Cocktail Week

As a luxury lifestyle photographer I have the pleasure of participating in some
wonderfully decadent events, one of the most recent being Cocktail Week in my favorite city.....San Francisco.
Two dozen of the city's best bars participated in the seven-day affair which, along with the upcoming "Tales of the Cocktail", assists in the revitalisation of New Orleans' hospitality industry ( the cocktail museum is in N.O. after all...).
The event celebrated the rich cocktail tradition of San Francisco and highlighted the use of local ingredients with an emphasis on the organic. A number of the liquors used were also local: Square One vodka is made in Novato and the distillery for 209 gin, voted best new gin by Gourmet magazine, sits right on the Pacific Ocean at an old pier ( more on that later! ).
I had a lot of fun trying out most of the bars involved, along with The Liquid Muse, Natalie Bovis-Nelsen.
San Francisco's bartenders take their job very seriously ( no offense to LA's bartenders but c'mon guys.... most of you will freely admit that you'd rather be on set! ). Some of these bartenders even grow/dry/roast/ their own ingredients!
I think my favorite cocktail was made by Ronaldo Colli at Cortez...the Tore Margarita, with roasted jalapeno and tamarind puree. Yes, these guys do get creative.
The most notable name had to be The Classic Corpse Reviver, which I was told by H. Ehrmann, owner of Elixir, is created from an old hangover-cocktail recipe. Hair of the dog that bit you indeed!
Along with Cortez and Elixir I got to visit Rye, Jardiniere, Harry Denton's Starlight Room, and the wrap party location
Absinthe.
Yet the highlight of my tour was definitely the 209 Gin distillery. Who knew all of those tedious chemistry classes at my Hogwarts-esque high school would come in so handy!? What a location, surrounded by the turquoise blue of the ocean.
Technichal director Arne Hillesland gave us the grand tour, and showed us some of his secret ingredients. I felt as though I were in some ancient apothecary!
Maybe Los Angeles is too vast and spread-out as a city for cocktail week to be successful here. Perhaps it doesn't have the same drinking culture. I still think they should give it a shot ( pun intended! ).