Camper English's Blog, page 4
February 10, 2025
New Nonalcoholic Spirits, Cocktails, and RTDs
In January I wrote two stories on new nonalcoholic products coming out or new on the scene.
New Non-Alcoholic RTD Cocktails for 2025
New Non-Alcoholic Spirits For Cocktails For 2025
Click on over to see more detail, but the products are listed here:
Aplos Ready To Drink Canned Cocktails
Casamara Club Superclasico
De Soi St. Moritz Mule
Uncharted Zero Proof Cocktails
Free Spirits Negroni And Espresso Old Fashioned
Spiritless Espresso Martini
Ghia Le Fizz Strawberry & Orange Blossom
The Pathfinder Negroni
Three Spirit Livener Extra Spicy
Dhos Spirits Blanco Tequilla And Vodka Free
Aplos Ease
Philters Zero Proof Spirits
All The Bitter Cherry Coffee Blast
Wilderton Citrus Aperitivo
February 6, 2025
Interesting Events February 2025
Meeting in person and directing our attention intentionally is more important than ever.
Some events that sound interesting in San Francisco and online:
Walking Tour of the SF Gold Rush and Sunken Ships Feb 8
Martiny’s NYC pop-up at True Laurel Feb 10
Cognac talk by Tiffanie Barriere Feb 11, online
History of the Tonga Room in San Francisco, online lecture Feb 11
Valley of the Queens Tenderloin walking tour, Feb 15
A History of Activism through Cookbooks, online Feb 17
Seattle Cocktail Week - I’ll be there March 3!
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February 4, 2025
The Only Good Alcohol is Made from Wine
I’ve read in other sources that when grain distillation became available in the 1400s and 1500s, it was viewed as a far less healthy alcohol than that distilled from grape wine.
The sources I’m thinking of were from Germany, at a time when distilled spirits were still technically medicinal, even if people were dipping into the medicine enough that governments passed laws about how much medicine could be dispensed at one time.
I also knew that when absinthe came into vogue in the early 1800s, it was initially made with a wine base, but due mostly to phylloxera that killed of the vines in France, producers swtiched to alcohol made from grain or beets.
I knew they called absinthe “artificial” and this pointed to it being flavored with wormwood and anise. I got the sense that the base spirit was considered “artificial” as well.
I have just started reading The Hour of Absinthe, an academics look at the popularity and downfall of absinthe in France and its colonies. I have the feeling I’m going to get a lot of use out of this book.
Anyway, the author Nina S. Studer makes it explicit:
So that’s cool. I look forward to continuing to read the book.
Buy: The Hour of Absinthe A Cultural History of France's Most Notorious Drink Volume [amazon][bookshop]
Your purchase supports my research as well.
February 3, 2025
Book Look: The Forgotten Sense The New Science of Smell and the Extraordinary Power of the Nose
I recently finished The Forgotten Sense: The New Science of Smell—and the Extraordinary Power of the Nose
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It’s a look at the forgotten importance of our sense of smell, an appreciation for it in a visual world, and mostly a readable narrative look at the modern science of smell, including studies about:
The fact and fiction of pheromones in humans
How the loss of smell can be an early warning sign for Alzheimer's and Parkinson’s Disease
How smell works collaboratively with other senses
And why that allows us to be easily tricked! Such as when a white wine is dyed red.
What the loss of the sense does to a person and the process of smell training to recover it
And how smell training may improve brain function and the function of other senses
Unlike molecular gastronomy books like Gastrophysics and Neurogastronomy, this book isn’t focussed on food entirely, but it was an interesting and very worthwhile read.
Buy It (your purchases support my work):
The Forgotten Sense: The New Science of Smell—and the Extraordinary Power of the Nose
January 31, 2025
The Woman Who Steinbeck Steamrolled
This post has nothing to do with cocktails.
Last night I attended a talk by Iris Jamahl Dunkle, author of the new book Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb.
Sanora Babb was a writer who worked during the Dustbowl for the Farm Security Administration. She was working on a novel set in the Dustbowl, and was awarded a book contract based on a few chapters she sent in to a publisher.
Her field notes along with those of her boss Tom Collins were offered to John Steinbeck, who used them to write his 1939 bestseller The Grapes of Wrath. Collins is mentioned in the book’s dedication. Steinbeck based some of his book on their notes, as he didn’t actually spend a lot of time getting to know the farmers of the Dustbowl saga.
Steinbeck was already superfamous for his book Of Mice and Men, and when his book The Grapes of Wrath was published just as Babb’s publisher was reading her just-submitted book Whose Names Are Unknown, they decided it was too similar. Her book was scrapped entirely, despite her protests. Her book is said to focus more on the people of the Dustbowl, not just the white people, and show the process of them being driven to ruin rather than beginning the work when the farms were already lost.
Whose Names Are Unknown was finally published in 2004, just before Babb died.
Riding Like the Wind tells the story of Babb’s life, which sounds very interesting in a lot more ways beyond being brushed under the rug due to Steinbeck.
Iris Jamahl Dunkle has an email newsletter dedicated to other Lost Voices, subscribe to it here.
Buy The Books:
The Grapes of Wrath [amazon] [bookshop]
Whose Names Are Unknown [amazon] [bookshop]
Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb [amazon] [bookshop]
January 24, 2025
San Francisco Events Late January
Hi - Some events I’m going to that you can join if you’d like.
Jan 25: Nat Harry Author Talk • Spirits Distilled: A Guide to the Ingredients Behind a Better Bottle @ Omnivore Books - free
In Spirits Distilled San Francisco World Spirits judge Nat Harry travels the world from Oaxaca to Islay and Okinawa to Louisville to explore the raw ingredients and skilled hands that form the backbone of the world’s most popular (and underappreciated) spirits. Filled with maps, photos, infographics, and bottle and cocktail recommendations, Harry approaches spirits by plant, from the ground up.
Jan 30: Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb @ Mechanics Institute Library
Join author and historian Iris Jamahl Dunkle in conversation on her latest book, Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb.
In 1939, when John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath was published, it became an instant bestseller and a prevailing narrative in the nation's collective imagination of the era. But it also stopped the publication of another important novel, silencing a gifted writer who was more intimately connected to the true experiences of Dust Bowl migrants. In Riding Like the Wind, renowned biographer Iris Jamahl Dunkle revives the groundbreaking voice of Sanora Babb.
Jan 31: Celebrating Lunar New Year @ Mechanics Institute Library
with Maxine Hong Kingston, Mina Kim, Kathryn Ma, and Aimee Phan
We welcome back renowned Bay Area author Maxine Hong Kingston, along with new guests Kathryn Ma, Aimee Phan, and moderator Mina Kim, to commemorate Lunar New Year and the Year of the Snake. The panelists will share the traditional, contemporary, and uniquely personal rituals that make up their New Year celebrations, explore the myths and qualities associated with the Snake, and offer predictions for the year.
January 23, 2025
Resources For Buying Herbal Botanicals for Bitters and Other Projects
This is just a list of resources and stores from which to purchase herbs for making bitters and other cocktail projects for future reference.
San Francisco Herb Co
Frontier Co-op
Herb Pharm
Mountain Rose Herbs
Starwest Botanicals
January 18, 2025
A Non-Meta Site for Talking About Cocktails
Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Threads, etc) is a rotten corporation, and if you, like me, wish to spend significantly less time on them yet still remain in community with fellow cocktail enthusiasts and bartenders, there are a few alternative spaces.
They include:
Bluesky (find my profile here) that is just New Twitter. I like it a lot but it’s bad for threaded discussions.
Reddit - A site I don’t really use, but I see that the Cocktails subreddit has 377,000 members, so it’s mostly low quality posts there. I would like to be there more often (or on )
Might I suggest:
Here you’ll find some of the smartest folks from the early part of the craft cocktail renaissance, including David Wondrich, Robert Hess, Martin Doudoroff, Robert Simonson, and others. And me!
One thing I’ll suggest: go to your settings and set it up to email you with updates daily or weekly - We’re all so used to going to Facebook or Instagram them out from there, so it’s a good way to remind you that it exists if you forget (as I do).
January 14, 2025
Esquire’s Best and Worst Cocktails of 1934
Esquire magazine printed an article with the Ten Best Cocktails of 1934 - the year after Prohibition was repealed. They included at the end a list of the Worst cocktails as well.
Esquire’s link to the story is here, but it requires a subscription to view.
DiffordsGuide has the list of best and worst, but not the entire article it comes from.
Here’s the Worst list:
I’ve seen this list in a lot of places online, but never the full article, so I went to the San Francisco Public Library yesterday and took it out of the archives.
I didn’t realize that not only was Esquire huge in size something like 11 x 17 back then, but also had a ton of pages. It was basically a book every month.
January 13, 2025
Heinold’s First and Last Chance Over the Years
I stumbled across this thread on Threads -it’s a history of the wonderful and historic the bar Heinold’s First and Last Chance Saloon in Oakland’s Jack London Square, as seen through pictures of its front.
If you haven’t been, Heinold’s is a little shack built from the remains of a paddle steamer boat, which opened in 1884 (or 1883, depending on which history you believe). The interior of the tiny bar runs on an extreme slant as the ground beneath it compressed during the 1906 earthquake. The bar is so angled that if you set a full pint of beer on top it will likely pour out of the side - they sometimes offer coasters in a wedge shape like a doorstop so that drinks stay flat! It’s a magic place.
The post was put together by the San Francisco Ghost Signs Mapping Project.
Here are a few pics and I’d recommend you follow the entire thread, it’s great and there are a lot more to see.
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