Drinking in San Francisco

Well, this post is now way overdue so I better get on with it before I forget what happened! Here are a few of the highlights from my cocktail drinking adventures in San Francisco in April, beyond the Tiki drinks I wrote about last month.

I tried to cram a lot of bars into a short amount of time, with so much to see and so many great people to meet. I didn't get as many places as Rick over at Kaiser Penguin, but I did pretty well considering that I often was driving and had other commitments during my visit.

Perennial Favorite Stops: Nopa, Alembic, Absinthe
Although I don't have pictures of them from this trip, I really enjoyed seeing Neyah White the cocktail genius at Nopa again, and hanging out at The Alembic again and meeting Daniel Hyatt. I also had the pleasure of meeting Jonny Raglin at Absinthe and having lunch (and a fabulous cocktail) there (and my own personal autographed copy of Jeff Hollinger's book too).

Day One: Alembic, Heaven's Dog, Beretta
After a light dinner and cocktails at Alembic (one of our friends had never been there, so we went again) we headed to Heaven's Dog. Lucky for us, we found some blogger friends there, as well as Erik Ellestad and Thad Vogler behind the bar. Great drinks again (I only had sips since I was the driver), and fantastic food. I got to try a new (to me) absinthe, Leopold Bros.

At right, a shot of Camper English, cocktail and spirits afficionado and writer extraordinaire, at Heaven's Dog. When it was closing time,Camper took us over to Beretta, which we closed down as well. At Beretta, my most memorable cocktail was the Single Village Fix with smoky mezcal, pineapple gomme syrup and lime. I noticed many mezcal cocktails on menus, and also many with gum/gomme syrup, so I hunted down some Small Hands syrup to bring home.

Day Two: Clock Bar, Cantina, Dosa on Fillmore
On my next free evening in the city, I stopped in at the Clock Bar to meet Marco Dionysos and try the Chartreuse Swizzle that I'd been hearing about. It was really busy, so I enjoyed my drink then continued my adventure.

It was a short walk to Cantina, where I met Duggan McDonnell, and found our friend Gabrielle Barnes behind the bar. Gabrielle was one of the first people we met when we came to San Francisco a couple of years ago - she was working at Bourbon & Branch then, and when we asked where else we should go for great drinks, she recommended Nopa (sit at the bar). We had an amazing time there with Neyah behind the bar.

This time around, Gabrielle had just returned from the Mixology Summit, and made me a great cocktail with Black Seal rum, Grand Marnier, and Cynar - she didn't have a name for it, but it was a fantastic drink. Gabrielle is competing in one of the cocktail competitions at Tales of the Cocktail this year, so I'll be cheering her on there.

Wrapping up the night, I stopped in a Dosa on Fillmore, and had the Bollywood Hills made with Subrosa's Saffron-infused Vodka, as well as a nice little cocktail made with our Distiller's Gin No. 6. The cocktails (menu designed by Jonny Raglin) were great, and so was the Dosa Masala (yum).

That was it for this trip, so many bars, so little time....

2009 American Distilling Institute Conference

This year's American Distilling Institute conference was a bit of a blur, and already a month has passed since I got home. Before any more time passes, here's a quick rundown of the conference.

Friday night - Tour of Anchor Distilling
I wrote about this in another post. Suffice to say, it was a treat to see the stills and meet up with some of my blogger friends. After the bus ride back to the hotel (on which I was sampling one of Anchor's fine beers), I was exhausted. My car (with me in it) was rear-ended by a drunk driver the night before (a bit ironic, since I was leaving my distillery), and I only got about 30 minutes of sleep before my flight that morning. So I went to the restaurant across the street for dinner and called it a night.

Saturday - Distilling Conference
We convened at St. George Spirits at a fairly early hour, and followed along on a schedule of sessions on a variety of topics. This year's theme was brandy/eau de vie/grappa, so the presentations were about distilling spirits from fruit. We heard from many great craft spirit producers, including Dan Faber from Osocalis and Hubert Germain-Robin. We also had a panel session on marketing craft spirits, and lobbying legislators for changes to arcane state liquor laws that many of us confront.

Awards were also given out in a variety of categories, and we had an opportunity to taste the entered spirits. We didn't enter anything, since we don't have anything out from fruit (yet).

That night, I had both bad and good tiki experiences - more on that here.

Sunday - Crafts Spirits Public Tasting
For the first time at one of these ADI conferences, we had a public tasting event. This was a welcome addition to the conference, and provided many of us a great opportunity to interact with consumers in the Bay Area about our products. Members of the general public were invited to come out to St. George and try spirits from all the distilleries present, and in most cases, meet the distiller/founder. We had a pretty good turnout, and it was a lot of fun. I hope to see more of these types of events at future conferences, ideally with more publicity to increase the interest & turnout, but this was a great start.

The only beef I had with the event, which I voiced to the powers that be, was that there were some products that do not meet my definition of American craft spirits, so I wouldn't have allowed them to be poured. For instance, there were some imported spirits.

At any rate, we went on a proper cocktail crawl on Sunday night in San Francisco - more on that in a post coming soon.

Monday - Meet the Mixologist
On Monday, Bay Area bartenders and mixologists were invited to come out and taste spirits and talk with the distillers/founders. Unfortunately, the turnout was fairly light, but this was also a fun event and a good idea. As my friend Gabriel over at Cocktail Nerd noted, bartenders and mixologists are an essential partner for small distilleries.

Bring on the Bloggers
One of the highlights for me was to meet some of my blogging friends. It was fantastic to have them at the conference, and I was very happy they were invited to participate and write about our group and our industry.

Thanks to St. George!
The folks at St. George were wonderful hosts, and a lot of fun too. Thank you to Jorg, Lance, Andie and the rest of the team at St. George for hosting us and letting us invade their distillery for three days!

I Saw Fritz Maytag's Stills

The 2009 American Distilling Institute conference was held in Alameda, CA last month, at St. George Spirits (more on the conference in a future post). The folks at St. George were wonderful hosts, and provided a great location for our conference.

Since we're distributing in Northern California now, I figured it made sense to go to the conference and then spend some time with our distributor's folks in San Francisco.

In addition to the public tasting event for craft spirits, which was a terrific addition to the ADI conference, one of the highlights was getting to tour Anchor Distilling.

Really? A Tour of Anchor?
The first time I saw Fritz Maytag speak a few years ago at one of these conferences, I found it kind of comical. I have no doubt he is a wonderful man, and I'm sure we'd get along famously if we actually spoke face to face, but he was asked to speak to a group of new distillers and he revealed virtually nothing about anything he does at Anchor. I found myself wondering why he was speaking to us, given that he felt everything was a secret and wouldn't really tell us anything about what he was doing, or about his stills, etc.

So when I heard we'd have a chance to not only visit his brewery facility, but also see the stills, I figured I had better be there. Funny enough, when he spoke to the group this time, Mr. Maytag admitted that historically he didn't even let all of his staff see the stills, let alone others in the industry or (gasp) members of the public. So at least he recognized he was "keeping everything close to the vest."

Here are a few photos from the tour - it was a lot of fun. I only wish we could have tasted some of their spirits, rather than only the beers. They make some great beers, of course, many of which I can't get in Chicago, but they also make some spirits I can't get (e.g., the Hotalings).

Pictures are:

• Mr. Maytag and his head distiller making a presentation in front of their three stills - one for genever, one for gin, one for whiskey (left to right)
• The hops room
• The tasting room, where the rest of our group was hanging out while waiting for their tour group
• The Anchor uniform, which I loved. I think we should have a distillery uniform or something. So far, Derek's not going for it.

Good Tiki, Bad Tiki

I've been to no less than three Tiki bars in the last two months, more than I've visited in all my years until now. I still haven't made it to the Hala Kahiki, but I did get to the new Trader Vic's in Chicago, Forbidden Island in Alameda, CA, and the Conga Lounge in Oakland, CA. Seems like Tiki, along with classic cocktails, is having a bit of a resurgence perhaps? Or maybe I was just missing the boat until now.

Tiki is a lesser-explored segment of the cocktail realm for me, but I've been trying to learn more about the culture, lore and drinks favored by my Tiki-crazy blogger friends.

Chicago's New Trader Vic's
For some reason, we ended up here at the end of our St. Patty's day pub crawl. Perhaps it was because it was the only place we found without a huge line on a Saturday evening (and perhaps that was because it's not Irish). The decor is fantastic, and the menu has many favorite cocktails I've read about. We tried a few of them, but honestly my taste buds weren't at their best due to the beer and Irish whiskey consumed earlier in the day. We did enjoy the Pupu Platter (no longer called that) and the Tiki Puka Puka cocktail, but the Mai Tais were dyed green and too sweet. So were the crazy shots that our friend Maeve insisted on ordering for us.

I gotta go back and give Trader Vic's another shot, and I'll post more about that when I do.

Conga Lounge, Oakland, CA
I was hanging out with Melkon Khosrovian from Tru Spirits and Jonathan Forester from Penobscot Bay one night last month after a craft distilling conference, and we were trying to go and have dinner at one of our joint customers. Unfortunately, the place was tiny and also packed, with a 2 hour wait. So we wandered down the street and settled on pizza at Pizza Rustica. They didn't have any tables either, but said we could order pizza in their upstairs bar. So up we went.

What we found when we went upstairs was a decked out Tiki Bar called the Conga Lounge - fun, with lots of great things to look at on the walls and hanging from above. The pizza was great, but unfortunately our drinks were not so great. We only had one drink each, and didn't even finish those. Darn, we wanted to like the place.

Forbidden Island, Alameda, CA

Since I happened to be in Alameda, of course I had to go to Forbidden Island. Unfortunately, the legendary Martin Cate recently left, so I couldn't see him there, but I knew I had to go anyway.

Every drink I tasted was great, and the ladies behind the bar were a blast. My favorite drink was the Sidewinder's Fang (pictured), although the Forbidden Island and Painkiller were both great too. Definitely have to go back next time I'm in the area.

It was definitely fun to try some more Tiki drinks, I'll have to continue my explorations in Tiki.

Fantastic Cocktails in SF, Part II

On our last day in San Fran, we went to one more great cocktail bar that had been recommended to us by several sources (including a few attendees at the Independent Spirit Fest). The reports we'd received were that this bar has a daytime cocktail menu and a nighttime menu that only comes out after sunset. Intrigued by this idea, and the fact that we knew they were making great drinks, we headed out to its neighborhood, the Haight.

We arrived around 12:30 pm at The Alembic, and were greeted by Josey Packard, the bartender/mixologist on duty. Josey swiftly gave us menus and told us a bit about the place, and we set about deciding what to have. The vast array of truly unique spirits behind the bar was awe inspiring, so we tried to focus on the drink list.

Here are the cocktails we tried, along with some amazing eats:

Round I
Ramos Gin Fizz (never had a proper one of these in a bar before)
Red Snapper (housemade mary mix with gin rather than vodka)

Round II
Pearly Gates (gin, mint, lime, and a secret ingredient)
Bloody Bloody Bull (with beef broth added, and we asked for Aquavit rather than tequila)

All the cocktails were great, but my fave was the Pearly Gates (which we later learned was one of Josey's creations, hence the photo of her and the drink above!). As I get older, I am developing more of a taste for anise, so the hint of it from the mystery ingredient was great in this drink. I'll have to see if I can get Josey to give me that recipe!

Unfortunately we had to leave to catch our plane, or we could've easily stayed until the nighttime menu came out and talk more with Josey. We even got to try some Old Tom gin there, as well as some other spirits we've not seen before - it was great!

Fantastic Cocktails in SF, Part I

One of our favorite meals in San Fran was at Nopa. The place came highly recommended from our new friend Gabrielle at Bourbon and Branch (another great cocktail bar we had visited on Friday night), and boy was she right. We arrived around 11 pm Saturday night, and we sat at the bar. Shortly after arriving, we met Neyah White (-->), the fantastic mixologist behind many of their libations.

Great Cocktails and New (to us) Spirits
We tried a couple of cocktails at Nopa, including The Last Word (Green Chartreuse, gin, maraschino and lime), as well as a classic Sazerac (with Wild Turkey) - both were very good. We then moved on to searching the bar for bottles of things we had not seen before (one of our favorite pastimes, especially when traveling). I tried a bourbon called Hancock's Reserve that was very nice, and made by the fine folks at Buffalo Trace. Derek ordered a classic Manhattan, and Neyah introduced us to a new vermouth - Carpano Antica. It was fantastic.

We tried some homemade bitters (loved the Sunshine bitters with saffron & cardamom) and talked about other classic cocktails with Neyah and Paul, the very nice gentleman sitting next to us. With our dessert (an intriguing warm apple & cheddar crisp with reggiano gelato), Neyah poured a Angostura 1919 rum, which we had also never seen before (why don't we have those in Chicago?).

And Future Adventures...
At the end of the night, Neyah graciously let us leave with bottles of two things we'd not seen in the flesh before - Q Tonic and Cock 'n Bull ginger beer. Look for future posts on this elusive tonic that had been missing from our earlier review, and of this original brand of ginger beer! I feel a Moscow Mule coming on....

One thing I realized is that we really do need to travel more and see what's happening in the cocktail culture outside of Chicago. There are amazing flavors, products and cocktails that haven't made their way here yet!

Adventures in San Francisco

We had a FANTASTIC time in California for the Independent Spirits Fest, and had some great cocktail adventures. Here are a few of the very fun things I'll soon be blogging about:

- Amazing cocktails and great conversations in San Francisco
- A review of Q Tonic to add to our tonic discussion (I managed to get my hands on a bottle!)
- Creme de violette liqueurs (we saw & tasted the new one in SF)
- And of course notes on some of the spirits we got to taste at the Fest

Unfortunately our journey home was a bit rough, but we made it... we're tired! More coming soon!

Independent Spirits Fest - Oct 13th

This Saturday night, we're participating in a very special event at the W Hotel in San Francisco. Its the first-ever Independent Spirits Fest, where a number of small, independent distilleries (and one or two bigger ones that snuck in) will be gathering together to introduce their products to consumers.

We're hoping to get a chance to meet some of the real pioneers in the craft distilling movement, as well as get to taste some innovative products that haven't found their way to Chicago just yet. Plus we'll get to meet some really fun spirits fans and tell them about what we're doing.

Its such an exciting time to be making craft spirits, so many interesting things to come! The industry has been dominated by big, big players for so long, perhaps we'll eventually make a small dent in the market like the micro breweries have done.

Anyone going to the Fest?