Some people favor goal-driven recreation: running marathons, winning at trivia nights, hiking to the top of Mount Tam. Now, at some Bay Area bars and restaurants, overachievers can feel good about their follow-through by drinking from nearly every bottle on the menu. Several local places with large selections of a single spirit (or a wide range of beers) sponsor tasting clubs that offer rewards—or even degrees—for beverage-sampling milestones. The prizes are paltry compared with the money spent, but the programs are more about learning than earning.

Tres Agaves’ tequila passport has space for 106 stamps designating specific tequilas from 26 distilleries, though there are a few blank spaces for wild cards as well. Passport holders must fill the booklet to experience a free distillery-of-the-month dinner that sometimes includes a visit from the actual distiller. But there are other prizes along the way: branded swag, discount food, and gift tastings of special tequilas not available for sale in the U.S. The smaller rewards don’t come from a certain number of stamps, but from combinations of them known only to the staff. Serving up a little intrigue with that tequila mastery never hurt anyone.

Tres Agaves
5:39 p.m.

PROCESSING FEE
The passport (with laminated photo) costs $20, but that includes a pour of Don Julio reposado and your first stamp.

FLIGHT ATTENDANTS
All the bartenders and 70 percent of the waitstaff have visited distilleries in Mexico to increase their expertise.

RULES OF ENTRY
Tequila may be consumed as a sipper or in margarita form.

FREQUENT FLIERS
You’ll find many passport holders stopping in on the way home from their regular jobs to work on their nighttime project.

OVERHEARD
“That shelf is a winner. OK, ignore Cazadores and Corralejo. But all the rest.”

130 Townsend St., S.F., 415-227-0500, tresagaves.com

ELSEWHERE

Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant’s Blue Agave Club has been operating for nearly 20 years and boasts thousands of members working toward their master’s, PhD, ninja master, and demigod degrees. 5929 Geary Blvd., S.F., 415-387-4747, tommysmexican.com

Members of Forbidden Island’s Kill-Devil Club can personalize a brass nameplate on the wall of the bar after sampling their way through 97 rums. 1304 Lincoln Ave., Alameda, 510-749-0332, forbiddenislandalameda.com

The 30 beers on tap rotate, but participants in Barclay’s Beer Club keep track of the ones they’ve tried over the years and store their ratings in the onsite card catalogue. 5940 College Ave., Oakland, 510-654-1650, barclayspub.com