It’s easy to win!

1. Tell your friends about Drink Me

2. Get them to sign up for our email list (top right of this page)

We will choose 6 new email addresses and they will win a pair of tickets to one of the events (and bring you)!
The more friends you tell, the more chances you have to win.

Good luck. We’ll see you there.

SFChefs 2010 presented by Visa Signature®, is a food and wine event celebrating the unique flavor, diversity and bounty of Northern California. The main tasting tent will be in Union Square, where chefs, wine makers and distillers will offer an exploration of taste featuring local products. Classes and seminars will offer interactive opportunities for the public to participate with local farmers, ranchers, chefs, winemakers, distillers, media, luminaries, authors, vintners, mixologists and culinary experts in an entertaining forum.

http://www.sfchefsfoodwine.com/

When: Thursday, July 22
Concert: 8-10pm
& VeeV Cocktail Hour: 7-8pm
Where: Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco

50% off tickets to my classic New World with the San Francisco Symphony
…and a Free VeeV cocktail Hour*
Order online or by phone and use Code: DMNewWorld50

*Pre-concert cocktail reception is limited. To RSVP, purchase your tickets by phone or online, and then RSVP to the email address events@sfsymphony.org with the name of the person who ordered your tickets. We will put you on the guest list and send you a confirmation email with details.

Tickets $15-$70 regularly
Offer is 50% off tickets to the 7/22 concert for all sections except Center Terrace and Side Box.
Valid now through 7/21 11:59pm.
Not valid on previously purchased tickets or with any other discounts.

Join the Symphony for this joyous celebration of America’s musical heritage, featuring the dynamic young conductor Alondra de la Parra. my classic New World weaves a kaleidoscopic tapestry of American music, bringing together the dreamy nostalgia of Aaron Copland’s Old American Songs with the infectious swing of Duke Ellington’s New World A-Comin’. The program culminates in Dvořák’s immortal Ninth Symphony, New World, inspired by the Czech Romantic’s fascination with American folk music.

Combine this music with VeeV, The World’s First Acai Spirit®, for a perfect date-night where a variety of eco -friendly VeeV specialty cocktails will be served.

sfsymphony.org
(415) 864-6000

1) Farmers Market Cocktail Night

Wednesday, July 7th. 5:30pm – 7:30pm.
CUESA Kitchen
San Francisco Ferry Building
More Info

There’s a whole lot of shakin’ going on this Wednesday at the Ferry Plaza. SF’s best mixologists will be pouring mouthwatering drinks at the Farmers’ Market Summer Cocktail Night. This fun event, presented by The Center for Urban Education About Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA), will bring you an eclectic array of spirits mixed with flavors of summer produce.

Participating bartenders include: Kate Bolton (Wexler’s), Greg Lindgren (Rye), and Ethan (15 Romolo), and many others. There will be plenty of tasty hors d’oeuvres by restaurants like Tacolicious, Comstock Saloon, and Bix. For $33, guests can enjoy 2 full-sized signature whiskey cocktails + 8 sample-sized drinks. Make sure to take a cab home.

2) New $21.95 Martini Lunch at Urban Tavern

Daily: 11:30am – 2:30pm (month of July)
Urban Tavern
330 O’Farrell St. @ Taylor
Make Reservations Here

Get ready for a “liquid lunch.”

Urban Tavern is now offering a $21.95 two-course prix fixe lunch special throughout the month of July. The daily special includes a choice of soup or salad, an entrée of beef, chicken or fish, and a Stolichnaya or Hendriks martini.

An added feature of the special is that the credit card receipt issued for the lunch will have no itemized mention of the martini. Instead, it will simply reference a prix fixe meal, which will help avoid certain questions from the boss. This lunch special also includes 5 hours of free parking.

3) Dinner for Two + Bottle of Wine for Just $60 at Sauce

Every Tuesday: 5:00pm – Midnight.
Sauce
131 Gough St. @ Oak

Tuesday is the new “Date Night.”
Join Sauce in Hayes Valley for Dinner for TWOs-Days, where you and a guest can enjoy a fabulous 3-course meal and a bottle of wine for just $60! Talk about a deal (the wine alone costs about $30).

The menu and wines change weekly.

/ LEARN MORE /

4) Patio Picnic Tuesdays at Starbelly

Every Tuesday (through August).
5pm – 8pm.
Starbelly
3583 16th St. @ Noe

Who doesn’t love a picnic?
Join Starbelly for Patio Picnic Tuesdays and enjoy their newly-added heat lamps, plants, and striped canopy while you munch on fried chicken, grilled brats, ribs, sloppy Joes, salads, pies, and cobbler. This week’s menu will feature Grilled tri tip “Santa Maria” style.

Dinner is just $25 per person. If you haven’t had enough after your first round, you’re welcome to enjoy seconds. Feel free to arrive any time during the three-hour picnic; reservations are accepted, but not required.

/ VIEW THIS WEEK’S MENU /

5) Wednesday 3-Course Prix Fixe at Ame

Every Wednesday (through August)
5:30pm – 10pm
Ame
698 Mission St. in the St. Regis Hotel
More info – http://www.amerestaurant.com/PDF/2010ameJulyWednesdaySpecialMenus.pdf

Join AME restaurant at the St. Regis for another series of its popular 3-course prix fixe menus. July 7th is the Bo Ssäm Dinner; July 14th is the Sustainable Dinner (exploring farmed vs. wild seafood); July 21st is the Sherry Dinner; and July 28th is the Puerto Rico Dinner.

Each dinner includes different beverage pairings. Dinner and drinks: $55 per person. Bon appetit!

6) $1 Oyster Happy Hour at Grand PuBah

Every Monday – Friday.
3pm – 8pm
Grand PuBah
88 Division Street
www.grandpubahrestaurant.com

Grand PuBah – SOMA’s sleek, modern Thai restaurant and bar – invites you for happy hour Monday-Friday from 3PM-8PM. Enjoy salty, delectable oysters for $1 as well as $2 off specialty drinks, beer, and other alcoholic beverages. If you’re hungry for dinner, check out their menu which includes dishes like fresh Thai spring rolls and whole, 2-pound crab tossed in the wok with Thai herbs and spicy beer. Mmm!

The second annual SIP awards took place a couple of weeks ago in San Diego. The event brings in a 50 person consumer panel to do a blind tasting and judge a slew of some new and some accomplished spirits. The competition seems to be an extremely eclectic and bizarrely diverse selection of spirits.  They’ve announced the winners of the competition, and here are some of them (congrats!):

Platinum – “Best of Class”

New Amsterdam Gin, Shakers Original American Vodka, 360 Double Chocolate Vodka, Antiguo Blanco Tequila, Ambhar Reposado Tequila, El Jimador Anejo Tequila, Semillero Joven Mezcal, Don Q Anejo Rum, Deadman’s Mango Rum, A.de Fussigny XO Fine Champagne, Nature’s Own Strawberry Delight, Don Q Mojito, Bong Spirit Vodka

First and foremost, there is one primary way to discuss and grade a beer and that’s by how much you like it or don’t. Seriously, it’s either thumbs up, thumbs down, or if you’re wishy-washy, thumbs sideways.

But to really get down to the multifaceted ways of appreciating a beer, you can begin to smell for aromas ranging from earthy to spicy to toasty. You can size up its body based on a billowy head or the web-like lacing it leaves on the glass. You can turn into a math nerd and quantify numbers such as original or final gravity, which dictate its percentage of alcohol by volume (ABV) or how hoppy it is based on its international bitter units (IBU). But whereas all those factors build up to the beer’s overall character and, essentially, flavor, one characterization gets paid the shortest shrift.  Color.

We’re not talking styles that tell you roughly what shade the ale is such as Blondes, Reds, Pales, or Brown Ale, though it puts us on the right track. By this nomenclature, you’ll always know that, say, among wheat beers, a Witbier (white beer) will be way lighter than a Dunkelweizen (dark wheat). But that’s just the tip of the Eisbock.

Unless there are adjuncts that impart coloration such as red cherries or golden saffron or brown coffee, beer derives most of its color from the grains. Unmalted wheat makes a beer light such as a Hefeweizen. The higher temperature barley is kilned at, the darker the tone thereby resulting in beers from light lagers to pale and red ales that span all the colors of a setting sun. When you get into roasted barley, the results are darker and more opaque still, used in dark beers like porters and stouts.

Standard Reference Method (SRM) is the system that brewers use to measure how light or dark their brews are. It has generally replaced measuring color in degrees Lovibond (°L), at least used to describe the beer if not the malts that go into it. To get uber engineer-y, the American Society of Brewing Chemists (ASBC) define SRM thusly: “Beer color intensity on a sample free of turbidity and having the spectral characteristics of an average beer is 10 times the absorbance of the beer measured in a half-inch cell with monochromatic light at 430 nanometers.”

So let’s not go there.

In simple terms, a beer’s color using SRM can range from low to high and since it can never quite hit a watery zero, it will generally fall on the scale between 2 or 3 up to 40. Specifically, this puts Bud’s SRM at 2, Bass Pale Ale at 10, and Guinness at 40. Only drink local artisanal ales? Russian River’s Pliny the Elder Double IPA is approximately a 9 and Moonlight’s Death & Taxes Black Lager hits around 35.

For all the beer geekery out there, it is quite possible to overhear patrons at a craft-centric watering hole to discuss a beer’s ABV or IBU, but you’ll never ever overhear them utter “SRM.”  While we initially drink a pint in with our eyes, ultimately we don’t choose what to drink based on specific color (except for goobers who order “light” beer, who trend toward being the same numbskulls who shy away from “dark beer” misconstruing them as too heavy and caloric; newsflash—Death and Taxes and Guinness are comparatively light).

When we do discuss beer color, it tends to bring out the poets in us. We might describe a Reissdorf Kölsch as the color of straw spun into gold, or Duchesse de Bourgogne as auburn as a paramour’s silky locks, or Old Rasputin Stout as being jet black like the bottom of a coal mine. As we look at our freshly poured beer now filling up a tulip glass or chalice, it’s like spotting an attractive person across the room before we get to know if they are fun or hilarious or kind. Ultimately our favorite aspects of beer lie in the floral or citrus-y hop aroma of a favorite IPA or the fruity esters of a Belgian Dubbel or the coffee and chocolate-y kick of a robust Imperial Stout. As it goes with all objects of affection, appearances matter.

1) World Cup Soccer Party/Buffet at Iluna Basque

2) BBQ Benefit at Show Dogs – Food, Beer, & Music – $20

3) 1/2 Price Tickets to the Golden Glass Wine Tasting

4) Celebrity Junk Drawer Exhibit at the New 5 Claude Lane

5) BBQ Tuesdays Return to Mission Beach Cafe

6) COCO500′s $5 Happy Hour in June

7) 8th Annual Monte Carlo Night at City Hall

“The World Cup is Half Full” Dinner at Jardiniere