Cocktails

Outdoor Drinking Five Floors Up at El Techo de Lolinda

San Francisco needs more rooftop bars. Medjool, the central Mission hotspot that closed last year, wasn't always the best ambassador, however. The very idea seemed to have gone before the NIMBY death panel until Argentinean steak house Lolinda threw open the doors to the simply named El Techo de Lol ... More >>

The Best Cinco de Mayo and Kentucky Derby Parties This Weekend

Cinco de Mayo: Hecho en San Francisco Where: CUESA Kitchen at the Ferry Building (south end, near Market Bar) When: Sun., May 5, 1 p.m.- 5 p.m. Cost: $55, buy tickets online The Rundown: This weekend brings a host of opportunities to enjoy the good weather with celebrations for both the Kentucky D ... More >>

Drink 2013: Barrel-Aged Cocktails Sing in the City

Drink 2013: Cocktails Listings

SF Beer Week 2013 Guide to Cocktails

This coming week will be all about the sudsy, fermented grain goodness that is beer. Beer will be paired with everything, and will find its way into your food, your candy, and your cocktails. Even better, it'll find its way into you. Here are our picks for some of the more bar driven events of the ... More >>

Just Do It

Cocktail Week Events for Tuesday, Sept. 18

Tonight's festivities include a fantastic sounding food truck event (bring warms clothes!), a vodka dinner, classic Cuban cocktails, and sexy secretaries making cocktails. No, it doesn't get better than this. Be aware: There's a Giants home game tonight at 7:15pm, Howard street is closed between 3r ... More >>

Surfer on Acid: Tradition Makes Over a Dive Bar Classic

Cocktail Preview: S.F. Street Food Fest and Night Market

Barely recovered from the food coma of SF Chefs and Outside Lands? Buck up, it's time to grub and drink to your carts content at La Cocina's fourth annual San Francisco Street Food Festival, a celebration and fundraiser chock-full of street food and food trucks. The cocktail bars are being organize ... More >>

Cocktails at Grand Café: Classics Meet French Charm

With bar superstar power in place at Jasper's, Startlight Room, and the Fifth Floor, Kimpton Hotel group seems to be determined to improve the quality of cocktails for visitors and locals alike. Now, Kristin Almy is at the Grand Café, where she's revamped the menu to serve what she describes as "co ... More >>

Boozy Weekend: Big Hats, Tequila, and Fast Horses

What happens when Cinco de Mayo and the Kentucky Derby fall on the same weekend? A lot of trouble wearing big hats, awash in tequila and bourbon. Here's our handy guide to help you stay well refreshed all weekend. Cuatro De Mayo Fiesta Con Queso Where: Doc's Clock, 2575 Mission (at 21st St.), 824-3 ... More >>

Drink of the Week: The Nauti' Mermaid at Maven

Wine and beer have been natural companions with food for centuries, cocktails are notoriously challenging to pair (with the odd exception, like Margaritas and Mexican food). Higher alcohol can wreck havoc on delicate flavors, and the higher acidity typical of juice-based drinks can throw a meal off ... More >>

Wo Hing Cocktail Creator Brooke Arthur on Balancing the New and the Familiar

Lou Bustamante​Few in the bar industry have been on such a consistent and stellar climb as Brooke Arthur. With a rare combination of remarkable talent, humility, and good nature, it's no surprise Arthur has been tapped to lead such high profile bar programs such as Range, Prospect, and now Charles ... More >>

Drink Your Homework: Take a Cocktail Class

Lou BustamanteThe cocktail mise-en-place at Beretta​ Making cocktails at home, much like cooking, gives you complete control over every aspect of the final product, allowing you to adjust and fine tune to your exacting standards--if you know what you're doing. Cocktail classes will help. Not ... More >>

Heaven's Dog Bartenders Have Fun with Cocktails

Bartender Chris Lane.​For many years you went to a bar to get drunk with cocktails made with recipes designed to completely mask the taste of liquor. People didn't want to taste it; they just wanted to feel it. From there we transitioned to a revival of the craft that, at its peak, successful ... More >>

Triumvirate Rum: Rumbustion Society Class Project Goes on Sale at Cask

​When Martin Cate opened Smuggler's Cove in December 2009, he initiated the Rumbustion Society, a master class in rum. Rumbustion is to rum what Julio Bermejo's Blue Agave Club at Tommy's Mexican is to tequila. Finishing the third level (200 different rums, quite a feat!) brings not only glory, bu ... More >>

S.F., City of Throwdowns

eeetthaannn/FlickrDistillery 209's arsenal of botanicals.​Monday, Tuesday, Happy Days San Francisco finds itself the home of some mighty challenges over the next few days. Besides the emotionally charged series against the Dodgers starting this evening, two a couple of cocktail challenges ens ... More >>

Rum 101 at the Ferry Building

Lou BustamanteMai Tai at Spoonbar.​Rum, Rum History, and Rum Cocktails Where: Ferry Building, North Arcade When: Sat., Mar. 26, 2-4 p.m. Cost: $50 The rundown: In the U.S., rum has been like soccer and the metric system ― something the rest of the world did. All that is changing, thanks ... More >>

Drink 2011: Sake to Me

The Year in Food: Cocktails Get More Respect

Melissa Barnes/SF WeeklyBar Agricole was among a handful of ambitious bar/restaurants to open in 2010.​Twelve months, ten storylines: It's SFoodie's annual look back at the year in food. To call 2010 a revolutionary year in cocktails would be an overstatement. But it was certainly a year in which ... More >>

Jack Daniel's Files Suit -- Aims to Jack Up Competition

Time for a Lynchburg lawsuit...​The makers of America's most ubiquitous bourbon, Jack Daniel's, have poured out a legal shot at a competitor. Their argument in San Francisco District Court: When it comes to marketing liquor, you don't know Jack. While even teetotalers know Jack Daniel's distillery ... More >>

San Francisco's Not Ready to Give Up Its Historic Cocktails

Tasting Table San FranciscoThe Bix Negroni.​Our favorite morsel from the blogs. Tasting Table's recent list of the 15 best cocktails in San Francisco by Camper English had us nodding our head in agreement, though by the end we couldn't help feeling a little muddled (and not just because we we ... More >>

BarBack Olympics Makes Drinking a Legitimate Sport. Finally

BerDerp™Ice relay course form the 2008 BarBack Olympics at 111 Minna.​On Sunday, 20 of the San Francisco Bay Area's best barbacks take center stage at Mezzanine in a series of challenges designed to replicate being deep in the weeds at the bar: bottle relay, ice bucket race, beer restocking ... More >>

McCormick & Kuleto's Wants You to Soak Up the Booze

Robin C./Yelp​The place: McCormick & Kuleto's, 900 Northpoint St. (at Larkin, in Ghirardelli Square), 929-1730, www.mccormickandkuletos.com. The hours: 3-6 p.m. Mon.-Fri. The deals: Hefty snacks for $2-$5 apiece;  $6.50-$7 cocktails. The digs: The view's stupendous from the cocktail lou ... More >>

Should Bartenders Trademark Their Drinks? Josh Harris Weighs In

Liza GershmanJosh Harris of the Bon Vivants, right. (To the left is partner Scott Baird.)​Thanks to an article by Chantal Martineau that appeared in the Atlantic Food Channel last week, one of the discussions engaging the bar industry has filtered out to the public. At this year's Tales of the Coc ... More >>

Spoonbar's Scott Beattie Talks Cocktails at Plum, Bracina

Jeremy Brooks/FlickrScott Beattie (right) with the author.​After stopping by Spoonbar in Healdsburg earlier this month, we sat down to chat with Scott Beattie for a taste of what to expect behind the bar at Plum, the perennially delayed Bracina, and other projects from Northern California's tr ... More >>

Thermidor's Iceberg Daiquiri, a Frosty Flashback

​Thermidor's Iceberg ($9) is a mini vacay on a bar stool. Mixologist Brooke Arthur's cooling frozen daiquiri has vanilla and grapefruit elements, but just a hint of the latter, meaning it's pretty much free of the bitterness that can easily overpower a resort drink. That said, the Iceberg has ... More >>

Comstock Saloon: The Savory Coast

Pickled, Absinthe's Monthly Cocktail Pop-Up, Rolls Out Monday

CUESA/FlickrCarlos Yturria.​You know pop-ups have reached some critical mass of sexy when brick-and-mortars tap into the meme. On Monday, Absinthe bar manager Carlos Yturria trots out the concept for Pickled, the first in a series of monthly cocktail pop-ups at the Hayes Valley brasserie. Pi ... More >>

Bulleit Bourbon: A 90-Proof Rite of Passage

Markyboy81/FlickrHonestly, if you don't respect yourself, who will?​The late great American cultural historian Bernard DeVoto once wrote an entire book dedicated to the proposition that the only cocktails a self-respecting adult should consider imbibing are the dry martini and a slug of whiske ... More >>

Cocktail Week: Erik Adkins Revives His Favorite Drunk

nirvinoAdkins holding forthMixology god Erik Adkins is paying tribute next week to one of the quirkiest guys ever to pick up a swizzle stick: Charles H. Baker Jr. As part of Cocktail Week, Adkins - manager and bar director of Heaven's Dog - will teach modern twists on iconic cocktails by Baker, who ... More >>

Behind the Bar with Brandon Skaggs: The Cesar

Move over, mojito. Step back, caipirinha. Hail Cesar!

Bar None: Or, This'll Make You Thirsty

By Meredith Brody Olivier Schwaner-Albright's funny and useful article about the many new philosophies that have sprung up around the new cocktail revival, titled Let 100 (OK, 8) Bartending Philosophies Bloom would be a fun read even if it didn't highlight several San Francisco and Bay Area drinker ... More >>

Fall Cocktail: Hot Apple Pie

Lunchtime Boozing: Tax Relief Special At Palio D'Asti

Dragon Lounge

Miguel Migs

Those Things (Salted Music/Om Records)

Girls Gone Mild

Coastal Mexican cuisine, plus 15 — count 'em, 15 — different margaritas

Irony Overload

Attempted cleverness overwhelms the cocktails and food at Lime

The Delays

Faded Seaside Glamour

Best Mojito

Luna Park

Best Thai and Vietnamese Restaurant

Malee Thai & Vietnamese

Best Antipasto

Emma

In From the Cold

Sno-drift

Projected, Not Stirred

How much does Peter Moody love martinis? He's spent 13 years making a movie about them, if that tells you anything.

Moon Over the Mission

Luna Park

Taking Flight

Fly

Best Place to Get Buzzed on Lychees

Lisa's on Folsom

Night Crawler

In a Sweat for Green Chile

While Leticia's pulls in a margarita-swigging crowd, it's Pozole that fills the bill for regional Mexican specialties