Todd Smith sits on a cast-iron bar stool, gazing at the garnish on a cucumber gimlet beneath the moody lighting of a teardrop chandelier. Jazz piano plays. Ice rattles out of a tumbler. Couples, tucked away in high-backed booths, swap coquettish glances over sazeracs and whiskey sours.

Smith flips his menu to a page of recipes from the Prohibition era: the Rolls Royce, the Gin & Sin, the Aviation. Martinis are an option, but not with vodka. You could order a Manhattan, but the cherry would be brandied, not neon-dyed.

The doorbell, attached to an old telephone, rings. Outside, a young woman recites a password. The door cracks open, and she ducks through the entrance with the sheepish look of an uninvited guest at a celebrity bash. She asks for an old-fashioned. Smith smiles and nods. If she’d been Carrie Bradshaw requesting a cosmo, the barman would have fixed her with an icy stare.

“We’ll go a long way to accommodate a customer,” Smith says. “But a cosmo in the Sex and the City sense is not what we’re about.”

What Bourbon & Branch is about is a question that has stirred debate. Since opening last fall, on a tumbledown corner of the Tenderloin, the bar has been hailed as a long-awaited watering hole for cocktail purists and decried as elitist, an alienating hangout for spirit snobs. The business, which Smith runs with three partners, traffics only in premium liquors and hand-pressed juices. It shuns commercial cocktail mixes and bans saccharine-sweet sorority drinks. There are no soda guns, only individual bottles. The bar’s purified ice comes from a machine priced in the range of a luxury car.

In its reservation policy (you need one for a table) and haughty house rules (“The bartender is always right,” “Don’t even think of ordering a cosmo”) Bourbon & Branch takes cues from such trendy Manhattan bars as Milk & Honey and Pegu Club. But its jazzy sound track and underground ambitions reflect its debt to the surreptitious clubs of Prohibition. Its phone number is unlisted. Patrons are asked to “speak easy”—to order inconspicuously, as drinkers did when alcohol was outlawed—and to exit quickly, without a word.

Although the self-seriousness of Bourbon & Branch lends itself to satire (it’s not hard to see a bar that unlists its number but posts a website as three parts gin and one part shtick), its business draws on more than mere gimmickry. The place is packed for a reason: it stands at the forefront of a movement that is changing the way San Franciscans drink.

Unless you’ve been sleeping off a really bad one, odds are you’ve noticed a shift in Bay Area cocktail culture. The new ethos emphasizes whatever’s fresh and local, and favors the boutiquey over the mass-produced. Absolut is out. Artisan is in. Around the region, restaurateurs speak earnestly of their cocktail programs and shape their drink menus to the seasons. Many bartenders, eschewing big-name brands, are often pouring spirits from local distillers like Hangar One, Charbay, and Distillery No. 209.

Bars aren’t kitchens, and many bartenders balk at comparisons with chefs, but there are parallels here to restaurants, particularly one called Chez Panisse. It took a few decades, but the same groundswell that brought us from iceberg to red butter lettuce has finally spilled across our bars. Even neighborhood joints have been affected.

“It’s been a gradual awakening, but the extent of it has kind of taken us by surprise,” Smith says. “People had gotten used to drinking poorly made drinks for so long.”

Like restaurant kitchens, bars breed their own sub­cultures populated by eccentrics, egomaniacs, and easy­going Everymen. Though the circles are small, room exists for varying schools of self-expression. Across the bar from traditionalists like Smith, a champion of antique recipes, sit avant-garde practitioners like Scott Beattie of Cyrus, who forages backyards and farms in Healdsburg for blackberries, Thai basil, and black-eyed-susan petals—the better to make cocktails tinged with elements of haute cuisine. Duggan McDonnell, until recently a barman at Absinthe Brasserie & Bar who created the cocktail program at Frisson, has added bacon-infused bourbon and beet-and-cilantro-infused gin to a recently revamped menu at O’Reilly’s Holy Grail. Later this year, he plans to open Cantina, a bar devoted to what he calls “culinary cocktails.” Among the offerings will be a Dadaist daiquiri. In lieu of a glass, the drink will be injected into a lime.

If some bartenders are thinking like chefs, they’ve started acting like them, too. The near-iconic image of the boar-slaying, truffle-hunting man in a toque has been joined by Bay Area bartenders who flavor their own brandy, brew their own bitters, and bathe themselves, if not their cocktails, in tarragon foam. They consult with restaurants for a healthy fee. They boast local followings of barflies who know which shifts they work and where, and who describe their creations in the florid language of a sommelier. Gravitas, it turns out, goes down smoothly. Around San Francisco, bartenders refer to themselves without irony as spirit savants, mixologists, and liquid engineers.

“We cocktailians are all fired up right now,” McDonnell says. “There is no level playing field. There is simply a flow of energy and creativity and fundamental joy for the act of producing artful booze.”

Since the novels of Dashiell Hammett, cocktail hour in San Francisco has long been depicted in romantic light. But well before The Thin Man or the three-martini lunch, the city was actually a better place to drink. As early as 1862, Jerry Thomas, a bartender at San Francisco’s Occidental Hotel, penned what is regarded as the first bartender’s guide, replete with recipes for drinks like the Martinez, a martini precursor that Thomas created for a gold-wielding miner. Even those who found no gold at least had the good fortune to be sent on their way without commercial cocktail mixes. Thomas knew what today’s bartenders had to rediscover: there is no worthy man-made substitute

for fresh lime.

Thomas had acolytes who built on his foundation, but the craft he nurtured was all but killed off in this country with the passage of the Volstead Act in 1919. Though commonly perceived as a golden age of drinking, Prohibition marked a dark era in American cocktails. Skilled bartenders, driven underground or into disrepute, stashed their recipes and stole away to Europe. Out went refined spirits and artisan cocktails. In came moonshine and the mob.

After World War II, the country awoke to cocktails tainted with phony flavors, cheap booze, and frozen juices. For years, Americans drank from the bottom of the barrel, their lips stained with artificial, phosphorescent cherries, their breath stinking of bathtub gin.

It took about 40 years for the revolution, but in the mid-1990s a few radicals began stirring up change: pioneers like Tony Abou-Ganim, who ran Harry Denton’s Starlight Room before bolting to Las Vegas; and Paul Harrington, who in 1994 popularized the mojito at the Townhouse in Berkeley and then crossed the bay with it to Enrico’s, where he taught Todd Smith and others his muddled craft.

Others cite the contributions of Marcovaldo Dionysos, who legally adopted his porn star-ish surname around the time that he launched the cocktail program at Absinthe Brasserie & Bar, the Hayes Valley restaurant that still boasts one of the city’s best-stocked and best-run bars. A Dionysos drink called the Ginger Rogers (a blend of gin, ginger syrup, ginger ale, mint, lemon, and lime) is widely described by local bartenders as a watershed cocktail, a concoction that revealed to them new worlds of potential, an early example of artistry on ice.

Absinthe opened in 1998, and nine years later, many of Dionysos’s peers and apprentices have turned up at other top cocktail spots, including Range, Tres Agaves, and Coco500. Some, like Smith, opened places of their own.

Having just turned 40, Smith is too young to have lived through Prohibition. But he’d found his current calling by the time Sex and the City launched its weekly celebration of the cosmo, the lemon drop, and other syrupy cocktails that Smith wouldn’t order with a high-power soda gun pressed to his head.

Hearing Smith and his colleagues discuss the cosmopolitan, one realizes their distaste for the drink lies less in what it was at its inception than in the bogus-flavored drink they believe it has become.

“Made with good citrus-flavored vodka, the juice of one lime, good cranberry juice, and Cointreau—you’ve got yourself a beautiful cocktail,” says Jonny Raglin, bar manager at Absinthe. “But you start adding triple sec, Rose’s lime juice…the original drink has been bastardized.”

That cosmos are composed with vodka merits mention, since imbedded in the growing cocktail movement is a backlash against Herb Caen’s beloved Vitamin V. Many seasoned bartenders dismiss it as the “tofu of spirits” for its ability to absorb other flavors while displaying few of its own.

“When someone comes into my

bar and asks for a vodka martini,” says McDonnell, “this is what I hear them saying: they’re telling me, I want a lot of booze, and I want it really cold so I don’t taste the booze.”

When he does pour vodka, it’s often from boutique distillers like Charbay or Hangar One, which produces spirits infused with raspberry, citron, and Kaffir lime. But even more frequently, what he pours is gin (or whiskey, or bourbon, or rye, or tequila). The same applies at many of the city’s best bars. At Bourbon & Branch, roughly 60 percent of cocktails sold are made with gin. Martini means what it meant before 007: the drink is stirred, not shaken, and served in modest portions. Getting tipsy comes secondary to displaying good taste.

“I don’t mind getting someone drunk at my bar,” Smith says. “But they’re not going to be able to do it on one drink.”

Behind his bar, Smith keeps a short stack of old-school recipe books. Though he has no beef with more contemporary drinks (the cucumber gimlet is one of his many creations), the classics are where his true love lies. His stickler’s insistence on preparing cocktails according to tradition can lead to sluggish service when his place is packed. Among Bourbon & Branch patrons, wait time accounts for the most common complaints. Smith knows this, and he’s working on it. But this is a man who makes his own tonic water and spends four hours a day squeezing juices and slicing citrus in preparation for an evening’s onslaught. The craft of the cocktail cannot be rushed.

Smith’s punctilious approach contrasts sharply with the freewheeling style of such bartenders as McDonnell. At Absinthe, he performed like a member of an improv troupe, inspired by cues from his audience. A request for “something with gin” sent him into a whirl of motion. Moments later, a cocktail emerged of the desired spirit mixed with, say, lemon juice, sugar, bitters, and the liquor-of-the-moment Aperol, crowned with a frothy top of whipped egg whites.

“There have been plenty of times when I thought I’d invented a new drink that turned out to have been around for a century,” McDonnell says. “But I’m not one of those guys who says, ‘Hey, let me make you something. It’s called the Thumb Up Your Butt and it was very big in the 1920s.’ Recipes are fine, but imagine if everyone cooked the same way. It would be the end of cuisine.”

McDonnell brings what he calls a “chef’s intellect” to the bar, and he’s not alone. Many bartenders, like Camber Lay, a former pastry cook who mixes drinks at Range and Frisson, have strong backgrounds in the kitchen. Others fill their free time with hobbies that would make an olive-pressing, sausage-making chef like Paul Bertolli proud. Thomas Waugh, Lay’s sidekick behind the bar at Range, spent a recent weekend cooking up his own falernum, an herb-infused, rum-based spirit. Scott Beattie of Cyrus produces, among other housemade items, a grenadine-style syrup from cherries. Even the tradition-touting Todd Smith dabbles in “molecular mixology,”

a strain of cocktail-making inspired by the mad-scientist Spanish chef Ferran Adrià. A rotating list of specials at Bourbon & Branch includes a deconstructed negroni, which features “Campari caviar.” Smith mixes the liquor with sodium alginate, a firming agent, and then dis­penses hardened drops of it through a syringe.

“Living around here, you can’t help but be inspired by the experimentation of chefs and the season-driven dishes in restaurants,” Beattie says. “I’ve got stone fruit growing all around me in the summer. In the winter there’s an explosion of citrus. Every day is something different, and I’ve been going to town with it.”

On any given morning, Beattie can be found trolling Healdsburg for fodder for that night’s inebriants. In addition to doing business with local farms, Beattie strikes deals with Healdsburg residents. If he spies a great herb garden, or a promising pomegranate tree poking over a backyard fence, Beattie leaves a note in the mailbox with an offer: their produce in exchange for restaurant credit. The owner of a nearby Chevy dealership personally delivers crates of satsumas. A local innkeeper has promised the bartender access to a bumper crop of key limes.

Beattie’s hand-harvested ingredients soon turn up in inventive cocktails like the Grapes of Roth, a blend of local vodka, merlot juice, yuzu, and red verjus, with cardamom-dusted frozen cabernet grapes as garnish.

His is the kind of concoction that has prompted some to suggest that the creativity of Bay Area cocktails may soon surpass that of Bay Area cuisine. If that’s an overstatement, it is not too much to say that bartenders have grown comfortable with their rising cachet. The job has reclaimed a prestige it hasn’t carried since the dawn of Prohibition. Restaurateurs have started hiring from a short list of local cocktail consultants. Tony Abou-Ganim, formerly of the Starlight Room, has his own TV show. Jeff Hollinger and Rob Schwartz, who have both worked behind Absinthe’s bar, recently published The Art of the Bar: Cocktails Inspired by the Classics. Filled with history and lovingly lit photographs of elegant drinks, the book also illustrates how far local cocktail culture has come: this may be the first cookbook inspired by a San Francisco restaurant bar.

Unlike restaurants, bars aren’t subjected to star ratings, but one can imagine that day arriving. Already, in the bilious dweeb-screeds of the blogosphere, debates rage among cocktail enthusiasts over who makes the best what, where. Jeff Hollinger has been told that his Manhattans go unmatched in San Francisco. David Nepove, aka Mr. Mojito, has been hailed as the master of the muddled drink.

Accredited contests also exist, and, of course, they can stir bad feelings. Once, when a young bartender placed first in a local contest and his mentor finished second, the two exchanged a set of uncomfortable congratulations.

That occasional ill feelings should arise is inevitable, especially in such a cliquish crowd. San Francisco bartenders

frequent one another’s establishments enough that a night of cocktails in the city can take on the mood of the Oscars—stars performing for themselves. McDonnell and Beattie enjoy pairing up for weekend bar crawls. The menu at Bourbon & Branch, in crediting the creators of various drinks, has the irritating tendency of reading like a document written for friends: “David Nepove…Former bar manager at Enrico’s Sidewalk Cafe, now cocktail specialist with Southern Wine and Spirits. But hey, we love him anyway.”

On a recent rainy evening in San Francisco, dozens of members of this close-knit group gathered at Rye for the Tenderloin bar’s monthly cocktail contest. If there was an undercurrent of cut-throatedness, it wasn’t apparent at the outset. The atmosphere was informal, often jokey. Contestants complimented each other’s creations. Victoria Damato-Moran, a veteran North Beach bartender, mixed something called a November Rain, using Maker’s Mark bourbon (the contest sponsor), her own vanilla-ginger-cardamom syrup, persimmon nectar, and tangerine juice. She explained: “I work with the product; I wear it like perfume until it awakens the flavors that pull on my senses.”

Amid the crowd at the bar sat Avery Glasser, a self-described barfly. He said that San Francisco’s cocktail scene, though much improved, still lagged far behind those of New York and London, the twin capitals of good drinking. “Lots of creativity, no consistency,” he said of San Francisco. “In New York, you can pretty much drop by any good bar and get a well-made cocktail. Here, it all depends who’s working that night.” He listed the names of bartenders he trusted; most were standing in the room.

When the judges finished tasting and their scorecards were filed, the winner turned out to be Martin Cate of Forbidden Island, whose tropical-tinged recipe called for Drambuie, lemon juice, and li hing powder, a sweet-and-sour Chinese seasoning. Some attendants voiced surprise that a tikihead like Cate had triumphed in a contest featuring an old-school spirit like bourbon. But everyone clapped, including Todd Smith, whose expression suggested, when first place was announced, that he’d been force-fed a lemon drop.

After Cate claimed his prize, the buzz and chatter picked up, and eavesdropping on it, you could tell that night had fallen on a different kind of cocktail hour. Collin Clark, the bar manager at Capurro’s, could speak freely of his “first fresh juice experience.” H. Joseph Ehrmann, the owner of Elixir, described his recent hunt for pickled watermelon rind. But perhaps the strongest proof that life had changed forever came when Smith, in defense of his preference for pomegranate juice over cranberry juice, declared that the former was “higher in electrolytes”—and no one slugged him from across the bar.

THE EXTREME PURIST
TODD SMITH
Bar manager and co-owner, Bourbon & Branch

Behind the bar: 15 years
Style: “I use a lot of gin, I love classic cocktails, and I’m a citrus nut.”

Signature drink: His version of the negroni (Plymouth gin, Campari, Carpano Antica Formula).
Previous gigs: The dearly departed Enrico’s, which he helped open, and Cortez.
Upcoming projects: Prepping the library at Bourbon & Branch, which will feature an extensive whiskey and scotch selection. In time, he plans to set up a bottle-storage system for regulars.


THE IMPROV TROUPE AT RANGE
DOMINIC VENEGAS
Behind the bar: 12 years
Style: “I pride myself on the way I make the classics, like the Manhattan and the Aviation.”
Signature drink: The 1794 (a twist on the negroni, with Old Overholt rye standing in for gin).
Previous gigs: Kimo’s in Lahaina, Maui, and Bacar in SoMa.
Upcoming project: Assembling special bottles for the liquor library at Bourbon & Branch, where Venegas also works.

CAMBER LAY
Behind the bar: Seven years
Style: “I’m currently playing with tea-infused spirits and rims coated in dehydrated fruit.”
Signature drink: Harmony (No. 209 gin infused with La France pear-matcha tea, Lillet, lemon juice, and green Chartreuse).
Previous gigs: MC2 and Frisson, where she has been since it opened.
Upcoming project: Designing the drink list for Uva, a wine bar slated to open in the Lower Haight in late spring.

THOMAS WAUGH
Behind the bar: Three years
Style: “I put bitters in everything; I even put lemon bitters in lemon drops.”
Signature drink: The Knack (Armagnac, Mandarine Napoléon, Benedictine, orange bitters, lemon juice).
Previous gigs: Enrico’s and Harry Denton’s Starlight Room.
Upcoming project: Infusing Buddha’s hand citrus in gin to create a gin-based limoncello that will probably be served as a digestif at Range.

THE SHOWCASE
Monday Mixing Competition at Rye
688 Geary St., S.F., 415-474-4448

The event: Once a month, the city’s best bartenders (and its most eager amateurs) duke it out at Rye’s mixing contest. The winning cocktail earns a place on the Tendernob bar’s drink menu.

The contestants: Mixologists such as Victoria Damato-Moran from Trattoria Pinocchio in North Beach (left column, middle) and Todd Smith from Bourbon & Branch (right column, bottom) go for the gold during the recent Maker’s Mark competition.

The winner: Martin Cate of Forbidden Island (middle column, bottom) gets a congratulatory hug after his cocktail, the Maker’s Palaca, took first place.

THE SEASONAL GENIUS
SCOTT BEATTIE
Bar manager, Cyrus
Behind the bar: 10 years
Style: “I’m really intent on using local products, like Charbay vodka and seasonal produce, in my cocktails.”
Signature drink: Always changing according to the season.
Previous gigs: Perry’s in the Marina and Martini House in St. Helena.
Upcoming projects: Sourcing Rangpur limes and Meyer lemons for his winter cocktail list. A book on seasonal cocktails is also in the works.

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YEAR OF THE COCKTAIL

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JANUARY
Sazerac at Absinthe Brasserie & Bar

398 hayes st., s.f., 415-551-1590

Why: It’s a stylish modification

of the rye whiskey and anise classic.

Bartenders: Marcovaldo Dionysos and Jeff Hollinger

Inventor: Antoine Peychaud, New Orleans, 1830s. In creating a vehicle for his own bitters, Peychaud mixed them with cognac and sugar and supposedly served the mixture over ice in a rocks glass. Absinthe Brasserie & Bar’s version—established by founding bar manager Marco Dionysos—has been on the drink menu since the restaurant opened in 1998. Hollinger, a fan of champagne saucers, began serving Absinthe’s sazeracs in them last year.

2 ounces Wild Turkey
101-proof rye whiskey
½ ounce simple syrup
5–7 dashes Peychaud bitters
Herbsaint liqueur

Put first three ingredients in ice-filled mixing glass. Stir for 20 to 30 seconds. In a chilled coupe glass, add 3 dashes Herbsaint and spin the glass until it’s coated. Dump out excess. Strain rye mixture into coupe and then zest a lemon strip over the top. Twist lemon into drink. (See method for making simple syrup in the basil gimlet recipe.)

Tips: “Be reserved with the simple syrup and aggressive with the bitters,” says Hollinger. “The bitters make the drink. It should have a pinkish tone from them. Oh, and never shake the fucking drink.”


FEBRUARY
Añejo daiquiri at Coco500
500 brannan st., s.f., 415-543-2222

Why: For once, fiddling with a classic resulted in a drink that might—blasphemy alert—be better than the original.

Bartender: Scott Baird

Inventor: Jennings Cox, Daiquiri, Cuba, 1896. Cox ran out of gin while hosting a group of prominent Americans, so he mixed rum with lime juice and sugar, creating the first daiquiri. Over the years, lighter rums have unquestionably been the rums of choice for the drink. Baird, in a smart leap of faith, altered over a cen­tury of tradition when he made his with aged rum.

1¾ ounces Pampero Aniversario rum
¾ ounce fresh-squeezed lime juice
4½ teaspoons ground organic evaporated cane sugar

To make ground sugar:grind organic raw sugar (avoid turbinado and other dark varieties) in a standard coffee grinder until it turns into a fine, soft powder.

Add sugar and lime to a mixing glass and stir with a bar spoon for approximately 20 revolutions. Add ice and rum and shake hard for 10 full seconds. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a lime wheel.

Tip: “When I say shake hard, I mean it,” says Baird. “Don’t throw your back out, but use two hands and give the cocktail a healthy mix.”


MARCH
Plymouth gin martini at Bix
56 Gold st., s.f., 415-433-6300

Why: Sharp, bracing, and totally satisfying, it’s the ideal prelude to a meal.

Bartender: Doug “Bix” Biederbeck

Inventor: Multiple possibilities in San Francisco or New York, somewhere between 1850 and 1912. The earliest version of the martini, the “fancy gin cocktail,” was introduced in the 1850s and featured Old Tom gin and orange curaçao. Other tales claim that either Jerry Thomas of San Francisco or Martini di Arma di Taggia of New York’s Knickerbocker Hotel

mixed the first martini, made with dry vermouth and gin, sometime around 1912. The martini served at Bix is modeled after the dry martini that was de rigueur by 1960.

2 ounces Plymouth gin
A generous dash of Martini & Rossi dry vermouth

Fill a metal shaker with ice. Add the gin and vermouth, shake, and strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with olives, onions, or a twist.

Tips: “If you want olives in your martini, be sure you rinse them first to get rid of some of the brine,” says Biederbeck. “Be sure to use a metal shaker—it conducts temperature better. And I’m dead-set against birdbath martinis; a big martini is dead by the time you finish drinking it.”


APRIL
Old-fashioned at the Alembic
1725 haight st., S.F., 415-666-0822

Why: The old-fashioned is a misunderstood classic; this is a superb, back-to-basics rendition.

Bartender: Daniel Hyatt

Inventor: Pendennis Club, Louisville, Kentucky, 1880s. The original old-fashioned was built on nothing more than whiskey, sugar, bitters, and a twist of lemon. Different camps argue that muddling an orange slice and maraschino cherry creates either the ideal version of the drink or an embarrassing bastardization. Hyatt prefers his old-fashioned in the style of the original—stripped down and unfussy.

Superfine sugar
Angostura bitters
2 ounces Elijah Craig
12-year-old bourbon
1 lemon

Place a scant bar spoonful of superfine sugar in a rocks glass, and add 2 dashes of bitters. Add a teaspoon of water and swirl to dissolve the sugar. Add bourbon. Add four or five ice cubes and stir. Zest a lemon twist over the glass, toss it in, and serve.

Tips: “When you zest the lemon, be sure to do it over the drink,” says Hyatt. “You want the oils to get in the drink and flavor it.


MAY
Aperol sour at Bourbon & Branch
www.bourbonandbranch.com

Why: Perfect for kick-starting spring, it’s a stellar melding of old and new.

Bartender: Todd Smith

Inventor: Todd Smith, San Francisco, 2006. Smith hosted a party to celebrate the release of Italy-produced Aperol (a milder version of Campari) in the States. The Aperol sour was created for the event.

1½ ounces Aperol
¾ ounce fresh lemon juice
¼ ounce simple syrup
Most of one egg white

Combine all ingredients in a chilled mixing glass. Add ice, and shake vigorously for at least 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass or serve over ice. Garnish with a lemon twist. (See method for making simple syrup in basil gimlet recipe.)

Tips: “It’s best to keep all equipment in the freezer—glasses, strainers, and shakers,” says Smith. “That way you get as little dilution as possible."


JUNE
Italian lemonade at Farallon
450 post st., s.f., 415-956-6969

Why: A simple and, as far as we know, completely original drink that begs to be drunk to excess anytime, but especially on those rare scorchers in the city.

Inventor: Patrick Dunne, San Francisco, 2003. After falling in love with limoncello (the concentrated

lemon liqueur from Italy), Dunne struggled to build a cocktail that could support the beverage’s sweet, citrusy intensity. Dunne kept it simple, pairing limoncello with sweet vermouth plus a hit of lemon juice and ginger ale.

1½ ounces Caravella
limoncello
1½ ounces Noilly Prat
sweet vermouth
1½ ounces lemon juice
Ginger ale

Fill a 12-ounce bucket glass to the rim with ice. Add the limoncello, vermouth, and lemon juice, and top with ginger ale. Garnish with a twist of lemon.

Tips: “Two things—don’t overdo it with the limoncello, and don’t be afraid of the vermouth,” says Dunne. “The equal portion of vermouth balances the drink and makes it a well-rounded cocktail.”


JULY
Basil gimlet at Rye
688 geary st., s.f., 415-474-4448

Why: Rye’s take on the classic gimlet has gotten more press than Madonna’s adoption trials, but we can’t help ourselves—its basil version is a perfect cocktail.

Bartenders: Jon Gasparini and Greg Lindgren

Inventor: Unknown. After Greg’s wife, Shelley (sommelier of A16 fame), tried a basil gimlet in New York, she returned to San Francisco infatuated. Gasparini and Lindgren tweaked the recipe to mirror the Bay Area’s obsession with local products.

2 ounces No. 209 gin
Half a lime
½ ounce simple syrup
5 basil leaves

To make simple syrup, bring 2 cups water and 1 cup sugar to a boil in a saucepan. Simmer for roughly 15 minutes. Keep refrigerated.

Gently muddle basil, fresh lime juice, and simple syrup in a mixing glass with a wooden muddler. Add ice and gin. Shake vigorously, and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with a basil leaf or lime wedge.

Tip: “You could make it with vodka, but it’s far more interesting with gin,” says Gasparini. “Also, if the basil sits around for a day or so, it doesn’t have the crisp freshness critical to the drink’s success.”


AUGUST
House margarita at Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant
5929 Geary Blvd., S.F., 415-387-4747

Why: The proportions highlight the most important part of the drink—the tequila.

Bartenders: Julio Bermejo and his father, Tommy

Inventor: Unknown, between 1930 and 1940. Most cocktails have a few origin stories. The margarita has about five. The traditional recipe features an orange liqueur, often triple sec or Cointreau, and Rose’s preserved lime juice. Julio and Tommy Bermejo came up with Tommy’s reinvention of the classic recipe in 1985, complementing the tequila with fresh lime and agave nectar.

2 ounces Herradura Plato tequila
1 ounce agave nectar
1 ounce hand-squeezed
lime juice (about 1 large lime)

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice.Add tequila, agave, and lime juice. Shake until thoroughly combined. Pour into glass.

Tip: “For the least amount of pulp, it’s best to squeeze the limes with a handheld citrus juicer,” says Julio Bermejo.


SEPTEMBER
Irian Jaya at Cyrus
29 north st., healdsburg, 707-433-3311

Why: Chili peppers, Kaffir lime leaf, and candied lemongrass. On

paper, it reads like a nightmare. In the mouth, it’s a revelation.

Bartender: Scott Beattie

Inventor: Scott Beattie, Healdsburg, 2006. The drink mirrors the complex flavors of Indonesian food, and Beattie named it after the western half of New Guinea, home of the world’s largest gold mine.

First, make the candied lemongrass:
3 stalks lemongrass
2 cups water
2 cups sugar
A few Kaffir lime leaves

Cut the lemongrass into thin rings, using only the whitish part. Boil the sugar and water, and add the lemon­grass and Kaffir lime leaves. Simmer for 5 minutes. Let the mixture cool.

¾ ounce Hangar One
Kaffir lime vodka
¾ ounce straight vodka
4 Kaffir lime leaves sliced into thin strips
5 fresh Fresno red chili rings (be aware that the seeds are what make this drink spicy)
10–15 pieces candied
lemongrass
½ ounce fresh-squeezed lime juice
2 ounces ginger beer

Add all ingredients in a mixing glass, add ice, shake well, and dump everything in a tall glass. Top with ginger beer.

Tip: “For a striking presentation, use lots of ice so the elements have something to cling to,” says Beattie. “The drink should be sweet, sour, spicy, and refreshing.”


OCTOBER
Tarragon-cardamom caipirinha at Aziza
5800 geary blvd., s.f., 415-752-2222

Why: The national drink of Brazil, known for its rough charms, gets fancified without losing its edge.

Bartender: Farnoush Deylamian

Inventor: Unknown, Brazil, year unknown. When limes and raw sugar were added to Brazil’s most popular spirit, cachaça, the caipirinha was born. The drink has hit the States like a tropical storm over the last decade, and to complement the flavors of Aziza’s California-influenced Moroccan food, Deylamian incorporated tarragon and cardamom pods into the drink, adding fragrance
and kick.

8 ice cubes
1 lime, halved and cut into
8 cubes
12 tarragon leaves
10 cardamom pods (available at Indian grocery stores)
2 tablespoons sugar (preferably organic turbinado)
2 ounces cachaça

In a shaker, muddle together the ice cubes, lime, tarragon, cardamom pods, and sugar until all the ice is crushed and mixture is almost liquid. Fill the shaker a third full of ice—don’t add too much. Add cachaça and shake well. Pour into a rocks glass and serve.

Tips: “Soak the cardamom pods in the cachaça for about an hour—the longer the better,” says Deylamian. “You’ll release the oils in the cardamom into the cachaça, giving a more intense cardamom flavor."


NOVEMBER
The Graduate at Range
842 valencia st., s.f., 415-282-8283

Why: Familiar meal enders like Benedictine and madeira mixed with a slug of whiskey: think of it as the after-dinner Manhattan.

Bartender: Thomas Waugh

Inventor: Thomas Waugh, San Francisco, 2006. A regular at Range, who’s fonder of mixed drinks than of wine, asked for a cocktail to pair with his bittersweet chocolate soufflé. Sometimes the best ideas strike when you’re under pressure.

1½ ounces blended scotch

whiskey (ideally White Horse)
1 ounce madeira
½ ounce Benedictine
Dash each of Fee Brothers orange, old-fashioned, and Angostura bitters
1 orange
Add whiskey, madeira, Benedictine, and bitters to a mixing glass. Add ice and stir slowly for 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Cut a piece of orange peel approximately the size of a quarter. Armed with a lit match, squeeze the orange peel so that its oils ignite. Drop the orange peel into the glass and serve.

Tips: “The whiskey shouldn’t be high-end—using a single malt would be just plain silly,” says Waugh. “And if the idea of flaming orange peel is too intimidating, just squeeze the peel and drop it in the drink instead.”


DECEMBER
Sidewinder’s Fang at Forbidden Island
1304 lincoln ave., alameda, 510-749-0332

Why: Two kinds of rum and a glut of fruit juice make a damn tasty beverage, turning our rainstorms into tropical showers.

Bartender: Martin Cate

Inventor: Unknown, San Mateo, 1964. A scholar of all things tiki, Forbidden Island’s Cate resuscitated a classic that was the house specialty at the Lanai restaurant on the Peninsula.

1½ ounces fresh lime juice
1½ ounces fresh orange juice
1½ ounces passion-fruit
syrup (Trader Vic’s or Monin)
1 ounce dark Jamaican rum (preferably Coruba, but Myers’s is OK)
1 ounce 80-proof Demerara rum from Guyana (such as Lemon Hart)
2 ounces seltzer water

Combine all ingredients in a blender with 2 cups of cracked ice. Blend for 2 seconds and pour entire contents into a large goblet. Over the glass, peel a very long spiral of orange peel. Garnish with a mint sprig and the orange spiral so it hangs down the side like a snake.

Tips: “It’s extremely important not to overblend; this is not a frozen or slushy drink,” says Cate. “By just quickly pulsing the blender, you are partly crushing the ice, mixing, chilling, and appropriately diluting the drink in one quick step.”
 

 

---

Learn to shake it like a pro
Four great classes in cocktail making

---

Flight Night at Absinthe
Absinthe, in the heart of Hayes Valley, provides a double play for the cocktail curious: every Thursday is Flight Night (from 7 p.m. to midnight), highlighting a specific—and usually high-end—spirit, plus cocktails made with the chosen poison. No secrets here: recipes are also included. There’s also Home Bar School, a detailed three-hour class on home bartending. 398 Hayes St., S.F., 415-551-1590, www.absinthe.com.

Margarita-making classes at Tres Agaves
If mastering the margarita borders on godliness, Julio Bermejo of Tommy’s and Tres Agaves is practically a deity. The SoMa bar and restaurant books classes in its private rooms for groups who want to learn the art of concocting the house margarita. All participants get their own setup to practice with, including limes and a citrus squeezer. 130 Townsend St., S.F., 415-227-0500, www.tresagaves.com.

The Elixir Cocktail Club at Elixir
Elixir, in the Mission, proves cocktails are not a spectator sport: Wednesdays there’s Charity Guest Bartending, and on Thursdays from 7 to 9 p.m. the Elixir Cocktail Club meets for complimentary spirit tastings and education. On weekends, the hungover masses stumble in for their cure, courtesy of the extensive make-your-own Bloody Mary bar—hello, pickled asparagus. 3200 16th St., S.F., 415-552-1633, www.elixirsf.com.

Every night at Range
Anyone bored to tears with the same old drink lists should elbow up to the bar at Range. This Mission hot spot features a different original cocktail every night. Bartenders try out drinks that might feature li hing (dried and crushed plum seeds) or black sea salt rims and dusts made from dehydrated peaches and raspberries. 842 Valencia St., S.F., 415-282-8283, www.rangesf.com.
—Marcia Gagliardi

 

---

Five other bartenders you should know

---

DANIEL HYATT
the Alembic
1725 haight st., S.F., 415-666-0822
Shaggy-haired Hyatt has scaled back to the basics, showcasing small-batch spirits at the Alembic, after an inventive tenure at Winterland.
Signature drink: Sazerac (Sazerac rye, Peychaud’s bitters, sugar, a suspiciously absinthe-like housemade anise liqueur)
Behind the bar: 12 years
Previous gig: The Imperial Lounge in Portland, Oregon.
Style: “I use a lot of bitter or savory components like Campari and basil,” says Hyatt.

COTT BAIRD
Coco500
500 brannan st., s.f., 415-543-2222
Under Baird’s direction, the bar at Coco500 specializes in ultrafresh versions of traditional cocktails, like his pristine pisco sour. New drinks are inspired in their simplicity.
Signature drink: Coco500 (Hangar One Kaffir lime vodka, Thai basil, lime, seltzer, raw organic sugar)
Behind the bar: Nine years
Previous gig: César in Berkeley.
Style: “When I imagine a good cocktail, it is flirtatious and elusive. Both up-front and subtle,” says Baird.

JACQUES BEZUIDENHOUT
everywhere
He helped put together Tres Agaves’s drink program, is the beverage manager for the Starlight Room, and invents cocktails for spirits companies that are served in bars here and around the world.
Signature drink: La Perla (Gran Centenario reposado tequila, manzanilla sherry, and Mathilde pear liqueur) at Tres Agaves.
Behind the bar: 13 years
Previous gigs: The Irish Bank in the financial district and Pesce in Russian Hill.
Style: “A few years ago, I was using a lot of different fresh fruit juices,” says Bezuidenhout. “These days, I’m playing with sherries and fortified wines.”

ERIC JOHNSON
Eastside West
3154 fillmore st., s.f., 415-885-4000
In the Marina, an area known more for the concentration of bars than the quality of drinks, the talented Johnson offers the exception and prides himself on initiating vodka-soda and Jack-and-Coke drinkers into the world of gin and tequila.
Signature drink: Rumpus (reposado tequila, lemon, and agave, muddled with ginger, red grapes, an

organic turbinado)
2 ounces cachaça

In a shaker, muddle together the ice cubes, lime, tarragon, cardamom pods, and sugar until all the ice is crushed and mixture is almost liquid. Fill the shaker a third full of ice—don’t add too much. Add cachaça and shake well. Pour into a rocks glass and serve.

Tips: “Soak the cardamom pods in the cachaça for about an hour—the longer the better,” says Deylamian. “You’ll release the oils in the cardamom into the cachaça, giving a more intense cardamom flavor."


NOVEMBER
The Graduate at Range
842 valencia st., s.f., 415-282-8283

Why: Familiar meal enders like Benedictine and madeira mixed with a slug of whiskey: think of it as the after-dinner Manhattan.

Bartender: Thomas Waugh

Inventor: Thomas Waugh, San Francisco, 2006. A regular at Range, who’s fonder of mixed drinks than of wine, asked for a cocktail to pair with his bittersweet chocolate soufflé. Sometimes the best ideas strike when you’re under pressure.

1½ ounces blended scotch whiskey (ideally White Horse)
1 ounce madeira
½ ounce Benedictine
Dash each of Fee Brothers orange, old-fashioned, and Angostura bitters
1 orange
Add whiskey, madeira, Benedictine, and bitters to a mixing glass. Add ice and stir slowly for 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Cut a piece of orange peel approximately the size of a quarter. Armed with a lit match, squeeze the orange peel so that its oils ignite. Drop the orange peel into the glass and serve.

Tips: “The whiskey shouldn’t be high-end—using a single malt would be just plain silly,” says Waugh. “And if the idea of flaming orange peel is too intimidating, just squeeze the peel and drop it in the drink instead.”


DECEMBER
Sidewinder’s Fang at Forbidden Island
1304 lincoln ave., alameda, 510-749-0332

Why: Two kinds of rum and a glut of fruit juice make a damn tasty beverage, turning our rainstorms into tropical showers.

Bartender: Martin Cate

Inventor: Unknown, San Mateo, 1964. A scholar of all things tiki, Forbidden Island’s Cate resuscitated a classic that was the house specialty at the Lanai restaurant on the Peninsula.

1½ ounces fresh lime juice
1½ ounces fresh orange juice
1½ ounces passion-fruit
syrup (Trader Vic’s or Monin)
1 ounce dark Jamaican rum (preferably Coruba, but Myers’s is OK)
1 ounce 80-proof Demerara rum from Guyana (such as Lemon Hart)
2 ounces seltzer water

Combine all ingredients in a blender with 2 cups of cracked ice. Blend for 2 seconds and pour entire contents into a large goblet. Over the glass, peel a very long spiral of orange peel. Garnish with a mint sprig and the orange spiral so it hangs down the side like a snake.

Tips: “It’s extremely important not to overblend; this is not a frozen or slushy drink,” says Cate. “By just quickly pulsing the blender, you are partly crushing the ice, mixing, chilling, and appropriately diluting the drink in one quick step.”
 

 

---

Learn to shake it like a pro
Four great classes in cocktail making

---

Flight Night at Absinthe
Absinthe, in the heart of Hayes Valley, provides a double play for the cocktail curious: every Thursday is Flight Night (from 7 p.m. to midnight), highlighting a specific—and usually high-end—spirit, plus cocktails made with the chosen poison. No secrets here: recipes are also included. There’s also Home Bar School, a detailed three-hour class on home bartending. 398 Hayes St., S.F., 415-551-1590, www.absinthe.com.

Margarita-making classes at Tres Agaves
If mastering the margarita borders on godliness, Julio Bermejo of Tommy’s and Tres Agaves is practically a deity. The SoMa bar and restaurant books classes in its private rooms for groups who want to learn the art of concocting the house margarita. All participants get their own setup to practice with, including limes and a citrus squeezer. 130 Townsend St., S.F., 415-227-0500, www.tresagaves.com.

The Elixir Cocktail Club at Elixir
Elixir, in the Mission, proves cocktails are not a spectator sport: Wednesdays there’s Charity Guest Bartending, and on Thursdays from 7 to 9 p.m. the Elixir Cocktail Club meets for complimentary spirit tastings and education. On weekends, the hungover masses stumble in for their cure, courtesy of the extensive make-your-own Bloody Mary bar—hello, pickled asparagus. 3200 16th St., S.F., 415-552-1633, www.elixirsf.com.

Every night at Range
Anyone bored to tears with the same old drink lists should elbow up to the bar at Range. This Mission hot spot features a different original cocktail every night. Bartenders try out drinks that might feature li hing (dried and crushed plum seeds) or black sea salt rims and dusts made from dehydrated peaches and raspberries. 842 Valencia St., S.F., 415-282-8283, www.rangesf.com.
—Marcia Gagliardi

 

---

Five other bartenders you should know

---

DANIEL HYATT
the Alembic
1725 haight st., S.F., 415-666-0822
Shaggy-haired Hyatt has scaled back to the basics, showcasing small-batch spirits at the Alembic, after an inventive tenure at Winterland.
Signature drink: Sazerac (Sazerac rye, Peychaud’s bitters, sugar, a suspiciously absinthe-like housemade anise liqueur)
Behind the bar: 12 years
Previous gig: The Imperial Lounge in Portland, Oregon.
Style: “I use a lot of bitter or savory components like Campari and basil,” says Hyatt.

COTT BAIRD
Coco500
500 brannan st., s.f., 415-543-2222
Under Baird’s direction, the bar at Coco500 specializes in ultrafresh versions of traditional cocktails, like his pristine pisco sour. New drinks are inspired in their simplicity.
Signature drink: Coco500 (Hangar One Kaffir lime vodka, Thai basil, lime, seltzer, raw organic sugar)
Behind the bar: Nine years
Previous gig: César in Berkeley.
Style: “When I imagine a good cocktail, it is flirtatious and elusive. Both up-front and subtle,” says Baird.

JACQUES BEZUIDENHOUT
everywhere
He helped put together Tres Agaves’s drink program, is the beverage manager for the Starlight Room, and invents cocktails for spirits companies that are served in bars here and around the world.
Signature drink: La Perla (Gran Centenario reposado tequila, manzanilla sherry, and Mathilde pear liqueur) at Tres Agaves.
Behind the bar: 13 years
Previous gigs: The Irish Bank in the financial district and Pesce in Russian Hill.
Style: “A few years ago, I was using a lot of different fresh fruit juices,” says Bezuidenhout. “These days, I’m playing with sherries and fortified wines.”

ERIC JOHNSON
Eastside West
3154 fillmore st., s.f., 415-885-4000
In the Marina, an area known more for the concentration of bars than the quality of drinks, the talented Johnson offers the exception and prides himself on initiating vodka-soda and Jack-and-Coke drinkers into the world of gin and tequila.
Signature drink: Rumpus (reposado tequila, lemon, and agave, muddled with ginger, red grapes, and 20-year tawny port).
Behind the bar: 11 years
Previous gigs: Buckeye Roadhouse in Mill Valley and Garibaldis in San

Francisco.
Style: “Getting people to drink real cocktails is a fight worth fighting,” says Johnson.

ERIK ADKINS
the Slanted Door
ferry building marketplace, s.f., 415-861-8032
A natural fit with the Slanted Door, Adkins is now in his fifth year there. He goes to great lengths to get the best liquor: for example, Pappy van Winkle 12-year-old bourbon and El Tesoro tequila for the house margarita.
Signature drink: Panama Orange—a caipirinha with calamondin (a kumquatlike citrus) standing in for the traditional lime.
Behind the bar: 15 years
Previous gig: Slow Club in the Mission.
Style: “Our cocktail style at the restaurant mirrors the kitchen’s,” says Adkins. “It’s a California cuisine take, where it’s all about the sourcing of good ingredients.”
—Camper English