It seems like I'd made a habit of travelling up to the San Francisco Bay Area about once every six months. I'd go up, sit in on some gigs with my buddy Chris, have a cocktail or three, and come home. Somehow, though, I'd managed to let more than a year go by without a trip north. The last gig I'd played was December 31, 2010.
Yeah. I was due.
I booked my flight (thankyouverymuch, Mileage Plus) and, on Wednesday, February 29, flew up to San Francisco. At almost 50 years old, this was the first time I'd ever flown on February 29. I gotta' think it won't happen too often.
Chris and Kandice picked me up at the airport and whisked me north to Lafayette, where Chris lives. The weather was only mildly crappy, and traffic wasn't bad at all (I landed at just after noon), and we made it to Chris' in about a half hour.
One of the things I like about visiting the Bay Area is that Chris is a ridiculously good cook. He always fires up something in the kitchen. In fact, the prevailing joke is that it's just not dinner unless Chris is tryin' to burn the joint down. In this case, the dish in question would be Veal Marsala:
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| Veal Marsala, pasta, mushrooms. Crazy... |
Day two included something which has become a bit of a tradition when I come up here: A trip to St. George Spirits and Hangar 1 Distillery. Hangar 1 is located on the now "re-purposed" Naval Air Station Alameda and, as the name might imply, is housed in an old airplane hangar.
Before we would head over to the base to meet our friend Sascha Wen, though, we would have to stop for coffee. Now, I like coffee. I'm a coffee fan. I like to believe that I know a good cup of coffee when I have one. So, when Chris and Kandice proclaimed Blue Bottle Coffee as "the best you'll ever have", I was more than a bit intrigued.
From what I understand, Blue Bottle Coffee Company has nine locations, with seven of them in the Bay Area (the other two are in New York City). We decided to stop at the location on Webster Street in Oakland.
Now, I have to admit, I've never been much of a coffee snob. After drinking Navy coffee for 20 years, 7-11 is pretty much "gourmet" for me and, if it's been brewed within an hour of me buying it, well, that's just perfect. That notwithstanding, though, I can still tell a decent cup of coffee from a cup of raspberry-mocha-mint-creme-girlie-boy-foo-foo-bullshit-coffee.
So, yeah, the claim of "the best coffee you'll ever have" was, indeed, noteworthy.
I must say, it was very, very good. Flavor-wise it was, in fact, probably #3 in the best-tasting cups of coffee I've ever had (the top two were in Kuwait City and New York City, respectively).
It could've been a bit hotter, I suppose, but I think that's a product of how they brew it. It's drip-brewed, but the water is poured into the grounds by hand, a little at a time. Also, and this really is something they may want to address, there's only one size, being "NOT QUITE BIG ENOUGH":
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| The Blue Bottle Coffee Co. in Oakland, California... |
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| Various varieties of stupidly good coffee... |
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| A bigger cup, and they'd really be on to something here... |
After getting our coffee, we got back in the car to head over to Hangar 1. You know, it's funny how you see things as a passenger that you don't see when you're driving. I mean, if I was driving, I probably never would've noticed that the esteemed College of Alameda has a playground:
The drive onto the confines of the old base brought back some memories for me. When I was stationed on USS Chandler (DDG 996) back in the early 1980's, we would sail up here from San Diego. We were sitting pierside in April of 1983 and watched as the USS Enterprise (CVN 65) ran aground in San Francisco Bay. While I never spent a lot of time here, I did spend enough time here to see how different the base looks now as opposed to 30 years ago:
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| The old Thunderbirds Squadron hangar, which is now the home of Hangar 1 and St. George Spirits... |
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| The commissary, that served NAS Alameda for decades, sits boarded up and fenced off... |
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| An old, fenced off hangar on the old NAS Alameda... |
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| The entrance to the offices of the long-gone VAK-208... |
As I said, this has become a regular stop for us when I visit the Bay Area. Hangar 1 has a tasting room, and Sascha always makes sure that we're taken care of. They call the tasting tour "Basic Training" (Get it? The military reference? It's an old Navy base? Get it?). Anyway, I thought it was pretty clever.
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| Chris, Kandice and me outside Hangar 1 in Alameda... |
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| Sascha Wen and I in the tasting room at Hangar 1... |
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| Joey of Hangar 1. He loves his job... |
Now, the last time Chris and I were here, there was talk of a bourbon. Well, while the bourbon has been distilled, it's nowhere near ready to drink. We had a taste of it last time, and it was very, well, "non-bourbony". But, much to our delight, Hangar 1 is producing what's called "B&E Bourbon". The "B&E" stands for "breaking and entering". I won't pretend to be able to convey the idea behind it here, but I will tell you that it's ridiculous. I enjoy a good bourbon, and this is probably the best I've had.
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| Hangar 1's B&E Bourbon... |
Sascha knows that Chris and I are bourbon fans, so she graciously gave us each a bottle. She gave Chris a bottle for his birthday, and she gave me a bottle because, I suspect, I was a traveller from afar, and I always visit. She even had my bottle shipped to my home so I wouldn't have to pack it in my carry-on bag on the trip home. The bourbon arrived at my home by lunchtime Friday. I still haven't cracked it open. I think it needs to be the right occasion for a bourbon so special.
Thursday night was "gig night" and, although I had planned to sit in, the truth is that there was no "sitting" at all which, for me, is a bit of a deal breaker. When I play acoustic guitar, I have to sit down. It's just the only way I'm comfortable. Conversely, I can't play electric unless I'm standing up. I know, I'm weird; an oddity in the six-string community. But, hey, there it is.
So, instead of playing, I sat back and enjoyed the show.
The gig was at a wine bar and, if you know me at all, you know I'm not a big "wine guy". For the most part, I only enjoy a Merlot and, for the life of me, I can't tell you why. I really like this, though:
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| A glass of Merlot at The Vine in Danville, California... |
So, the second day of the trip was pretty much a wrap. We got back to Chris' after the gig around midnight, and I couldn't keep my eyes open. I said my goodnight's with the full knowledge that I wouldn't get enough sleep to deal with the weekend...
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