San Francisco bars, part 1
Aug/090
I’ll skip the details, I’m here for a dayjob conference followed by a friend’s wedding. I just got in tonight, so I stayed close to the hotel. I visited:
Farmer Brown
The restaurant/bar attached to my hotel, which sources its food from local farms, preferring those run by non-white farmers. It actually has a pretty interesting cocktail program, and tonight’s bartender, Daniel, did a good job, but somebody needs to introduce them to the double-strain, or at least using a strainer at all.
Swig
Definitely a good selection, but they were mobbed by a very mixed (pick your metric: racial, gender, gender-preference, socio-economic: all apply) group while I was there. One part of that group was there for the live blues (which was very good), to which they were dancing, and the other part was stripey shirt boys clearly more irritated by the gender imbalance (heavily hetero male, meaning Them) than I (there to sample the cocktail menu) was. My Gin Gin Mule, listed on the menu with Martin Miller’s but poured with Tanqueray, was obviously rushed by the circumstances, so I’ll have to come back on a slower night.
Rye
I can’t say enough good things. Hannah’d previously given me the ingredients, but not the proportions, for their Dogpatch, and I tried it with what I thought made sense and found it too dark and heavy, but the genuine article is much better than my guestimate was. I dealt mostly with Lauren (who may or may not remember the Attention and Red Hook after I taught them to her), who seems a bit unsure of herself unnecessarily, didn’t catch the name of the senior bartender on duty, met Marco (formerly of Clock Bar, now consulting, so far as I could gather) and Erick (Bourbon & Branch and (?) Rickhouse), each on my side of the bar, each probably turning up for the Cocktail Classic, and had a pleasant chat. I’ll be back, especially as it’s stumbling distance from the hotel.
Name this drink!
Aug/096
A friend described something that Rye is doing with Averna, rosso vermouth, and (she remembers / presumes) rye as “brown and grown-up … the kind of thing drunk by crusty British professor types in the 1930s – you know, one glass of claret with dinner (roast beef), one glass of spirits afterward, and to bed at 9:30pm.” I got so far as the rye and the Averna, and knew I’d agree: too much brown, heavy stuff, not enough balance. So here’s what I’m actually having as my last drink before bed, which I like very much and would like to serve to other people, which probably means it needs a Name, on which I’m coming up blank:
2 oz rye (I used Old Overholt)
¾ oz Averna amaro
¾ oz Cinzano bianco (note: not dry, the sweet, white type of vermouth)
Stir in a mixing glass on ice, strain over cubes in a Collins, top with soda, garnish with a flamed orange peel (and discard the peel).
3 August 2009’s libations
Aug/090
(Continuing a leitmotif.)
Summer Herb Bouquet
I’ve had Aperol cocktails on the back of my mind since I was asked about them not terribly long ago. That, combined with leftover freshly-squeezed orange juice from this past weekend’s party and a curiosity to play with basil flowers as a garnish begot this. I think there’s too much Aperol in this recipe (drop it to ¾ oz, but that may require an adjustment of either the gin or the St. Germain, and I haven’t remade it yet), but it’s on the verge of being a lovely summer drink.
1½ oz Hayman’s Old Tom gin (if you don’t have Old Tom, use 1¼ oz of a plymouth-style—including Plymouth brand—gin and ¼ oz simple syrup)
½ oz fresh orange juice
½ oz St. Germain
2 dashes aromatic bitters (I used Bitter Truth, Angostura might actually be better)
2 leaves fresh basil (I used the cinnamon basil from my back yard, same for the flowers below, but I expect any variety will work, if slightly differently)
Shake all of the above on ice, double-strain (the second strainer should be mesh, not just a julep: it’s catching the herb bits) into a Collins glass filled with crushed ice, garnish with a couple of basil flowers.
Attention
As before, but this time with basil flowers as a garnish. (Guess why those were floating around…)
Old Fashioned
Jacob Briars and Sebastian Reaburn have a lot to say about the proper ways to make an Old Fashioned. This isn’t their way, it’s my way.
3 oz Rittenhouse 100 Rye
1 sugar cube
liberal dashes Angostura bitters
Drop the sugar cube in a mixing glass, soak it with Angostura bitters, add one barspoon room temperature to warm water, muddle the sugar cube into the bitters. Add the rye, fill the glass halfway with ice, and stir assertively but not aggressively for at least 90 seconds. Strain (use a julep, please) into an Old Fashioned glass with a couple of good ice cubes in it. Garnish with a lemon twist.
Toronto
I learned this at Deep Ellum (the bar in Boston with the US East Coast’s best Manhattan variation list, rather than the city in Texas for which the former is named), and I’m pretty sure what I do is closer to what I had there than Jamie Boudreau’s recipe of the same name, which has both too much sugar and too little Fernet for my palate.
3 oz Old Overholt Rye
1 oz Fernet-Branca
Stir on ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, garnish with a smacked mint leaf (I used spearmint from the back yard, but any old thing will do, the larger the leaf the better—I picked the one pictured here without light).