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OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2006 |
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Kieran Walsh |
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“When people come into my bar, I like them to be comforted in knowing that they’re going to get something different.” Kieran Walsh, General Manager of the Solstice Lounge in San Francisco truly appreciates the past, present, and future of the cocktail and wants to share that with his patrons. Eschewing run-of-the-mill drinks like Rum and Coke and Vodka Tonic, Walsh seeks food-friendly cocktails, similar to wine, that compliment food without blowing out the palate. |
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Walsh has a very scientific approach to creating his cocktails, not unlike many bartenders in San Francisco. “San Francisco, cocktail-wise is so far ahead of the rest of the country,” Walsh said. Raised in Chicago by Irish parents, Walsh attended Michigan State University. After college, Walsh headed south to New Orleans. He got his start in the word of wine and spirits there, where a family friend owned Martin’s—a wine distribution company and store. He took a job as a stock-boy but quickly made it to the sales floor. Walsh recalls one day, the familiar face of Alec Baldwin entering the store with his then wife Kim Basinger, and proceeding to purchase $14,000 of wine. Martin’s turned out to be a great place to learn and was visited often by many of New Orleans’ elite. By learning the trade quickly, less than a year out of college, Walsh was consulting on people’s wine cellars. New Orleans culture also shaped Walsh’s cocktail creativity. A history buff who frequented some of New Orleans’ (and indeed the nation’s) oldest bars, Walsh learned about bitters. Commonly used in the 1800s for medicinal purposes, bitters are super concentrated flavors. However, when used in a cocktail, bitters can work to counteract the sweetness. Fascinated with this old-fashioned cocktail, Walsh began experimenting and creating his own bitters. After a series of bartending and sommelier jobs from Chicago to Greece to Washington D.C. Walsh came out to the San Francisco Bay Area as a winemaker. During the grape glut of 2002, however, Walsh lost his job. Luckily some friends of his were opening Solstice in San Francisco (on California at Divisadero). Walsh came in and created the wine list, bartended and met a whole mixologist community in San Francisco. “In New Orleans I covered the understanding of where the industry had been in the past. In San Francisco we are constantly bringing it forward.” Walsh strives to maintain this balance of respecting the origins of the cocktail, while at the same time remaining open to innovative ideas that he and his mixologist peers concoct. He manages to incorporate both past and present into a drink that’s sure to offer much more to the consumer than a Jack and Coke ever could!
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