Drinking the Devil's Acre: A Love Letter from San Francisco and her Cocktails

263 Pages·2015·108.85 MB·English

by  Duggan McDonnell

D R INKIN
G
the
DEVIL’S ACRE
A L O VE LETTER fDroUmG SGANA NFR MANcCDIOSCNON aEnLdL HER COCKTAILS
Photographs by Luke Abiol
CHRONICLE BOOKS
SAN FRANCISCO
Text copyright © 2015 by Duggan McDonnell.
Photographs copyright © 2015 by Chronicle Books LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form without written permission from the publisher.
ISBN 978-1-4521-4062-9 (epub, mobi)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
McDonnell, Duggan.
Drinking the devil’s acre : a love letter from San Francisco and
her cocktails / Duggan McDonnell ; photographs by Luke Abiol.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4521-3525-0 (hc)
1. Cocktails. 2. Bars (Drinking establishments)—California—
San Francisco—History. I. Abiol, Luke. II. Title.
TX951.M3465 2015
641.87'4—dc23
2014044040
Designed by Public, SF
Archival photographs: san francisco history center,
san francisco public library
Photograph on page 175, © Moulin Studios
Photograph on page 250, “Vue panoramique de San Francisco”
by Louis-Philippe Breault - Own work. Licensed under CC
BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street
San Francisco, California 94107
www.chroniclebooks.com
This book is dedicated to everyone everywhere
who has ever enjoyed a cocktail in San Francisco.
You’re always welcome to visit us again,
to step inside our doors, sit on our bar stools,
and imbibe away the joys of the day.
Louis Parentis’ Saloon located on Pacific Street, February 15, 1934

A CHRONOLOGY OF
COCKTAILS, DISTILLED SPIRITS,
EPISTLES, AND EVENTS OF THE
BARBARY COAST
1579 Sir Francis Drake sails into a cove (now known as Drake’s Bay) just north
of the Golden Gate after sacking the port of Pisco, Peru, and pillaging three
hundred botijas of prized Pisco. Drake and his merry men spend six weeks
of respite concocting what may be the world’s first cocktail.
1776 Spain controls Alta California, part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain,
and Franciscan missionaries arrive in San Francisco to found Misión San
Francisco de Asís, colloquially known as Mission Dolores. A short time later,
the missions at San Jose and Sonoma are founded, vineyards are planted, and
the first spirit of California, aguardiente de vino (later called Pisco and then
brandy), produced from the Mission grape, is distilled.
1847 “Punch Drinking and Its Effects,” the first piece of fiction to appear in
California’s first newspaper, the Californian, is published.
1848 Gold is discovered at Sutter’s Mill in the Sierra Nevada foothills.
1851 The Old Ship Saloon, today San Francisco’s oldest (continuously operating)
house of drink, opened its doors for business at what is now 298 Pacific Avenue.
1857–62 “Professor” Jerry Thomas tends bar at the Occidental Hotel, San Francisco,
where he earns a better salary than the vice president of the United States. In
1862, he publishes How to Mix Drinks, or The Bon-Vivant’s Companion, the
world’s first treatise to curate cocktail recipes, mixology, and spirits.
1860 For the first time, the term Barbary Coast is used to describe a specific and
notorious forty-square-block area in the northwestern corner of San Francisco.
1864 Samuel Clemens arrives in San Francisco, begins his writing career for the
Daily Morning Call, using the nom de plume Mark Twain.
1867 Charles Campbell publishes The American Bar-keeper.
1882 Harry Johnson publishes his New and Improved Bartender’s Manual.
1891 Cocktail Boothby’s American Bar-Tender by “Cocktail Bill” Boothby is
published.
1893 Duncan Nicol becomes proprietor of the Bank Exchange Saloon and perfectly
promotes the infamous house cocktail, the Pisco punch.
1904 May E. Southworth publishes her One Hundred and One Beverages.
1906 The earthquake and ensuing fire strike and consume much of San Francisco.
Among the surviving structures is the Hotaling warehouse, where much of
the city’s distilled spirits are stored.
1917 The San Francisco Police Department blockades, then raids, the Barbary
Coast district, permanently closing eighty-three brothels and forty saloons
all within its forty-block boundary.
1919–33 The years of Prohibition.
1933 The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld by
Herbert Asbury is published.
1934 Victor “The Trader” Bergeron opens his first restaurant, Hinky Dinks, in
Oakland, which soon morphs into his eponymous Trader Vic’s.
1937 Liquid Gems is published by John R. Iverson.
1939 The Time of Your Life, William Saroyan’s Pulitzer Prize–winning play set in
“a saloon on San Francisco’s Pacific Street,” is produced on Broadway for the
first time.
1941 San Francisco’s Hocker’s Alcoholic Beverage Encyclopedia is published by
Curtis Hocker.
1943 The city’s first farmers’ market opens on Alemany Boulevard.
1948 Vesuvio Cafe opens its doors and soon becomes the well-oiled hub of the
beatniks, a term coined a decade later by famed San Francisco Chronicle
columnist Herb Caen.
1952 The first Irish coffee is poured at the Buena Vista Café, Fisherman’s Wharf.
1965 Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant opens in the Richmond District.
1971 Harry Denton begins tending bar at Henry Africa’s on Polk Street, the world’s
first fern bar.
Pour Man’s Friend: A Guide and Reference for Bar Personnel by John C. Burton
is published.
1981 The Wine Appreciation Guild publishes California Brandy Drinks.
1982 St. George Spirits begins distilling eau-de-vie in Emeryville.
1983 Charbay Winery & Distillery, yet another pioneering operation in the
artisanal spirits movement, opens in Napa.
1994 Fritz Maytag and the team of Anchor Brewing distill their first batch of
American rye whiskey in San Francisco.
1996 The Starlight Room, led by barman Tony Abou-Ganim, opens atop the Sir
Francis Drake Hotel in downtown San Francisco.
1998 Absinthe Brasserie & Bar opens its doors with its famous neoclassic cocktail
program led by Marco Dionysos.
Paul Harrington’s Cocktail: The Drinks Bible for the 21st Century is published.