Bitter and Loving It

Last week I attended an event for Averna; yesterday it was a poolside Aperol party. Campari is already an essential ingredient in the Negroni though I'm seeing more people enjoy it with soda lately, and San Francisco sells a ton of Fernet-Branca. These brands are all examples of Italian bitter liqueurs, also known as amaros.

I have a lot to learn about amaros and the difference between them and other herb-heavy spirits like pastis, pernod, and herbsaint.

But I can tell you the marketing push is on for this summer's hot new drink category to be light aperitif cocktails invoking thoughts of holidays on the shores of the Mediterranean. I don't mind that one bit. The thing I do mind is that San Francisco weather doesn't remind one of summer at all.

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.

Trendy ingredients

In the March issue of Out Magazine, I have a story on cucumbers in cocktails. I wrote a sidebar to that story that didn't make it into the print edition but is online here.

Five More Trendy Cocktail Ingredients
Vegetables in your cocktails? Flowers? Check out these cutting-edge cocktail components

Our April issue is cool as a cucumber with recipes for the veggie’s use in cocktails. Here we gather five other surprising cocktail components.

1. Elderflower. This trend is largely driven by commercially available elderflower simple syrup that adds a light floral note to vodka and gin drinks. Use elderflower syrup in place of unflavored simple syrup in your next gimlet.

2. Yuzu juice. Yuzu is a sour Asian citrus fruit that makes a heck of a tasty cocktail. Use it in place of lemon juice in a lemon drop.

3. Cayenne and other peppers. Bartenders are combining the hot peppers with cool fruits (like cukes) for an icy hot drink experience. Infuse black peppercorns in vodka for one day and make a spicy cooler using the vodka with lots of lemon or lime juice and soda water.

4. Pomegranate. With a pomegranate liqueur, vodka, tequila, and schnapps on the market it’s easy to add the rich syrupy flavor into your drinks. To equal parts vodka and PAMA pomegranate liqueur, add a splash of Grand Marnier and a lemon garnish for a wonderful pom-tini.

5. Ginger. Whether in juice, simple syrup, infused into booze, or muddled with other ingredients, ginger is turning up in a wide range of drinks. Simmer sliced ginger into simple syrup for half an hour and use it in your next mojito or caipirinha.

700 Santas in One Small Bar

(In Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle)

Digging out boxes from the attic, untangling strings of lights, trying not to cut yourself on smashed glass ornaments: Decorating for the holidays is often a complicated project. Still, most people don't seem to mind. Take Garry McLain, for example.

To decorate his Hayes Valley bar, Marlena's, which is about the size of a one-bedroom apartment, it took four people five days to install tens of thousands of dollars' worth of decorations. And they don't even have a tree.

Instead, there are 700 Santa Claus dolls. Most are in display cases lining all the walls inside the bar and on the semi-enclosed patio smoking area, though some are way too big to fit behind plastic. Those stand guard in the corners of the room. Others hang from the ceiling, and a few dozen are stacked around the bar or riding a gold mechanical Ferris wheel behind it. Most of Marlena's front windows are covered up to make room for them, sacrificing sunlight for Santa Claus.

Read the rest of the story about Marlena's 700 Santas here.