EL DORADO COCKTAIL LOUNGE

It's almost New Year's Eve! Come celebrate with us Back to the Future style all night long! We've combined to our your favorite El Dorado parties, Boys & Girls and Hickies & Dryhumps, for a night that you surely won't (for some of us who get a little too typsy, will) forget! To RSVP for the night, send an email to [email protected] for $10 cover before 10pm. Otherwise it's just $20 at the door! If you would like to rsvp for a booth, send an email to [email protected], but we're already almost sold out!

It has been a little over a week since the 2012 San Diego Showcase and we are still buzzing with pride and satisfaction over this year's event! That being said, we wanted to take a quick second to give a shout out to the different city departments who were beyond helpful in making this event happen.

They often get a bad rep for being difficult to work with when it comes to event like these, but we experienced nothing but support and professionalism every step of the way. In particular Lorena Cordova of CCDC did a great job of getting us in touch with all of the right departments to make sure we organized the event to be safe and legal. The Vice department of SDPD was great to work with. Bruce Getz and Trace Wherry-Phillips were supportive every step of the way. Last but not least the lovely folks over at ABC could not have been more informative and helpful when we had questions about our ABC permit and conditions. Thanks guys!! 

So, we hope that this little thank you goes a long way in helping dispel the myth that San Diego city official like to stifle festivals and community events. Those who complain are probably disorganized or irresponsible and most likely deserve the extra scrutiny. So, for those of you planning on giving event planning go... if you are like us and have a good reputation, are well organized, turn your paper work in on time, and be respectful of city officials you are likely to be greeted with open arms and encouraged every step of the way. Thank you City of San Diego!!! 

It's coming up soon! Tickets are going fast! Get yours today!

On Saturday, August 18th, El Dorado Cocktail Lounge is proud to host a "F**k Cancer!" party to raise money to fight cancer, and have fun while doing it! El D will play host to an Art Auction & Party to raise money for Team in Training and The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, organized by local residents Andres and Tina.

Tina, who is 32 years old and otherwise extremely healthy, was recently diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma, a form of blood cancer, and is currently undergoing several months of chemotherapy. Andres is running a half-marathon and raising thousands of dollars in her honor. Proceeds from the event go directly to The LLS to fund cancer research and help local cancer patients and their families.

The Art Auction will feature amazing artists and photographers from San Diego and beyond, including Jolby, Joshua Krause, Eric Wixon, Tommy McAdams, Joel Nakamura, Scott Saw, Miranda Marks, Gina Moore, Brianne Johnson, and many others.

The event takes place on Saturday, August 18th, from 5:30 PM to 9:00 PM. A suggested donation of $10 at the door goes completely to The LLS, as do all proceeds from the Art Auction. In addition, El D is donating a portion of the bar's proceeds, so be sure to drink a healthy amount of their delicious cocktails!

Making a Cocktail Menu

Every season we look to bring on new, fresh, exciting cocktails to our wonderful consumers. And every season seems to be more challenging than the next. After every menu we finish, we start to think, “Whoa man, what are we gonna put on the next?” And so the creative thinking process begins almost immediately after each menu release. Some new cocktails come easily, some we’ve had saved up, waiting for the appropriate season. Others take a lot of trial and error (*hiccup*). But the process is always fun, challenging, and rewarding to be apart of. Through our menu building experiences, we’ve been able to create a template that mirrors the idea of how we build cocktails: balance.

Our menu consists of 5 rotating cocktails and our ever popular, and permanent, Moscow Mule. When selecting the 5 seasonal cocktails, we look at not only ingredients that relate to the current season, but balance of spirits across the cocktails. Do we have a balance of gin versus bourbon versus tequila, etc. When matching the spirits to the season, we think  of lighter spirits during the warmer months (gin, tequila, rum, etc.) and darker spirits during the colder months (whisk(e)ys). The same mindset occurs when selecting ingredients to pair with those spirits. We usually have lighter modifiers in the warmer months (dry vermouth, Aperol, curacao, St. Germaine, etc.) and darker modifiers int he colder months (sweet vermouth, Cynar, Fernet, etc.). We also examine shaken/citrus drinks versus stirred/direct cocktails. Of course some lighter ingredients will end up in colder months and vice versa. It all just depends on the finished cocktail.

Our usual process begins with the following template:

Old Fashioned Variation

Shaken/Citrus Variation #1 (served up)

Shaken/Citrus Variation #2 (served over fresh rocks)

Highball, Rickey, or Collins variation

Manhattan or Martini variation

From here, we’ll dig into cocktails we’ve been saving, see what ingredients are in season, flip through our compendium for inspiration, or just test different ingredient combinations that have been floating around through our head using the cocktail families. This template isn’t always set in stone, and sometimes doesn’t look exactly like this with the finished product. But it ends up pretty darn close. Take a look at our Fall menu as an example:

Honey Badger (Old Fashioned Variation)

P90-X (Shaken/Citrus on rocks)

Jolly Roger (Shaken/Citrus served up)

Revised Gin & Tonic (Rickey variation)

Night Creature (Manhattan variation)

Our spring menu this year has been one of our best menus yet. We’re extremely proud of the drinks, and our customers seem to love them even more! With that, we knew going into this summer was going to be a serious challenge. We really wanted to get a little creative, but still make simple drinks that will be a reflection of sunny San Diego summers. We stuck to our usual templates and ended up with 5 cocktails that we are very proud of. We hope you love this new menu just as much as we do. So be sure to come by on Tuesday, June 19, 2012 for our release party of El Dorado’s Summer Menu 2012. The new menu drinks will be only $5 all night and we’re gonna be servin’ up some delicious Frito Pie. Have some drinks, have some laughs, enjoy some company, and let us know what you think of the new menu. Let’s boogie!

Here’s a sneak peek at one of our newest drinks....

Going Back to Mezcali (Old Fashioned):