Some recent press for the Underhill Lounge and Savoy Cocktail Book Project:
San Francisco Chronicle, Nov 28, 2008
Do-It-Yourself Cocktail Ingredients, Jane Tunks
Erik Ellestad, who is blogging his way through the “The Savoy Cocktail Book” at Underhill Lounge (savoystomp.com), has been toying around with making his own bitters and other concoctions for several years. Among the advantages of making your own ingredients, Ellestad says, is the ability to play around with flavors and spices that he can’t find in off-the-shelf products.
Tin House Magazine No. 39, Appetites
Cocktailians, by Audrey Ference
Imbibe Magazine, July/August, 2010
Characters: By the Book, Jenny Adams
A peek into Erik Ellestad’s refrigerator reveals several kinds of obscure, imported colas, soda waters and vermouths. His garage is packed with a managerie of bottles ranging from homemade liqueurs to dusty imported Absinthes. And his kitchen counter, which serves as the set and stage for mixing cocktails, can get so crowded with bottles that sometimes the microwave is completely out of reach. Several nights a week, his wife, Michele, arrives home from work to find the tall, slender 45-year-old hunkered down behind the lens of his camera, snapping a shot of a freshly made drink before handing it off to her for a taste and heading to his computer to blog about the recipe.
Food Network Dish
More Food on the Web, Julia Simon
Shaken, stirred, up, with a twist – no matter how you like your cocktail, there’s a smart one awaiting you at this blog. While some posts start out with a warning (“dangerous cocktail geekery ahead!”), we wager all the sips featured here will go down smooth.
California Report
Bringing Back Classic Cocktails, Deirdre Kennedy
The classic cocktail craze is changing the way people drink. Adventurous bartenders have resurrected vintage cocktails that were in vogue before and during the Prohibition years. The resurgence of interest in the refined beverages started in New York, but San Francisco has become a center of expertise among bartenders and drinkers alike.
Imbibe Unfiltered
Turkey Time Tipples
Nearly finished with his Savoy Project, this recipe for Great Pumpkin Punch, which will grace his holiday table, is an adaptation of a classic recipe. Combining sweet potatoes, citrus and spices with bourbon, Cognac and Batavia Arrack, Ellestad describes this potent sipper as, “pumpkin pie in punch form.”
Bernalwood
Our Official Complicated Cocktail for Winter 2010
Erik Ellestad runs a sweet blog called Underhill Lounge that’s about “Cocktails, Food, and Gardening South of the Hill in Bernal Heights.” The cocktail part comes first because Erik is serious about his mixology — so serious, in fact, that he created a special cocktail for the 2010 holiday season called (wait for it…) Bernal Heights Milk Punch.
And according to online friend Hayden Lambert, of the Poetry of Bartending and an alumnus of the Merchant Hotel in Belfast, my guest bartending stint at Dram in Brooklyn (Thanks Tom!) made enough of an impression on the writer from Class Magazine that I got a mention in a Winter 2010 issue, along with the Underhill Lounge and Alembic Bar. Though, amusingly, Hayden noted that he feels certain that the writer is convinced that the Underhill Lounge is an actual bar. Maybe I should work on that!
