Yes, there are beautiful surfing beaches aligning the Pacific Ocean, along with giant sequoias, and I believe sensory depravation chambers are a big thing in San Francisco now, but there is so much more to California than we realize. There are avocados, avocado toast, almonds, walnuts, redwoods, northwoods, vineyards, wine mixers, mandarins, tangerines, sourdough bread, Mission burritos, Koreatown, Chinatown, Joshua Tree, and Coachella (selfieee!).
California
Eureka! You’ve got a lot of great cocktail bars out there, California—and a lot of people to visit them. There are more than thirty-nine million people in California, which means one of every eight United States residents lives in the Land of Milk and Honey. The fortune cookie was invented here, the first motion picture theater opened in Los Angeles in 1902, and did you order this book on an Apple device? Invented in California, my friend. And you’re probably wearing blue jeans, right? Levi Strauss, a German immigrant, came to California in 1873, bringing us the almighty American comfort garment.
Escape is a dying art. Most Americans scarcely even take vacations anymore and, when they do, they often bring at least a little work with them. Leave it outside—the tiki bar is not the place for such burdens. You don’t have to wait for nightfall; it’s already waiting for you. So take a minute to unwind, and to hell with the summer sun. Slather on that SPF Zero and get to work on that ghostly pallor, because we’ve got some indoor drinkin’ to do!
—Martin Cate, co-owner, Smuggler’s Cove (San Francisco), in Imbibe magazine, July/August 2018
California and its cocktail background—coupled with the rising tide of new cocktail bars and bartenders making waves throughout the Golden State—could be a book of their own. San Francisco has developed into the West Coast cocktail capital of America, the site of a revival on par with New York’s. The early 1990s saw the introduction of Julio Bermejo’s simple take on the classic Margarita, using 100 percent agave tequila with fresh-squeezed lime juice and agave syrup—no triple sec. Modern classics developed at land speed record in San Francisco: Marco Dionysos created the Chartreuse Swizzle; Jacques Bezuidenhout crafted the La Perla; the Irish Coffee at Buena Vista became a must-try; Tony Abou-Ganim came up with the Cable Car (spiced rum, triple sec, and lemon, with a cinnamon-sugar rim); and Thad Vogler’s Bar Agricole illuminated the Bay City playing field with its Armagnac Old Fashioned.
Oakland doesn’t get as much attention as San Francisco, but it should be noted that there are terrific bars and beverage destinations throughout the Town (howdy, Prizefighter), and they owe its cocktail history to people like Trader Vic and Don the Beachcomber—the Katy Perry and Taylor Swift of 1940s California tiki bar legend. Trader Vic created the Mai Tai in 1944, and it became the official cocktail of Oakland in 2009.
San Diego is the location for one of the most beautiful bars in the world. It’s called Raised by Wolves. Google some images. It looks like a magical bar made for the set design of Tim Burton’s version of The Great Gatsby. Second, this blessed beauty of a bar is located . . . in the Westfield UTC shopping mall. Just across from the Apple and Aesop stores. Once inside the blue door, visitors are staring at a seemingly well-kept retail store shelving notable bitters, spirits, and barware. After sitting down on a chair near a working fireplace, the wall spins like a trap door for 180 degrees to place you inside a pristine bar evoking a gilded era of cocktail majesty; with wolves on the walls, and a bubbling water fountain smack-dab in the center behind the bar, nearly as high as the ceiling. I haven’t even talked about the delicious cocktails, have I? Because no doubt you have already put the book down and are headed there.
Second, not only does San Diego have the Top Gun bar (See? We can’t escape Tom Cruise when it comes to bars and cocktail references), where Goose sings on the piano to Maggie, and Maggie says, “Take me to bed or lose me forever,” San Diego has one of my favorite bar-restaurants in America: Turf Club. I was lucky enough to visit Turf Club once—once—and I feel like it’s not enough. I can’t wait to get back. Go there for the sexy red-light bar, and stay for the ice-cold gimlets, which you will sip in a booth while ordering steaks and vegetables and potatoes that are to be grilled in the middle of the room, while chatting with people from other tables who are all cooking their own food. Get a Martini, a Manhattan, or an Old Fashioned. Get anything. When I was there I met some sweethearts from Denver who offered me some of their Chartreuse. I’m not saying that would happen every single time, but at least I can give you hope. Please: Book a flight to San Diego. Go to Turf Club, then Raised by Wolves, then the Aero Club Bar, a dive bar with a nice selection of cocktails and one of the largest whiskey collections in the country. I will be your wing man any time you head to San Diego.
As far as unique drinking traditions, the Picon Punch definitely stands out, as it’s often only served in the Central Valley of California and in Reno, Nevada. I love that it’s like a secret code that everyone who goes there knows about. Our state cocktail should be the Mai Tai, which was invented in Oakland, and is known around the world. Unfortunately, I feel our most American cocktail might be a vodka soda. No matter what bar you’re in in America, someone will order it.
—Rebecca Cate, co-owner, Smuggler’s Cove (San Francisco)
Los Angeles is responsible for creating the Brown Derby, the Harvey Wallbanger (purportedly named after a surfer who drank enough he bumped into the walls upon having the wild concoction), the Zombie (if you wanna get heavy, dig on this—but go easy, as it is boozy), and the now-ubiquitous Moscow Mule, putting vodka and ginger beer into symbiotic matrimony in the 1940s.
Los Angeles still has one foot in classic Hollywood sentiment, with terrific cocktail destinations such as Musso and Frank Grill (lionized in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), West Hollywood’s Dan Tana’s, and Tonga Hut, L.A.’s oldest tiki bar, while modern-day Los Angeles has a bevy of worthwhile cocktail haunts. But each one takes forty-five minutes to get to by car, so please be responsible and don’t drink and drive. The NoMad opened a bar in downtown L.A. that equals its New York majesty—and this one has a pool and bar on the rooftop; Ever Bar assembles creative riffs on classics in a relaxed setting; the Spare Room balances house cocktails with nearby bowling lanes and Jimmy Kimmel’s headquarters across the street; the Normandie Club in Koreatown is a favorite for industry people and always delivers on its selections, even celebrating riffs on the classic Martini. Harvard & Stone is a great cocktail bar and intimate music hall, which deftly avoids categorization. Enter any night of the week and you might find a cocktail competition taking place, a spirits tasting, live music, a burlesque show, or all of these things combined! The R&D Bar in the back of the space has weekly menu changes and features some amazing themed cocktail menus. One of my personal faves was the Dumb and Dumber cocktail menu, with He Must Work Out, Mary Samsonite, Those Your Skiis?, Both of Em?, and So You’re Sayin’ There’s a Chance. Hopefully, you’re saying there’s a chance you’ll make it here for a great night.
BAR SNACK
“The Bartender’s Handshake” refers to a shot of Fernet-Branca. So a few years back, San Francisco bartenders—often tribal and community-based by nature—would visit one another’s bars, many of which were located in the cocktail epicenter of the city, the predominantly Italian North Beach neighborhood, and Fernet shots were poured to celebrate small reunions. Made in Milan, Fernet became the official spirit of San Francisco (more Fernet is consumed here than anywhere else in the United States), as its inhabitants followed the example of their loyal barkeepers. I know the more I keep talking about Fernet, the more Fernet sounds like the foreign exchange student who’s wearing too much cologne and seems twenty years older than anyone else at the party, but Fernet is a uniquely flavorful spirit, and some people can’t see past the visual aspect of Fernet in a glass. Fernet is very dark and viscous, and some might say it looks like a heartbroken spider that has crawled into a bottle and cried for weeks on end. Take a sip of Fernet, and take a sip of San Francisco, which in the nineteenth century was regarded as one of the most lawless cities in America. You fiend.
CALIFORNIA’S OLDEST BAR
Not only does it look like a place where Jesse and Frank James would stop and have a sarsaparilla or two on the run from Johnny Law, it actually is a spot where the famous robbers once stopped. Operating since 1858 just outside of San Luis Obispo, the bar has developed a new following for bringing in live music.
I don’t like sitting at a desk—I like keeping in motion, and a little bit of chaos, and that’s bartending.
—Steven Liles, bartender at Smuggler’s Cove, in Imbibe magazine
CALIFORNIA COCKTAIL BAR
The number of craft cocktail bars opening in Los Angeles over the past ten years has been dizzying enough that you might get lost in the shuffle and not recognize the dealer, which was the Varnish, a bar that has been loved since it opened its doors in 2009. In an era in which every new bar needs to outdo the next with media relevancy, the Varnish continues operating with subtle nuances that punctuate to desired effect—which keep it classy—and it’s still standing, and it’s still telling stories.
I recommend two important California bars: Specs’ Twelve Adler Museum Café in San Francisco is historic perfection, filled with curiosities and enough visual interest to let you linger over your Anchor Steam. And the Tiki-Ti on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, for the unbroken family chain of cocktail history.
—Martin Cate, co-owner, Smuggler’s Cove (San Francisco)
CALIFORNIA SPIRIT
Located in East Bay, St. George has the respect and attention of just about every industry professional I know and have interviewed for this book. The company produces three different gins, an American whiskey, a green chile vodka with four different kinds of peppers, an absinthe, Nola coffee liqueur, a sensational raspberry liqueur and brandy, a terrific American amaro (Bruto), and a healthy list of other spirits. St. George puts only the best versions of its product into its bottles. The website quotes Thomas Alva Edison, one of my heroes: “I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.” St. George’s response? “If we can get one lightbulb in 10,000, we’ll drink to that.”
BUCKET LIST BAR
Though located on an unassuming city block, Smuggler’s Cove is the truest expression of disappearing into time—chronologically speaking, the 1950s. It is an environment that evokes a bygone era, but it handles the nostalgia so well you can’t help but drink up the sentiment. It literally feels like your problems disappear when you cross the threshold. There are star-tenders in your midst at Rebecca and Martin Cate’s famous tiki temple, and the beautiful part about it is that none of them carries a whiff of attitude, an impressive feat when balancing more than four hundred different rum selections and a cocktail menu of tiki-torch-bearing majesty.
CALIFORNIA COCKTAIL BAR
It’s very easy to remember my first visit to P.C.H.: It was slightly rainy, definitely cold, dark (it was nighttime, so that makes sense), and there was a glowing neon “P.C.H.” and pineapple images spread throughout the narrow space near San Francisco’s Union Square. But the most unforgettable part was the warm welcome from everyone working in the space, and how comfortable they made me feel upon getting settled, and how wellinformed the staff were on the history of cocktails—notably the history of San Francisco’s cocktails and modernday evolution. It’s a testament to creator Kevin Diedrich’s diligence in creating a wonderful bar program.
Kevin Diedrich (P.C.H.) is one of my favorite American bartenders. I have seen him work in a variety of bars over many years, and it never matters the setting or the crowd, he is the epitome of calm, professional, highly skilled, and, most importantly, friendly. And he makes a mighty fine drink to boot.
—Rebecca Cate, co-owner, Smuggler’s Cove (San Francisco)
The cocktail is the most American cocktail. Without America, the whole concept probably wouldn’t exist. People in the south’ll probably say Sazerac, northerners the Martini or Manhattan, and no one would argue with an Old Fashioned, but really the most American cocktail is the cocktail itself.
—Todd Carnum, bar manager, Interval at Long Now (San Francisco)
CALIFORNIA COCKTAIL BAR
Erick Castro, of the famed Bartender at Large documentary series and cofounder of Bartender’s Weekend, a three-day industry networking event, opened the Polite Provisions cocktail playground in 2013, and the city of San Diego had a new and wonderful problem on its hands: Polite Provisions immediately became the place everyone wanted to go. If you’re looking for obscure ingredients finding their way into the same glass and elevating your taste buds into the stratosphere, then look no further. There’s a drink for everyone here! Just looking at the menu will make you smile.
CALIFORNIA BEVERAGE
Hard to believe, but in the early 1940s vodka was a weak-selling spirit until Jack Morgan, the owner of the Cock ’n Bull restaurant in Los Angeles, and friend John Martin, of Heublein, collaborated on a drink to help each other achieve a greater balance in the universe. They took vodka, lime juice, and ginger beer and called it the Moscow Mule, placing the ingredients in copper mugs with an image of two mules yukking it up. There are many bars today that feature Mule variations, using varying spirits and producers of ginger beer, along with some homemade recipes, all of which are easy to build. To this day, I stand behind Fever-Tree ginger beer, which has enough spice and kick to keep this scrawny huckleberry honest all day long. Serve it with one of California’s many terrific artisinal distilleries, such as Young & Yonder, Re:Find, or Mulholland Distilling, a double charcoal-filtered vodka with a minty, peppery finish.
TOMMY’S MARGARITA
This twist on the classic Margarita was immortalized in the early 1990s by Julio Bermejo at Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant, a shrine to tequila. It’s amazing how much the tequila’s characteristics reveal themselves by substituting agave for the usual triple sec, and using an aged tequila—like reposado or añejo—is like taking the engine of a Ferrari and putting it in, well, an electric car, of course!
2 ounces reposado tequila
1 ounce fresh lime juice
1 ounce agave syrup
Garnish: lime wedge
Shake the ingredients with ice until chilled; strain over fresh ice in a chilled rocks glass and garnish with the lime.
POP QUIZ
To know Devon Tarby (of Proprietors, LLC) is to know someone who looks at life with the right kind of love, and though she can rock a wicked mean Southie Boston accent, kid, she emanates joy from every pore, and life is always better when she’s around—especially when she’s creating wonderful drinks like the Pop Quiz. For the Old Fashioned lover in all of us, this provides a malty, caramel mouthfeel, with root beer and chocolaty notes that’ll make you Snoopy dance whether it’s before or after a meal.
2 ounces bourbon
½ ounce Ramazzotti amaro
¹⁄8 ounce (or 1 teaspoon) simple syrup (1:1 sugar to water)
2 dashes Bittermens mole bitters
Garnish: orange peel
Stir the ingredients with ice until chilled; strain over fresh ice in a chilled rocks glass and garnish with the orange.
BROWN DERBY
This cocktail was created in 1930, which was clearly smack dab in the middle of Prohibition, which of course means this cocktail was not created at the Vendome Club in Hollywood, which opened in 1926, because all of that would be illegal, and nothing illegal happens in Hollywood.
2 ounces bourbon
1 ounce fresh grapefruit juice (pulp-free)
½ ounce honey syrup (recipe this page)
Shake ingredients with ice until chilled and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.