As editor of the city magazine 7x7 that launched in 2001, I commissioned lots of stories on local history.
One of those was the origin of the martini, perhaps America's favorite cocktail. As near we were able to determine, a gold miner who had struck it rich headed to San Francisco when he stopped at a bar in Martinez, where the bartender served the drink.
The miner loved it, called it the Martinez, and headed for the Barbary Coast, then the most raucous part of a raucous town. He described the drink to a bartender there, where the modern name apparently emerged.
In the startup business we would call that a founding myth, and this one is generally accepted as true.
After all, history belongs to whoever is paying for the next round.
We published all sorts of fascinating tidbits during my brief tenure at 7x7, which was named for the 49 square-mile footprint of San Francisco. The 49ers refer to the gold miners, the football team and a 49-mile scenic drive for tourists.
As it turned out, free martinis were one of the main benefits of editing 7x7, though not for a celebratory reason. We launched the magazine one week before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. As the tourist trade here collapsed, we struggled to publish, deferring our salaries and accepting "trade' instead of cash from advertisers.
That trade basically meant all the free food and drink we could have wanted in San Francisco's best restaurants and bars -- night after night. As we navigated our way through this debauchery, it often felt as if the Barbary Coast was alive and well once again, at least for our merry band of staffers.
Despite the odd circumstances, I worked with a great group of editors, writers and designers, and it was a good chance to learn the city's rich history first-hand. Among the people I met was a young city council member named Gavin Newsom.
A week or so after our meeting, I received a hand-written thank you note from Newsom. Alas, soon after that, I had to leave 7x7 in order to earn an actual paycheck again.
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