What could be better on a Sunday afternoon, after NFL playoffs are over, than watching sixteen of SF’s best females duke it out to see who has the fastest hands in town? Absolutely nothing. Together with Ananas Consulting, LUPEC SF, and Rye On The Road, Speed Rack is rolling into the Brick and Mortar Music Hall on Sunday, January 8th at 3pm.  A national tour, Speed Rack is traveling through ten US cities to find the fastest female bartender in the land and to raise $75,000 for breast cancer research and awareness. Here’s how it works: sixteen top female bartenders (we’re talking ladies from Rye, Hotsy Totsy Room, and Bourbon and Branch) compete head to head in timed trials. If you watch the video on Speed Rack’s website, you’ll see there’s a whole lot of show-womanship and bragging going on. A panel of judges will then score each competitor on [...]

Since it’s still winter, people usually think of cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and nutmeg in warm cocktails that they can drink by the fire.  The Lion’s Tail has the all spice and cinnamon flavors you’re looking for, but in a cold dram. 2 oz Bourbon 1/2 oz All Spice Dram (Pimento Dram if you can find it) 1/2 oz Fresh Lime Juice 1/4 oz Simple Syrup Dash Angostura Bitters Combine ingredients in a mixing glass and add ice. Shake and double strain into your desired chalice. Add a twist of lemon (so it actually looks like a yellow tail) and enjoy!  

First came the steam engine, then refrigeration, and then lager beer… and lager beer became damn popular. Shortly after the California Gold Rush, the pioneers gave the world steam beer. You see, lager beer is aged briefly, or “lagged” at cold temperatures. But there was no refrigeration yet in San Francisco in the 1850s, and all those thirsty miners wanted lager. So the brewers tried making lager beer without refrigeration — at ale temperatures. At first it was a total flop. By the time the hot brew of hops and barley cooled, wild yeasts and other buggers had gotten in and spoiled the batch before the lager-style yeasts could be added. Some nameless, innovative brewer came up with “cool ships”: long shallow pans into which the beer was poured, allowing the wort (unfermented beer) to cool much more rapidly. Once the temperature had dropped to where the lager yeasts could [...]

As the writer of a ‘New Booze’ column, I never thought I’d be able to talk about sherry, but here we are: Bodegas Grant is the newest sherry producer imported to the US, and just in time for a resurgence in popularity of this previously obscured wine. Sherry has been produced for centuries and plays an integral role in the aging of spirits, as sherry casks add unique flavor to a variety of spirits, but there has been very little rhetoric surrounding it in the modern cocktail community until recently. There is a romance and an unmatched mystique to this wine, but many bodegas outside of Jerez, sherry’s production region in Spain, have been shuttered due to the world’s waned enthusiasm. A new, boutique sherry producer being imported is both exciting and relieving. Bodegas Grant is located in El Puerto de Santa Maria, southwest of Jerez on the shore of [...]

Well, I figured it was time for a cocktail with some bubbles in it, seeing how it’s New Years Eve this weekend and all.  The French 75 is perfect for toasting with a little extra kick!  It’s another creation from Harry’s New York Bar located over in Paris.  It got its name from people drinking it saying it had the kick of a French 75mm Field Gun. 1.5 oz London Dry Gin .5 oz lemon juice .25 oz simple syrup 4 oz Champagne Lemon Twist for garnish  

Sometimes you just need to escape. A couple of weeks ago, we packed a small suitcase and headed up to Nick’s Cove on Tomales Bay.  I know you’ve driven by it a dozen times, but next time you’re pining for oysters and driving down Highway 1, you’ve got to make time to swing by.  Even if you’re just taking a pit stop for a warming Bourbon Rosemary Apple Cider ($11), or a dozen of their famous BBQ oysters, you’ll forget that you’re only an hour and a half from San Francisco.  The space is a homey, heavily wooded, elegant lodge with dozens of taxidermied moose and deer heads posted on the walls. It’s everything you want from a warm winter lodge without the hokey-ness.  In fact, the restaurant has a rich history – it’s been in the same spot perched on Tamales Bay for over 80 years – and, legend [...]

The Jack Rose is another one of those cocktails that’s been around since the mid 1920′s.  Its history and birth are a bit cloudy since no one knows for sure who or where it was originally created.  All I know is that whoever created it did a damn fine job, and I say my hat is off to you! 1.5 oz Applejack 1 oz Lime juice 1/2 oz Grenadine Combine all ingredients into a cocktail shaker and add ice.  Shake and strain into a fancy cocktail glass.  Garnish with a lime wedge. Once again use real grenadine from Small Hands if you can’t find any nearby.  You can experiment with Applejacks Bonded as well which is another great spirit with more apple flavor than the original Applejack.  

Grapevines are among the most finicky of crops. Not content to just be sensitive to whims of weather, grapes even resist the best intentions of modern civilization. the establishment of trade routes between the americas and Europe irreversibly changed not only the fortunes of many now-defunct wine chateaux, but it also forever changed the way that a vineyard is planted. Genetic (and marketing) research now makes it possible to grow just about any type of grape in any type of vineyard given the proper vine clones. the specter of climate change (if you happen to believe in “science”) is already wreaking havoc in established wine regions and making new ones as we speak. before any of this factors in, it all begins with dirt. Viticulturists and soil go together like cats and catnip. They need to feel it, grind it up, smell it, taste it, and analyze it endlessly. And [...]