Cocktail Bars in the Bay Area

[honkman]

Another cocktail bar we enjoy in San Jose is Paper Plane https://www.paperplanesj.com/ - the owners are involved in a number of bars and restaurants in San Jose including MiniBoss and Alter Ego.
Paper Plane isn’t really an intimate cocktail bar but has more a large floor plan with several booths and tables but a place at the bar tends to be best option. The quality of cocktails is high and often quite creative. We also like their approach of a cocktail menu map which visually shows you the different types/flavor profiles of cocktails on their extensive menu

Taco Truck - Nixta, Ancho Reyes Verde, Espolon Tequila Blanco, Pineapple, Lime, Orgeat, Kummel

Two Smoking Barrels - Laphroaig 10 Year Scotch, Amaras Mezcal Verde, Orange Curaçao, Scappy’s Celery Bitters, Bitter Truth Orange Bitters

Jupiter Jazz (N/A) - Melati Classic, Passion Fruit, Orgeat, Lime

Cocktail Map

Inside

Outside

[honkman]

Outer Sunset isn’t really a hotspot for cocktails but has a few very good cocktail bars which fly a bit under the radar. One of these places is Lost & Found https://www.lostandfoundbarsf.com/ on Taraval (which also has the advantage of easy parking). Outer Sunset has quite a number of different Asian restaurants and so it is no surprise that some of their very good cocktails tend to have sometimes an “Asian” spin. Normally Lost & Found had also a good kitchen open late but it was closed on that night

Presidio Sour - Blanco tequila, granny smith apple juice, lemon juice, orange bitters, luxardo cherry liqueur, egg whites

Dragon Gate - Suntori toki whiskey, benedictine & brandy liqueur, peach infused chrysanthemum tea

Inside

Outside

[splonk]

Speaking of Outer Sunset cocktail bars on Taraval, I was super impressed with White Cap when I went a year or so ago. My feeling was that it’s in the same league as ABV, PCH, Trick Dog, and my distant memories of Haberdasher and Paper Plane from a decade ago.

[honkman]

I really like White Cap and their Surfer on Acid signature cocktail is really nice. Feels overall like a neighborhood bar but with much better cocktails than you would expect

[ClarionCrumpet]

I’m a longtime SF cocktail enthuiast, so I was happy to see this thread pop up. I’m having a disagreeable week, so I’ve made an impromptu bar crawl out of my evening, focused on spots I haven’t tried yet. Disclaimer: I am neither a photographer nor a particularly visual person.

To start, Brad Kilgore’s ama.

I opened with the fungi & oak. This is a fabulous whiskey sour- the savory notes are subtle but play nicely in the middle, and the pepper is prominent only until the whiskey takes over. Per the bartender, the mushrooms are cooked & infused for two days, and the result is distinctive among mushroom drinks I’ve tried.

As a chaser, the Arrancini (not pictured, apologies). These are tiny, but the flavor is rich and the texture pleasant.

Second, the cilantro & ume is downright creamy at first sip. Savory & herbal without the foam, bright-salty-tart with it. This is a remarkably constructed drink, and a master class in impactful foam.

To finish, the scallops. These were impeccably cooked and dressed both, with the cheese-heavy potato base serving as more sauce than side dish. The bitter greens contrasted it all beautifully.

Stop two: Long Weekend. This is Future Bars Group’s most recent offering, to my knowledge. While Future Bars has consistently excellent offerings, the “consistent” borders on perjorative; their menus rarely (if ever) change, making repeat visits often disappointing. While this has eased at some locations (I recall a seasonal specials menu at Zombie Village last year), Long Weekend is a remarkable exception: they will supposedly revise both the menu & decor from scratch every 9 months. To begin: Long Weekend Havana, now in its second month.

While I rarely order a classic cocktail (having sampled most of the canon), I’ve never heard of a Canchánchara. The drink is a delicious little daiquiri variant- I love how the saline offsets the sweetness. The accoustics in the space made for great conversation, and I enjoyed talking shop with the bartender until I moved on.

For my final stop, Lucky Spot, the latest offering from the group behind the Marina’s For The Record. The space is divey as they come, but welcoming all the same. I grabbed the Root Awakening to cap things off. The drink isn’t as cold as I’d like, but the balance of flavors make up for it, well beyond the standards a rootbeer highball- a smokey start immediately swerves into intensely herbaceous sweetness, with enough layers on top of the rootbeer to keep it interesting. Will I ever prioritize this place? No. Is it good for a dive? Absolutely yes, and their bottle selection (and pricing for it!) punches well above their perceived weight class.

A pleasant evening, overall, and a lovely distraction. I hope you find this useful. Cheers!

[bbulkow (Brian Bulkowski)]

I generally dislike saying anything bad, but I had a cocktail at Black Cat Jazz Bar, I ordered a paper plane which was on their menu, and it ranks in the 5 worst cocktails I’ve ever had. I think they left out the spirit. I have had cocktails there before and they were OK not great, I generally order something simple (eg manhattan) at a jazz club unless I know they know what they are doing. Mr Tipple’s seems to know what they are doing. Some restaurants have good jazz like Bix and the bar there is solid.

I never quite know about the etiquette of sending cocktails back. Wouldn’t they be worried about the bartender or manager getting dosed? And honestly if I was sitting at the bar and I watched them make it wrong I’d pipe up, but I was at a table. The service was also “lackluster” - hard to grab someone. I suffered.

( I had a “triple header” weekend, with Fred Frith at the new-to-me Fred’s Place in Berkeley (no food / alcohol sold), then Black Cat [SF], then Sound Room [OAK] on saturday. The music at the first and last were exceptional - I’ve never heard a mediocre show at The Sound Room and this was really near the top. The food at Sound Room is average. No cocktails, but the wine and beer is at least reasonably priced. Real question is what to do after. Low Bar seems to be shutting its kitchen early, maybe we could have made mua if we scooted (it’s two blocks), we ended up at Beeryland. Love the burgers there, and they have a not-bad bar (Painkiller hit the intersection of Christmas and Tiki). I am interested in a more sit down place open past 11pm on Friday / Saturday - the show finished at 10:30p - I know two korean places, I know the late-night menu at Monk’s Kettle is midnight, but more options? )

[honkman]

Propagation https://www.propagationsf.com in Lower Nob Hill is a 5 year old cocktail bar with a garden/plant based theme - lots of plants in the room and cocktails which sometimes tend to have more unusual plant based ingredients. The cocktails were well made and thought out with interesting flavor combination, e.g. the strawberry crusher included salted cream which, once mixed in, really elevated the cocktail to wonderful “shake”. The NA negroni was also a surprising good rendition.

Strawberry Crusher - Slane irish whiskey with cacao, strawberry and citrus. Topped with salted cream

Cigars after Sex - Amaras mezcal with blackberry, aztec chocolate & cherry

Zero-ni - The pathfinder, aplos calme, abstinence blood orange

[honkman]

The Mission is home to a number of excellent bars, one of them The Beehive https://www.thebeehivesf.com Opened about 8 years ago, it has laid-back 60s feeling with excellent cocktails and good snacks. The Miami Nice, more or less a boozy slushy, is a current favorite

Miami Nice - Rum blend, guava, coconut, lime, allspice

Walk the Line - Johnny Walker Black, PX Sherry, Calvados, Oaxacan Rum, toasted coconut

Solo Dancer (NA) - Peruvian N/A agave, prickly pear, ginger, lime, soda

[ClarionCrumpet]

Cool to see Beehive still doing good work! I do wish they’d do something about the accoustics, but it hasn’t stopped me from going back from time to time.

[honkman]

What do you don’t like about the acoustics ? - I think it is one of the “quieter” bars even when quite full

[ClarionCrumpet]

The front room with the bar proper is great, but on my last couple visits I’ve been seated in the lounge section just past it, a boxy room without much to break up sound. Other patrons in that section weren’t being particularly loud, but the room amplified them enough that I found conversation challenging. I will however concede that it’s not as bad as some of the other spaces in that neighborhood!

[honkman]

Ending the weekend with a visit to Haberdasher https://haberdashersj.com in San Jose. Good as ever.

Perfect Pear - Dickel 9yr Private Barrel, St. George Spiced Pear, Vino Amaro, lemon

Van Wyck - Green River 1885 Bourbon, cherry liqueur, vermouth

Mariposa (N/A) - Seedlip Grove 42, Elderflower, house-made mint syrup, fresh lemon, pinch of salt

[bbulkow (Brian Bulkowski)]

A couple points.

Finally made it to Viridian (oak), very impressed.

Also finally made it to The Morris (sf mission ish), besides the justly famous smoked duck, the chartreuse slushy was super fun. If we ever have a warm day I’ll be back! (Also the house wine by the centimeter was quite good!)

[ClarionCrumpet]

Bar Orso is a new speakeasy from the team behind (and in the space behind) Merchant Roots, the eccentric fine dining spot near SF’s civic center. Orso takes the eccentricity up to eleven, with a maximalist absurdity I normally only find in tiki bars- an elaborate secret-entrance entry hall, over the top stylized decor, park ranger themed staff outfits, even an edible strawberry bubble closet off to one side of the main space. Silly as all of this is, the cocktail program is top notch, and manages to lean into those absurdities without losing sight of what makes a great drink.

To start, the Fairy Ring and the Camp Breakfast. The former was served sealed under a pane of clear sugar that I had to crack open like a creme brulee, while the latter was smoked under a glass dome and served in a rocks glass the shape of a tree stump. Both were excellent. Once I got past the earl grey foam, the Ring showcased candycap mushrooms more clearly than any similar drink I’ve tried- whiskey is a more common base, and tends to fight more with candycap’s subtleties. The bitter notes from the vermouth and the capeletti rounded things out splendidly. The Camp Breakfast, while clearly inspired by whiskey cocktails’ greatest hits, leaned heavily on its modifiers to produce something that blended fabulously, landing smoke-forward without overwhelming the nuances of the spirits and sweeteners. While I did not have any of the nickle-sized pancakes skewered as a garnish, they aren’t a sight I’ll soon forget.

As the N/A program here looked compelling on paper, round two was the Wellness Melt and Queen Anne’s Lace. Seeing some of their boozy menu reproduced here was a pleasant surprise, and the Queen Anne lived up to the promise of its boozy counterpart with a savory depth of flavor that played the rye, carrot and carraway off one another perfectly among the other, milder notes. The Wellness Melt was sweeter than I’d hoped given the miso, but was nonetheless full bodied and complex in ways that N/A drinks often struggle to replicate.

To finish, the Golden Winter and Ruby Woo. The former is a delightfully spiced New York Sour variant. I’ll admit I struggled to place the pumpkin in this, but even without picking it out the drink was a satisfying blend of spirit, sour, and spice. The Woo puzzles me- it’s served under a contraption that drizzles the absinthe over a sugar cube through the traditional slotted spoon into the rest of the cocktail. The sip I tried was fairly early after this process, and so fairly absinthe forward; but instead of the anise bomb I expected, the aggressive flavors of absinthe were rounded out in ways I struggle to characterize (and would be hard-pressed to reproduce).

Overall, a fascinating program that delights in turning flavors into simultaneous chords instead of layered melodies, a skill I still only barely understand after all of these years. This was a real pleasure; I’ll certainly be back, not least to try the equally fascinating food menu.

[honkman]

Blind Pig Speakeasy Lounge https://www.blindpigspeakeasy.com has been on our must visit list for quite some time. It is a hidden bar in the Lower Nob Hill area which you can only enter when you know the “password” (which you find weekly on their instagram page). Not surprising with owner Derrick Li’s background the drinks are very creative with ingredients you don’t see in many places and tend to have a stronger Asian twist. We came with high expectations but actually were really blown away by the quality of the drinks with very balanced, creative, unusual flavor combinations. One of the best cocktail bars we have been in San Francisco - and definitely not our last visit

North - Wu Jia Pi Jiu, bulleit rye, cherry, beet, kumquat, grapefruit

The Captain - Highland Park Whiskey, bacardi 8yr, black sesame, vermouth, cynar, manzanilla, house bitters

Black Wind Demon (N/A) - Abstinence Cape Agave, blueberry, pineapple, lemon, agave nectar

[CaitlinM]

Roses on Adeline, South Berkeley

Bees of Berkeley: Common Ground basil-elderflower gin, Meyer lemon, local honey, bee pollen.

Passion Flower (N/A): Passoonfruit, lime ginger, soda.

Both well-balanced, not particularly sweet.

Potato-leek soup with a coconut milk base and dukkah, and a (very generous) charred cabbage wedge with mushrooms and creamy miso dressing were also good.

Stained glass behind the bar.

[honkman]

Many bars claim to be neighborhood bars but often feel too large or “corporate” etc. but White Cap https://whitecapsf.com in the Outer Sunset hits really this sweet spot of a neighborhood cocktail place. Small but not cramped, everybody seems to know everybody, bartenders know their customers very well and have interesting discussions beyond just drinks etc. This bar, just a block from the ocean also delivers on excellent cocktails like their signature “Surfer on Acid”.

Surfer on Acid - Uruapan Charanda rum, R. Jelinek Amaro, Lustau PX sherry, Valvet falernum, coffee, coconut, pineapple, salt

Cafecito - Cazadores, Mr. Black, Averna, Creme de Cacao, cold brew

[honkman]

Since Trick Dog https://www.trickdogbar.com opened 13 years ago it has been part of many best-of list nationally and internationally since that time. It’s a surprisingly energetic and loud bar (and dark as one can see from some of the photos) (compared to some other well established places which are going more for a laid-back and quiet ambience) but really delivers on the cocktails and also on the food (excellent triple cooked fries).

Soundcheck - George Dickel rye, “butterscotch”, banana, coffee shoyu

Oaxaca Carnaval - Ilegal Joven mezcal, agricole rum, agua de janaica, rice orgeat, chamoy vinegar, lime

Chinatown Pretty (N/A) - Abstinence Cape Floral, Wilderton Lustre, dong quai, grapefruit, lemon, ginger foam

French Fries - Thrice-cooked Kennebec potatoes, ketchup, “Doggie” sauce

[honkman]

Many restaurants obviously have bars as part of their dining room. Nightbird in Hayes Valley is kind of unique as their cocktail bar, Linden Room https://www.nightbirdrestaurant.com/linden-room/ , is more of a speakeasy bar which “hidden” entrance im a side alley. It’a very small place, more like a quite small living room (no parties with more than four people are allowed) but produces excellent, creative cocktails

Nut & Nector - rye, rum, pistachio, green cardamom, lime

Oak & Dagger - bourbon, rhubarb, black walnut, date amaro, orange

N/A mocktail - non-alcoholic agave, pineapple, blueberry, shiso, ginger, lime

[ClarionCrumpet]

Late to the party, but I strongly second Blind Pig as one of SF’s strongest programs today. The Five Gods Of Wealth menu was a fun embelishment to their standard selection.

First, the center. I wasn’t as interested in The Center until I learned it was clarified, leaving it lighter and more floral than I might first have assumed from its ingredients. This was a delightful milk punch.

To follow, the West. I’m particularly fond of fernet, so I knew that I would like this drink, but I was delighted to be impressed by it- I’ve rarely seen bitter herbal and citrus flavors paired, and was surprised how they parallelled one another through the center of this drink. The dill foam adds a lovely bite and texture to complement the surrounding flavors. In all, superbe drink design, and a credit to the team’s ongoing excellence.