remember when a jar full of vodka with lemons floating in it was enough to make you ooh and aah? These days, bartenders have reclaimed their counter space for commercially flavored vodkas, but that doesn't mean that infused liquor has gone away. Homemade infusions, though often kept out of sight, are now more complex and subtle than the old ones.
-- At Etiquette, bartenders infuse bourbon with vanilla and spices in the Manhattan, cachaca with pineapple in the Brazilian Tease, and sun-dried tomatoes, three kinds of peppercorns and celery in the Garden Vodka, which is then poured into a dirty Garden of Etiquette Martini with a salt and pepper rim. 1108 Market St., San Francisco, (415) 869-8779.
-- The signature Americano cocktail at Americano restaurant calls for chai-infused sweet vermouth along with Campari, soda water and an orange slice. 8 Mission St., San Francisco. (415) 278-3777; www.americanorestaurant.com.
-- The Mission's Elixir uses rose hip-infused vodka, along with elderflower liqueur, Cointreau and lime juice in the delightfully dry Eldersour. 3200 16th St., San Francisco, (415) 552-1633; www.elixirsf.com.
-- Vegetarian temple Millennium recently infused bourbon with peach for use in an old-fashioned. They'll also be using cherries in that drink, as well as infusing them into a cherry brandy. And there's also a a chocolate mint-infused vodka that is mixed with a vegan version of Bailey's. 580 Geary St., San Francisco, (415) 345-3900; www.millenniumrestaurant.com.
-- Camper English

Party at the Hangar Distillery July 14th

2007-06-28T12:03:00.000-07:00

I'm going.

St. George Spirits Summer Open House

Take a spirited retreat this summer to a sunny island –one that won’t break the bank or use up vacation time- to St. George Spirits/ Hangar One Distillery on Saturday July 14th from 1pm-6pm in Alameda.

The hangar doors will be open, spectacular spirits will be flowing, and the stills will be running, allowing a rare opportunity to get up close and personal with the distillation process. Music and hors d'oeuvres will be supplied throughout the day to keep everyone upright.

Have a summer fling with the Aqua Perfecta Basil eau-de-vie available for the first time on July 14th. A rare and distinctive unaged brandy made from several varieties of basil, including Sweet and Thai, perfect for summer cocktails.

Also showcased will be renowned local artisans June Taylor Jams and Recchiuti Confections who will be sampling their transcendent chocolate truffles and other goodies.

Shuttle service will be provided between the West Oakland BART station and the Alameda Main Street ferry to and from the distillery on the legendary Mexican Bus from 1pm to 6pm. Flash your admission ticket to get on the bus.

Tickets will be available in the distillery store and by phone starting Wednesday June 20th (with a $1.50 service charge per order) for $25. If event tickets are not sold out admission will be $30 at the door.

St. George Spirits, artisan distillers of Hangar One Vodka, Aqua Perfecta eaux-de-vie and liqueurs, and St. George Single Malt Whiskey.

Saturday, July 14th, 2007 from 1pm to 6pm
St. George Spirits/Hangar One Distillery
2601 Monarch St, Alameda CA 94501
Map/directions available at: http://www.stgeorgespirits.com/pdf/stgeorge-directions.pdf

Tickets are $25 in advance, $30 at the door.
$1.50 service charge added to all phone orders.
No phone orders taken after July 8th.
This is a 21 and over event. Please bring your picture ID!

For more information contact Lou Bustamante, Spirit Guide, 510.769.1601, tastingroom@stgeorgespirits.com

St. George Spirits: : http://www.stgeorgespirits.com
Michael Recchiuti Confections: http://www.recchiuticonfections.com
June Taylor: http://www.junetaylorjams.com/
Mexican Bus: http://www.mexicanbus.com/
Alameda Ferry: http://www.eastbayferry.com/

More Pisco Recipes

2007-06-28T11:05:00.000-07:00

The problem with Pisco and Cachaca is that people haven't been very good at promoting recipes other than the pisco sour and caipirinha. Anyway, I found a few more pisco recipes in July's Food and Wine Magazine here.

More Bitter

2007-06-28T10:24:00.000-07:00

Rob Willey did a story for the New York Times on the bitters craze. It focuses mainly on people trying to recreate Abbott's Bitters or making other complicated bitters that require aging, but is a good round up of the brands on the market and who's doing what in terms of making their own.

All about Pisco

2007-06-25T08:28:00.000-07:00

There was another wonderful Wall Street Journal booze article by Eric Felten on Pisco Sours this weekend. It's about the difference between the Chilean and Peruvian versions of the drink.

Chileans, you see, also claim the Pisco Sour as their national drink, though they construct it rather differently from their neighbors. In Peru, a Sour is made with pisco, lime juice, sugar, egg white and a few drops of Angostura bitters. In Chile, they use lemon juice instead of lime, often omit the egg white, and almost always abjure the bitters --though some top the drink with a dash of whiskey.

PERUVIAN PISCO SOUR

2 oz pisco
1 oz fresh lime juice
¾ oz simple (i.e., sugar) syrup (to taste)
1 fresh egg white (or 2 tbsp pasteurized egg whites)
1 dash Angostura bitters

Shake all but the Angostura vigorously with ice. Don't stop shaking -- the egg whites need to get nice and frothy. Strain into a short glass and garnish the foamy top with a few drops of Angostura.

CHILEAN PISCO SOUR

2 oz pisco
1 oz fresh lemon juice
¾ oz simple syrup (to taste)

Shake with ice and strain into a short glass.

Booze News

2007-06-24T21:20:00.000-07:00

I checked the booze news for the past week while I was traveling. It was a good week.

Tennessee is set to become the first state in the nation to require carding of anyone, without exception, who buys beer for off-premises consumption. Now underage drinkers will have to resort to asking older people outside the store to buy them booze, just like they always have.

A study shows that gastric bypass surgery turns formerly hefty people into alcoholic lightweights.

The EU voted that legally-termed vodka can be made from things other than cereals and potatoes (such as grapes and maple sap) as long as its labeled accordingly on the bottle. But as far as I know, every vodka that isn't made from corn proudly labels the bottle as such anyway.

A manufacturer invents a "cocktail condom" that you use to cover your drink while you leave it so that you can be sure nobody drops date-rape drugs in it while you're not looking. So it's kind of like the don't-drink-my-drink coaster, but with glue.

Someone created a pizza-flavored beer. Great idea, combining things that are commonly consumed at the same time into one tasty treat. I always pour a half gallon of milk into my cereal box and keep it in the refrigerator for the month.

It turns out that most organic certified beer isn't totally organic- most hops aren't, but you only need 95% of organic ingredients to be USDA certified. In the wake of the bad press, one hopes more hops will go orgo.

Heineken launches a new skinny, taller can for its light beer- sort of like the Virginia Slims model of package design. But wait Heineken light? Does it taste like water, with extra-extra water flavor?

Expired Link

2007-06-24T13:00:00.000-07:00

Here's something small I wrote for Friday's SF Chronicle, so most of it has already happened.

Tips for tipplers on surviving Pride weekend
1. He who stays out too late on Pink Saturday won't wake up in time to do her makeup on Pride Sunday.
2. The Civic Center celebration is a perfect venue for food and drink pairing if you remember this simple advice: Beer in a plastic cup always goes with food on a stick.
3. Like parades but don't feel like marching? Grab an outdoor seat at Ti Couz or another restaurant on 16th Street and enjoy a cocktail as the Dyke March goes by sometime after 7 p.m. Saturday.
4. Appletini, way out. Pomegranate, in. Try a splash of pomegranate juice or liqueur in Champagne at your pre-Pride party brunch.
5. The Trans March is on Friday. Celebrate with beer before liquor or liquor before beer. It's all good.
6. Money spent on beer at Pride booths goes back into the community. So drink responsibly but tip wildly.
7. Especially if they're hot.
-- Camper English

Land of the Hangover

2007-06-24T00:25:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all- I'm in Finland right now courtesy of the people at Finlandia vodka and Brown-Forman, whose products I drank way too much of last night. I'll post a more complete entry later, but here are my thoughts so far:

If the luggage loader breaks and they can't load half the luggage on the plane, why not wait until it's fixed before sending the plane off? My comfy airplane t-shirt did not make a great urban exploration t-shirt for the additional 24 hours I was forced to wear it (so far).
Finn Air's wine and spirits selection in business class was delightful. The veggie meals? Not so much.
Monday night and we went bar-hopping to four venues. I think we got back sometime after 3:30AM. I like this place.

Thursday update-I'm back from a night of partying in Lapland, where the sun is shining 24 hours a day now. I am absolutely polluted with vodka that at some point of the night we stopped drinking in cocktails and began chugging out of the bottle. Boy do I ever need a shower.

Sunday update- I'm back in SF now. Pictures are here. More details after I'm back from my next trip.

And for the new father...

2007-06-15T10:05:00.000-07:00

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.

For the Father With (Almost) Everything

2007-06-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

Small piece I have in today's Chronicle:

For the dad who has almost everything
It's a touch pricey for a Hallmark holiday gift, but consider this: Father's Day is on Sunday and National Martini Day is on Tuesday. That's two birds you can kill with one stone, and by stone we mean a $440 silver-plated cocktail shaker set packaged in baby blue Tiffany's-esque boxes. The Ercuis brand two-piece shakers and Hawthorne strainers were imported from Vienna by former Enrico's bartender David Nepove, a.k.a. Mr. Mojito, who now sells them online at MisterMojito.com. Unfortunately the shakers do not come with the magic power to transform every drink made in them to the finest cocktail in the world, so we recommend you also send Dad's butler a gift certificate for bartending school.
-- Camper English

Craptails

2007-06-14T11:02:00.000-07:00

CHOW.com has a pretty funny piece up on bad drinks. Like some of the commenters, I agree that there are plenty of bad drinks to write about without needing to make them up, but it's hard not to love the Salmon Colada and Hot "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter"ed Rum.

My Cachaca Drink

2007-06-13T16:09:00.000-07:00

My article on new brunch cocktails in the July issue of Out Magazine just came out. Pick it up! (And if you like it, feel free to write a letter to the editor as they kicked me to the curb.)

In the article I mention that the average Bloody Mary usually disappoints- not because it's a bad drink, but because it's hard to get right. Then I suggest a few alternatives. The Michelada is one, the Spanish Coffee, which is huge in Portland, Oregon, is another, and the third is a cocktail called the Mellow A.M..

They neglected to include that I invented the drink (at least I think I did- it's so hard to know if someone else invented the same drink independently), but that's okay because I get to share it with you all.

The Mellow AM
1 ounce Cachaca such as Boca Loca or Pirrasununga 51 (I tried other brands and these two were my favorites)
1 ounce Cranberry Juice
1 ounce Papaya Nectar
1 1/2 ounce Ginger Ale

Build in a tall glass over ice and serve with a straw.

The thing is, I've made the drink at home a zillion times and think it's fan-freeking-tastic, but I don't know of anyone else who has tried it. So if you happen to come across the ingredients, why don't you give it a shot and let me know what you think.

Nice package!

2007-06-13T13:23:00.000-07:00

I get a lot of booze and booze-related swag in the mail, which is nice since I'm always writing about it. Generally speaking, the more expensive the product the fancier the packaging and press kit that it comes with. I have to say I enjoy a good press kit (as long as they're not unwieldy- 10 Cane you're pushing it) since I keep them around for future reference, but usually the box the booze comes in just takes up space and I need to throw it away.

The St. Germain elderflower liqueur that arrived in the mail today sells for under 40 bucks, but totally wins the prize for impressive packaging. Given that most everybody is raving about how good the stuff is they could have sent it in a brown paper bag with "Yer Booze" written on it, but they decided to go all-out. The case is a faux cloth-covered box like you might have around a collector's set of books, with a leather pull-tab at the end. Inside the bottle rests on a satiny pillow like... I don't know, a fancy tea set you get as a wedding gift? (I tend not to own breakable things so I don't have much experience here. Also note if I ever get married I don't want a fancy tea set.)

Anyway, the press kit is nice too, so I'm happy about that. The box, as lovely as it is, isn't really convenient to keep around. I searched the house for something large and tubular it might hold, but it's too small for the Dust Buster and too big for the cordless phone.

It's Pimm's Season

2007-06-13T11:55:00.000-07:00

Wimbledon starts June 25th, and that means it time to start drinking Pimm's No. 1 Cups. I wrote about them for the Chronicle in the fall, but it's time to refresh your memory and start planning.

At San Francisco's Slanted Door restaurant, they make a Pimm's cup without Pimm's that's an approximation from the old Cocktails of the Ritz Paris book. According to Wikipedia, "A close approximation to Pimm's №1 can be prepared by mixing one measure of gin with one Orange Curacao and one red Vermouth."

I've had the Pimm's at Slanted Door and can testify to it's deliciousness. It would be especially nice on a day like today, when San Francisco is having a "heat wave" of temperatures in excess of 80 degrees! (You have to live here to appreciate the rarity of that.)

But this year someone upped the Pimm's Cup ante. At Alameda's Forbidden Island tiki bar, Martin Cate decided to make his Pimm's as an approximation as well. But he's adding extra-special garnish.

The traditional Pimm's as it was served in England was garnished with borage leaves. When they made a big push to promote the drink in America (I can't remember when- 1950's?) they sold the bottles with packets of borage seeds, since nobody here knows what the heck borage is. This picture from Wikipedia shows it's a big ugly weed.

Anyway, borage didn't exactly catch on here but it turns out that cucumber has a similar flavor to borage leaves. So that's why you get them in your Pimm's.

Diageo even changed the label on the bottle to reflect this and now recommend garnishing it with cucumber and even strawberries. Some people are not happy about this, and have started an internet petition to strip such blasphemy from the label. (Read the site for a ton of Pimm's info- good stuff.)

You can find borage leaves in dishes in some fancy restaurants, an internet search revealed. So Martin at Forbidden Island sent his minions in search of borage leaves. He tells me they ended up going to 11 different garden stores (note: not grocery stores) to find borage to serve in his Pimm's Cups. He also bought some borage seeds to plant outside the bar in the hopes they won't have to drive all over town in the future. That's some serious dedication to a drink.

And is anybody else really fricking thirsty right now?

Nectarini

2007-06-12T16:02:00.000-07:00

I decided to make myself an early afternoon cocktail, just because I can. And it turns out I made one that was actually good. Naturally, the photo turned out bad, but here it is anyway.

I had a nectarine that I was going to eat, but then I figured, why not drink it instead? I muddled it up as best I could (it was juicy but didn't produce a whole lot of juice so much as mush), added the juice of half a lime, an ounce and a half or so of gin, and a splash of simple syrup.

The drink is fantastic. Not cloying and sweet, but not too juice+boozy either. Do try this at home.

Unfortunately now I'm out of nectarines and I'm not in the mood for a leftover-Indian-foodtini so I guess I'll get back to work.

I made a drink

2007-06-10T20:48:00.000-07:00

...with my limoncello.

But it wasn't very good. The picture is better than the taste.

Homemade limoncello

2007-06-09T19:54:00.000-07:00

I have a lemon tree in my front yard, so I decided to put it to good use (okay it gets used for juice and garnish all the time) and make limoncello. I used the recipe that was recently printed in the Wall Street Journal:

If you'd like to try your hand at the homemade sort, it's easy enough to do. Peel fine shavings from the skins of a dozen lemons; avoid cutting into the bitter white pith, so that the peelings are pure yellow. Pile the peel into a glass container, and pour in a bottle of vodka. Let it steep for about a week, or until the peels have lost all their color, before straining out the lemon peels. Dissolve two cups of sugar in three cups of water on a medium stove, and let it cool. Add the sugar syrup to the lemon-infused vodka, to taste. Bottle your limoncello, and keep it chilled.

You can make a similar liqueur using oranges instead of lemons -- or just about any citrus at all. But whether you're pouring your own house limoncello or one of the burgeoning number of commercial brands, just remember that it is best after a meal, and that one small glass is plenty.

So that's what I did. I scraped some lemons and let the scrapings soak for two weeks (the color never went away). And added the sugar syrup. I only used about a cup's worth before I thought it was way too sweet.

Anyway, I now have homemade limoncello and that's awesome!

I would love to make my own triple sec, but it will be a huge compromise. I'd actually have to go further for the ingredients than my own front yard.