5th Annual SF Cocktail Week Arrives--Immediately Followed by Hangover Week

Liza Gershman Photography

What you should be seeing a lot of next week

​Monday, Sept. 19 is the official start of San Francisco Cocktail Week, a weeklong celebration of the Bay Area's cocktail culture, history, and staggering thirst. Running through Sunday, Sept. 25, scheduled events include 17 spirit and cocktail related seminars, 10 cocktail-dinner pairings, and 11 featured main events.

The main events include parties like Shaker & Flash ($65*; 09/21), the exploration of modern culinary applications on cocktails, and the East Bay Showdown ($55; 9/22), which showcases the considerable and often overlooked cocktail talent across the bridge. Beyond parties are events like an exploration of gin at Jasper's with local Distillery No. 209 ($20; 9/20), and a North Beach bar crawl of historic bars and saloons ($45; 9/25).

The main events may get most of the attention, but the seminars are a great deal--$25 per session-- with a lineup that covers the range for all cocktail interest and experience levels. Classes like How To Set Up Your Home Bar (9/20), or Not So Simple: the Art of Crafting Perfect Simple Syrups (9/24) will no doubt improve your home bartending skills. One of the most interesting sounding is the Understanding the Heart of Tequila (9/19) demo that includes an agave plant being broken down by a jimador (agave harvester) from Casa Herradura.

With so much to see and drink, we'll be covering the whole week with daily reports and previews of the day's events starting Monday, to keep you up on the latest.

*Tickets for the event are available for $40 on liquor.com