Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Best
Drinks
Ban 'the usual' from your drinking vocabulary - you won't find that here. The
Gold Rush brought a rush on the bar; by 1850 San Francisco had 500 saloons
supplied by local brewers, distillers and Sonoma vineyards. Today California's
homegrown traditions of wine, beer and cocktails are converging in saloon reviv-
als, wine-bar trends and microbrewery booms - and, for the morning after, spe-
cialty coffee roasters.
SF Cocktails - History in the Making
In San Francisco's Barbary Coast days, cocktails were used to sedate sailors and shanghai
them onto outbound ships. Now bartenders a1`re researching local recipes and reviving old
SF traditions, pouring rye and homemade bitters over hand-hewn ice cubes, whipping egg
whites into Pisco sours, and apparently still trying to knock sailors cold with combinations
of tawny port and agricole rum served in punch bowls.
If you order a martini, you may get the original, invented-in-SF version: vermouth, gin,
bitters, lemon, maraschino cherry and ice. All that authenticity-tripping may sound self-
conscious, but after strong pours at California's vintage saloons, consciousness is hardly an
issue.
Museums After Hours
Museums offer some of SF's most eclectic nights out. NightLife at California Academy of
Sciences (
Click here
)
has rainforest-themed cocktails every Thursday night. Exploratori-
um (
Click here
)
offers mad- scientist glow-in-the-dark cocktails at After Dark events,
while the MH de Young Museum (
Click here
)
invites you to mingle with artists-in-resid-
ence over art-themed cocktails at first Friday events.
