Have you guys heard of Airbnb Experiences? If you go into your Airbnb app you’ll see a new tab for Experiences where you can find all kinds of adventures hosted by people in the city where you’re staying. There are things like cooking with a well-known chef, painting with a local art professor, sailing lessons, a trail running tour, etc. Seriously there are all kinds of cool stuff. Airbnb hooked me and hubby up with our very first Experience when we spent the weekend in San Francisco earlier this month. They gave us four choices of what was available and this one just looked the most fun: a cocktail class!
Now, although my hubby’s uncanny knowledge of alcohol may lead you believe otherwise (he should go on Jeopardy), the both of us don’t actually drink. But we love a good mocktail, and our hosts very kindly went above and beyond to accommodate us. Our class was held at The Dorian, which I will be returning to for brunch next time because the restaurant/bar look and sound uh-mazing. But more on that later. Our class took place at the upstairs bar, which I’m guessing is normally a spot for private parties and events. We arrived early, so after taking a moment to heart-eye the gorgeous deep blue tufted seating (the sofa of my dreams), we chatted for a bit with our host and mixoligist until everyone arrived. Or I should say hubby chatted, while I distractedly changed from lens to lens trying to figure out what kind of shots I wanted. I believe our host’s name was Ilya, who hails from Russia, and our mixoligist was Jacob. Both were so knowledgeable and made the class feel more like an intimate get-together with friends.
We started our class by learning from Jacob the basics of cocktails: seasonality, ingredients, styles and themes, history, etc. He really knows what he’s talking about and it was so fun watching his bartender skills up close. After our initial crash-course and a few tastings, we each got a chance to get behind the bar and whip up our own cocktail creation with Jacob’s help. Before class I had mentioned an awful virgin mudslide I’d had on my honeymoon (I’m sure they were quite stunned and bewildered to be asked for a virgin mudslide, it really wasn’t their fault haha!), so they took the challenge upon themselves to help me create my own virgin mudslide. Ilya ran downstairs to the kitchen to grab some unorthodox bar ingredients, and Jacob helped me taste test my way to a delicious chocolate-y mudslide that has redeemed the drink for me. It was cool to see how they could form such a perfect drink on the spot using all the cocktail basics we had learned about earlier in the class.
In the class description it says that you can expect two drinks: one welcome drink and the one that you create, and that they are heavy on hors d’oeuvres. Beyond the two drinks you do a lot of cocktail tastings as your mixoligist demonstrates techniques, and when they say they are heavy on hors d’oeuvres they really mean it! We did not even come close to finishing all the delicious offerings during the course of our class.
Anyways, I didn’t mean to write this much, but I had such a blast at this class and can’t help but rave about it. Big thanks to Airbnb, Ilya, and Jacob for the awesome Experience! I will definitely be back to the Dorian for more deliciousness, and will for sure be doing more Experiences. Huge recommend to all of you, you need to check it out! And if you’re near SF you can find the cocktail class here.
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