Opening Night Party at Camino’s Restaurant. The food was great, conversation, warm fire, warm night, and great cocktails. Here is a recipe, more or less, I picked up from the bartenders.
shot of pear Brandy shot of port half a shot of triple sec 5 shakes of bitters twist of Meyer lemon
Metal work I did for them
The Big Wheel 15′ Drag racer built by myself a few years back took 1st place (design) at the races held at Ace Auto in SF. Alan and I both got a chance to race and we actually won a race! We strongly believe we lost the rest of the races due to the wind, uphill course, lack of quality 110v power, wrong t-shirt, lack of support form our sponsors, not enough NITROUS, no cheerleaders, too little red, white and blue, and the fact that we ran the bar. Next race we plan to incorporate more smoke in hopes no will notice were not really moving too fast. The fire behind our seat in the last race helped distract the attention away from the real winner significantly.
I’m really glad I have such great friends that put on such great events! Make sure to support these events by any means necessary!
Big thanks to John, Big Daddy, Hal, Katie Bell, the bands, the racers and especially to Charlie, and Puney.
The Bar raised a bunch of Money for Todd! Here is the next event for him.
This is the best white trash event I have ever been to! What more can you ask for, beer, girls, grease, greasy girls, racing, sun burns, and every DIY engineer freak the bay area has to offer. I will be out there with the Big Wheel Racer beating the greasy socks off of everyone again and taking home the prize money to feed my family for another year!
I made ceiling light fixtures, fire tools, cook grills and wall sconces for Alison and Russel several months ago and I got a chance to see some of it installed today.
Their new place is on the upper stretch of Grand Avenue in Oakland, Chez Panisse Cafe veteran chef and produce buyer Russell Moore has taken over the former Country Home Furniture store to open Camino (3917 Grand Ave.) which should open in the next few weeks. Camino’s cooking will be all about the fireplace — a huge, waist-high stone one that Moore plans to use for rustic dishes like lamb a la ficelle, baked fish and lots of stuff cooked in cazuelas, with pots of beans bubbling in the coals. It feels alot like the Basque boarding house eatery’s I grew up in with the long family style tables and open hearth kitchen. Allison Hopelain, Moore’s partner in life and Camino, will be general manager. In addition to her own small gardening business, Hopelain has worked at Quince, Bar Tartine and Zuni.
To keep up on the official opening date see:
We have decided for safety reasons to cancel our participation in this event. There is just not enough room for fire. Please come by, the robots look amazing!
What could be better in life than robots and cocktails? Well, nothing! Roboexotica is the premier cocktail making robot event which happens in Vienna each year. This week it comes to San Francisco. Join us for good music, cocktails, and robots that pour you drinks, insult you, and test your BAC. Several different artists from around the Bay Area and Europe will be presenting their work for your imbibing pleasure.
This Saturday the first US Robexotica exhibition is opening at Space, 354 5th St. San Francisco.
The Austrian cocktail robots that came to the Bay Area for Maker Faire will be joined by several local creations, ones that have been to Vienna for Roboexotica before, and some that haven’t.
You are invited to join the Boiler Bar presenting VOLT/AGED whiskey at the grand opening on Sat. May 10th from 8pm-2am!
Don’t forget to Vote in SF Weekly “Best Of” for the Boiler Bar as the Best Bar in town!
It’s on the last page of the link below.
Wow we had the best time this last weekend at Maker Faire.
I want to thank the crew and performers for blue collar job well done!
The whole crew minus Tackett.
We are loaded and on our way to Maker Faire.
Hope to see you all out there.
Starting the night my drinking buddies and I took over my wife’s Craft night to solve the problem of aging brandy before the “End of Ages” comes in 2012, we came across this single sentence in an old book from the 1930’s. “The treatment with pure oxygen gas with or without an electric burrent”. We discussed at long length what a burrent was and where we could get one, then decided it was a typo and they ment current. Fortunately I just happened to have a luminous transformer in my basement, fortunately for my house we were fresh out of oxygen (can you think of a more flammable cocktail)? A couple of clothespins, wire and a glass full of bitter brandy and we were ready. Not much could be seen as we pumped 15,000 volts into the brandy, but much to our surprise, once removed, the taste had smoothed considerably. We had drank to much at that point to finish the job, but settled on the name VOLT/AGED for our new process.
Several nights later we set up production at my shop in West Oakland and added a copper pipe system that featured a Jacobs ladder that could be short circuited in the drink to be “treated”. This gave the us the visual that was missing from the 1st night and more surface area in which the reaction could now take place. We now had a 15,000 volt cattle prod with plenty of places to grab that was going to be right in the middle of a bar!
The next day (slight hangover) we added the safety cage complete with vintage rivets, Oil Punk plexiglass, and a timer to keep track of how many years we wanted to age it.
It was a hugh hit at the Mouse Trap Party and made Jack Danell’s a sipping drink!
Come see this and more at Maker Faire
May 3-4
Here are pictures from last nights great event.
We will be there again tonight.
This show looks so good that I’ve decided to break my promise to never do another trade show. The Acre show is April 26-28 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
I’m really excited to see all my old wholesale customers and meet new ones!
One of the many things I do is run a furniture company called Form & Reform. I started it in 1987 after I moved out here from Idaho. I had experience in metal work from high school and learned blacksmithing though the California Blacksmith Association. I’ve really enjoyed all the years of running this business and the experience it has brought. I now can’t help myself to make a smooth to the touch edge on everything I make even if I know no one will ever touch it.
