San Francisco Food Blog

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It burns on the inside.

​Dateline: Lake Tahoe
One of the great things about Lake Tahoe, aside from the perfumed forests and rampant wildlife and crystal-crisp oxygen and the jewel-toned lake itself, is the great preponderance of creatively conceived hot cocktails. The region's alpine climate and winter-playground ambience have created a milieu ideal for après-ski fireside quaffing of soul-stirring, body-warming beverages more or less unknown in more or less snowless San Francisco.

Nepheles (1169 Ski Run Blvd. at Tamarack, South Lake Tahoe) is a warm and cozy option for sprawling and sipping against the High Sierra chill. Nestle into the cushiony lounge area and wrap your lips around a Siberian Snuggler (hot chocolate spiked with Absolut vanilla and peppermint schnapps), a Skier's Broken Leg (hot cider, Maker's Mark, and a cinnamon stick), the Chip Shot (coffee, Tuaca, and Bailey's), the Chocolate-Covered Cherry Café (coffee with vodka, Chambord, and amaretto), or our favorite, the Hot Apple Pie, a simply satisfying concoction of hot cider and Tuaca with a Matterhorn-like crown of whipped cream. Forest-green sweater with little blue grizzly bears de rigueur.

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The Leap Year might just make you put a ring on it.

​A few weeks ago we made mention of The Savoy Cocktail Book, Harry Craddock's seminal bar guide published in 1930. Craddock, a willing refugee from Prohibition-era America, presided over the lobby bar at London's Savoy Hotel, a place synonymous with wit and elegance, and his cocktail book is ribboned and gilded with the man's insouciant spirit. "Shake the shaker as hard as you can," he writes. "Don't just rock it: you're trying to wake it up, not send it to sleep!"

The brandy blazer cocktail, he notes, "can be drunk whilst still alight if so desired," while another drink, the Loud Speaker, "gives radio announcers their peculiar enunciation. Three of them will produce oscillation, and after five it is possible to reach the osculation stage." As for the Quelle Vie cocktail, "The brandy gives you courage and the kümmel makes you cautious, thus giving you a perfect mixture of bravery and caution, with the bravery predominating." Summing up, he proclaims that the best way to drink a cocktail is "quickly, while it's laughing at you!"

Craddock also invented several of his own libations, including the Leap Year cocktail, "responsible for more proposals than any other cocktail that has ever been mixed." Shake together four parts gin, one part Grand Marnier, one part sweet vermouth, a dash of lemon juice, and plenty of ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass, add a twist of lemon peel, and consume. Repeat. Have an engagement ring handy, even if you're a man and it isn't 2012 yet.

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Kitty likes celery.

​Halloween, and with it the question of what to imbibe on this most ghoulish of holidays. For years humankind has attempted to concoct a passable drink out of a bright orange liqueur called Pumpkin Smash, but the stuff is so overwhelmingly sweet it demands a good gallon of lime juice to cut it, and then what?

Better to soak sugar pumpkins, cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, and nutmeg in a pitcher of rum, then either serve it as a hot toddy with a dollop of whipped cream or shaken with ice in a cinnamon-rimmed martini glass. The bar at Street (2141 Polk at Vallejo) saves you the trouble by infusing the pumpkins themselves, and will be happy to slake your autumnal needs. Street chef John Lamkin roasts pumpkins, then cooks the flesh and seeds slowly, with rum, sous vide-style. Strained, the resulting concoction ends up in hot buttered rum, pumpkin martinis -- whatever Street's bartenders devise. Lamkin told us he usually pickles pumpkin as a cocktail garnish, though he happens to be out at the moment.

For at-home entertaining, a punch bowl of Bloody Marys -- one part vodka, one part tomato juice, with celery salt, pepper, Tabasco, lemon juice, horseradish, and Worcestershire, added as desired -- is another depraved and delectable boozing option. (Make sure to freeze little plastic spiders in the ice cubes.)

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Champagne cocktail at Sutro's at the Cliff House.

​The 1939 version of Love Affair (a TCM mainstay) is one of the more sophisticated romantic dramedies from Hollywood's Golden Age, so it's only fitting that Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne should meet and spark over the subject of champagne cocktails.

This indisputably elegant concoction is as simple as it is stylish, offering sweetness and sparkle in a tall, translucent package, and dates back to whoever first thought of sweetening their bubbly with fresh fruit and sugar. Drop a sugar cube into a chilled champagne flute and douse it with two or three dashes of Angostura bitters. Fill the glass with chilled champagne, garnish with a spiral of lemon ... et voila. As the bittered sugar dissolves it adds a whole new dimension to the wine, and if you want to get fancy and warm up the drink, a float of cognac isn't out of the question.

Other variations involve orange slices or maraschino cherries instead of the lemon, or Chambord or Campari in place of the cognac, but as with all truly elegant creations, simplest is best. The champagne should be bone-dry and high-end enough to suit the occasion (although that Louis Roederer 2002 Cristal is probably best enjoyed au naturel). Boyer and Dunne specified pink champagne, but they were in love.

Of course, these days, the classic champagne cocktail can seem as old fashioned as a Hollywood melodrama. According to Fifth Floor sommelier Emily Wines, more and more at high-end bars, champagne is showing up as a float on or an ingredient in spirits-based cocktails. Take the Stockholm: A lemon drop, essentially, with Chambord on the bottom and a layer of champagne on top. But don't worry about losing the romance of the champagne cocktail in the liquorous depths of the Stockholm. "It's a really girly drink," Wines said.

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The tux is totally optional -- just make sure it's flame retardant.

​With the shadows lengthening and the leaves turning and the temperature due to drop, it's just about time to head to New Orleans for a dose of warm tropical atmo and some spicy, belly-expanding sustenance. We recommend an indulgent evening at Galatoire's: a glass of amontillado, a bowl of turtle soup, speckled trout amandine and artichokes Creole with a bottle of Pinot Gris followed (why not?) by a thick slab of chocolate pecan pie. And as a grand finale, the legendary café brûlot.

This spectacular meal-closer was ostensibly invented by Jules Alciatore of Antoine's restaurant back in the 1890s, but we prefer to believe it was first concocted half a century earlier by one Dominique Youx, who was not only privateer Jean Lafitte's top lieutenant, he was the philosopher who first came up with the adage "Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker" (albeit in French). Whatever its culinary heritage, the drink has concluded many a swellegant New Orleans supper for well over a century. And if you can't raise the funds for a trip to Galatoire's or Antoine's, you can wow your friends by preparing it at your next dinner party.

Traditionalists might want to invest in a special copper brûlot bowl, but a chafing dish works just fine. Remove the peel from two oranges and two lemons in long unbroken spirals. Stud each peel with three whole cloves. Muddle together six lumps of sugar and a cinnamon stick in a chafing dish over low heat. Add the studded citrus peel, a cup of brandy, and 2 ounces curaçao. Step back and ignite the brandy, stirring everything together with a long-handled ladle and (this is the showbiz part) lifting the peel so the liquid fire drips down the spirals. Slowly add a quart of good strong Creole coffee and continue stirring until the flames die. Serve this thick, sweet, spicy brew in demitasse cups with plenty of Sid Catlett, Irma Thomas, Terence Blanchard, and Champion Jack Dupree.

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The version at Pisco Latin Lounge: From the Monkey Block to your lips.

​The mind can touch on all sorts of topics when allowed to wander unimpeded. So it was that as we reflected on Chinatown's annual Double 10 celebration commemorating the overthrow of the Xing Dynasty on October 10, 1911, we thought about how the revolt was masterminded by Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, author of the Chinese Constitution. And how the doctor wrote the constitution while in exile at the Montgomery Block, a warren of studios, galleries, courtyards, and saloons at Washington and Montgomery -- the so-called Monkey Block -- once favored by artists, writers, and bohemians, among them Mark Twain, Jack London, Ambrose Bierce, and Robert Louis Stevenson. And how the Monkey Block's most enduring claim to fame (Chinese Constitution notwithstanding) is Pisco Punch, a sneakily subversive cocktail invented on the premises.

Pisco, an especially potent Peruvian grape brandy, first arrived in the port of Yerba Buena in 1839 via an English clipper ship out of South America. By the time of the Gold Rush and the city's reincarnation as San Francisco, pisco was one of the locals' favorite potables and the primary ingredient in many a popular cocktail. The greatest of them all was first crafted in the Monkey Block's Bank Exchange Saloon by owner-barkeep Duncan Nicol. His Pisco Punch employed lime and pineapple juice, sugar, distilled water, and the titular hooch, and by all accounts was sweet, refreshing, and downright dangerous.

The bar's regular habitués made the drink internationally famous -- Stevenson wrote that it was "compounded of the shavings of cherubs' wings, the glory of a tropical dawn, the red clouds of sunset and the fragments of lost epics by dead masters" -- but Prohibition and Nicol's untimely death ended the punch's glory days.

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Yeah, that's right -- milk.

​Apartment-dwelling San Franciscans with a hankering for home-bottled moonshine might be discouraged by the city's dearth of mountain men and their tucked-away open-air stills, but illicit hooch doesn't have to be cooked up in some backwoods hollow to be both potent and delicious.

Take pieninis krupnikas, a Lithuanian milk liqueur that's not only an excellent and fortifying after-dinner tipple, it's ridiculously easy to concoct in the home kitchenette. Mix together equal parts vodka, milk, and sugar in a glass or ceramic vessel, add unpeeled chopped-up oranges and lemons and a spoonful of vanilla, and stir until the sugar's dissolved. Cover with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature for three weeks, stirring daily. Strain and discard the fruit. Place a funnel lined with filter paper into the neck of a bottle and ladle in the liqueur, letting it strain into the bottle undisturbed. (This will take awhile.) Cork. The result is a creamy, fruity crowd pleaser along the lines of Bailey's or Kahlúa ... not exactly white lightning but an excellent gifting notion all the same.

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A Blue Blazer being concocted at Keens Steakhouse in Manhattan: Consider practicing with water first.

​Next year marks the 150th anniversary of Professor Jerry Thomas's arrival in San Francisco, and anyone familiar with the professor's contributions to the general well-being knows that when it comes to celebrations, there's no such thing as starting too early. Thomas (acclaimed as "the greatest bartender of the past" in Harry Craddock's definitive Savoy Cocktail Book) crafted libations at the Occidental and El Dorado saloons, inventing the martini, the Tom and Jerry, and other delectable cocktails in the process. He also wrote the trailblazing Bon-Vivant's Companion, a bar guide of singular prose. (Baltimore eggnog, he writes, is "a nourishing diet for consumptives," and while a cobbler is simple to concoct, "it is necessary to display some taste in ornamenting the glass after the beverage is made," words every barkeep should live by.)

The Blue Blazer is Thomas's most crowd-pleasing concoction. He invented it for a 49er who wandered into the Dorado one afternoon in search of a drink that would make up for all the months he'd spent in the foothills. After an hour's meditation, the professor poured equal parts whisky and boiling water into one of two silver mugs, lit it with a match, and poured the flaming blue liquor back and forth half a dozen times from one mug to the other. The miner loved it (he awoke from a drunken stupor three days later) and so will you and your guests. "A beholder gazing for the first time upon an experienced artist compounding this beverage," wrote Craddock, "would naturally come to the conclusion that it was a nectar for Pluto rather than Bacchus." The professor himself warns the novice "to practise for some time with cold water" before tossing around the real thing. Adding a pulverized sugar cube and a bit of lemon peel after the fact couldn't hurt either.

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A bourbon old fashioned at The Alembic.

​On a recent episode of Mad Men, a series that's done as much for smoking and drinking as William Powell, Humphrey Bogart, and Bette Davis put together, beleaguered yet chronically suave ad exec Don Draper finds himself at a soul-pulverizing company get-together at a Long Island estate, retreats to the bar when no one's looking, and mixes up a pair of perfect old fashioneds for himself and another party getaway. Draper's bartending skills are enviable: the cooling of the glasses, the muddling of the fruit, the casual yet impeccable measuring and pouring of the ingredients, the final stir, pour, and sip.

The old fashioned deserves such skill and attention, if only because of its heritage (the basic recipe dates back to the early 19th century) and the way its cool, sweet, potent flavors can soothe the most savaged superego. Place a sugar cube, a splash of water, and a slice of orange or a maraschino cherry in the bottom of (yes) an old fashioned glass. Muddle until the sugar's dissolved and the fruit has rendered its juices. Add an ice cube or two. Put more ice cubes in a mixing glass, add enough bourbon for your purposes plus two dashes of bitters, and stir briskly until everything's nice and cold. Pour into the prepared glasses and imbibe.

Not into DIY? Daniel Hyatt at The Alembic (1725 Haight at Shrader) and Neyah White at Nopa (560 Divisadero at Hayes) are bringing new brilliance to an old classic. Rye or even brandy can be substituted for the bourbon, but don't fool around with the basic alchemy otherwise. Eight generations of the thirsty and bedeviled can't be wrong.

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Honestly, if you don't respect yourself, who will?

​The late great American cultural historian Bernard DeVoto once wrote an entire book dedicated to the proposition that the only cocktails a self-respecting adult should consider imbibing are the dry martini and a slug of whiskey, ice optional. (One shudders to think what DeVoto's reaction would've been to the chocolate cocktail with crushed-Oreo rim.)

Happily, we tend to fall into the self-respecting adult category, given our absolute admiration for a well-crafted martini, and now that we've gotten our hands on a birthday bottle of 90-proof, 30-percent rye Bulleit bourbon, our journey into maturity is complete. Adulterating this rich, deep, lip-smacking, soul-stirring sippin' whiskey with orange rinds, maraschino cherries, or anything more distracting than an ice cube or two would constitute high larceny. Best enjoyed in a wicker armchair at dusk during these last lovely days of summer.

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Daiguiris at the Floridita bar in Havana, a Hemingway -- er, Hemmingway -- favorite.

​Lately we've seen the Hemmingway Daiquiri misspelled exactly that way, with two "m"s, at three different bars in three different cities. Why? Did someone screw up the author's moniker at some point and create a sort of illiterate chain reaction? Is the drink named after another Hemingway who also lived in Cuba and liked to booze it up?

We asked Peter Snyderman, who not only owns and operates Trademark (56 Belden Place at Bush -- one of the aforementioned double-m watering holes), he spent a year studying the Nobel laureate's extensive oeuvre at San Francisco State. He had no idea. We also consulted the Internet, which was, as usual, no help whatsoever. But our tattered copy of Charles Schumann's Tropical Bar Book was good enough to reprint the Hemingway short story "Daiquiris" along with recipes for this classic cocktail in 13 variations.

The original (2 ounces white rum, 2 teaspoons sugar, and the juice of half a lime, shaken with ice and served up) dates back to the 1890s and is still good, if a bit on the sweet side. Papa himself added maraschino liqueur and skipped the sugar -- the result is a wonderfully crisp and elegant cocktail. Try the exemplar at Trademark, and if Snyderman's manning the bar you can deconstruct "Big Two-Hearted River" while you sip.

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Hendricks gin gives a Delilah a hint of botanical snark.

​While we love our martinis (especially when they're concocted of Hendricks gin and half a capful of vermouth over a pound or so of cracked ice, anchovy-stuffed olives on the side), they skirt the limits of predictability when sipped at the same neighborhood saloon every afternoon at precisely six o'clock p.m. So we went riffling through our library of vintage cocktail manuals (doesn't everyone have one?) and came upon the Delilah, a drink close enough in spirit to the martini to give us a sense of familial equilibrium yet distinct enough from its brother libation to give the taste buds something to think about.

To conccot a Delilah, simply pour one part freshly squeezed lemon juice, one part orange liqueur (Cointreau, Curaçao, or Triple Sec) and two parts gin into a pitcher packed with ice, stir until nice and frosty, and strain into chilled martini glasses. Garnish with spirals of lemon peel. The result is brisk yet soothing, sweet, strong, and snarky all at once, the orange and lemon making beautiful music with the herbs, roots, and botanicals of the gin. (We tried making a Delilah with vodka and were exceptionally unimpressed.) Mix up a batch the next time friends drop by before dinner or a show ... this is a most convivial libation.

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Reposado tequilas on the bar at Tommy's.

Remember when the family would head out to that Mexican joint on the highway with the racetrack-shaped cocktail lounge and the three-foot bartender and the Miwok skeletons under the floorboards? And your father would give you a taste of his margarita and you said, What is that, salt? and he said, Yeah it goes great with the lime juice and the booze and you knew he was right because he'd bummed around Mexico during the Depression. And man did it taste good. Then, later on, when margaritas were sweet, fruity snow cones in every color of the rainbow, hell, they tasted good too, especially on Happy Hour Mondays with the free spread of taquitos and guacamole and Pucho and His Latin Soul Brothers on the jukebox.

Nowadays you can enjoy margaritas any way you please, frozen, up, on the rocks, tarted up with strawberries and agave nectar, you name it. The classic local dispensary is Tommy's (5929 Geary at 23rd, 387-4747), purveyor of a zillion or so top-shelf tequilas, but if you want to mix up a pitcher yourself for a festive family gathering, get ahold of Tommy's excellent margarita mix (available in the refrigerator case at PlumpJack, the Jug Shop, Bi-Rite, Andronico's, and other classy grocery stores), mix it up with your favorite tequila, and serve on the rocks. For easy, tasty frozen margaritas, pour a can of frozen limeade in a blender half-filled with ice, fill the empty can two-thirds of tequila and one-third of Triple Sec, add to the blender, and mix it up to your desired consistency. Or for a more classic margarita experience, combine one part lime juice, one part Triple Sec, and three parts tequila in an ice-filled cocktail shaker, mix well, and strain into a chilled, salt-rimmed cocktail glass with a slice of lime. Still tastes terrific.

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Light yet potent.

​Before summertime comes to an end and the fruits of the season shrivel into luscious memory, satisfy your stone fruit desires one last time with a light yet potent champagne punch.

Raid your local farmers' market for the juiciest plums, apricots, nectarines, cherries, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, and peaches. Pit, hull, and slice them into manageable chunks of edibleness and place them in a big punch bowl, throw in a few orange and grapefruit sections, a sliced lime or lemon, a long spiraled cucumber peel -- whatever strikes your fancy -- and add 4 ounces of brandy, 4 ounces of orange liqueur (Cointreau, curaçao or Grand Marnier), and 4 ounces of Benedictine for a hint of herbal sweetness. Chill the bowl in the refrigerator for half an hour, then add a block of ice (make your own by sticking a bowl of water in the freezer the night before) and pour in a bottle of chilled champagne and 6 ounces of soda water.

You can substitute a bottle of Sauternes or a nice, slightly sweet German white for the bubbly. Whatever you use, the refreshing result will tide you over until Glühwein season.

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Feel the swingin' swagger.

​Saturday was not only a typically crisp San Francisco midsummer's eve, it was birthday night, that special time of year when we wander the streets and alleys of North Beach in search of fun, frolic, and alcoholic stimulation. This year's celebration took advantage of modern technology for the first time: Tweeting was employed to guide followers from bar to bar, a breakthrough of, as it turned out, no significance whatsoever. Here's a pub-by-pub breakdown of the evening.

6 p.m. Arrived at Tony Nik's (1534 Stockton at Columbus) and sipped a perfectly gelid jumbo martini. The gin: Hendrick's, an irresistible confluence of cucumbers, rose petals, and god knows what.

7:15 p.m. Anchor Steam and a game of stick under the swingin' swagger of Frank Sinatra's portrait at Gino and Carlo (548 Green at Columbus). Carbed up with gooey slabs of takeaway pepperoni pizza from Golden Boy next door.

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The possibilities are just about endless.

The boilermaker is blessed with a nefarious reputation that separates it from other less robust cocktails like the Cosmopolitan or the Pink Lady. When you order a boilermaker, you mean business, with serious drinking the business at hand.

The recipe is simplicity itself: a shot of booze and a glass of beer. This time-tested combination, repeated over the course of an evening, induces a pleasant sort of languor in which the high-octane hooch is cushioned (but not diluted) by the more easygoing brew. Some favor mixing the hard stuff with the suds, but the classical approach is to toss back the shot, then sip at the beer awhile. In this way the imbiber can regulate her alcoholic intake in a studied, languid manner.

The question, of course, is what booze with what beer? The possibilities are practically infinite, but taking the regional approach works well. You can't, for instance, go wrong with a shot of Bushmill's and a beaker of Harp. Or try chasing a nice Commemorativo añejo with a glass of Bohemia. A hooker of Blanton's single barrel makes a fine foundation for a tall, cool Abita, and what's Red Stripe without its kicker of Mount Gay?

Another nice thing about the boilermaker is that it's impossible to screw up: Any bar with a full liquor license has everything you need for an evening of simple inebriation.

Tags: cocktails

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Perfect for waking up the tastebuds.

 Campari is one of those initially over-bracing beverages that requires a period of tentative familiarity before you can fully appreciate its unique attributes. Once you get past its dry, bitter flavor, ruby-red hue, and 48-proof wallop, the aperitif's invigorating personality (derived from 68 bitter and aromatic herbs, spices, and a tree bark or two) will become a welcome addition to your palate's palette. Especially when Campari's essential vigor is cushioned in a refreshing cocktail like the Americano, the perfect tastebud-awakening libation before a hearty meal.

Just stir equal parts Campari and sweet vermouth together with a few ice cubes, add a splash of soda, and garnish with an orange slice. (The Italian vermouth Punt e Mes has a unique bittersweet quality that's an ideal match for Campari.) A popular variation is the Negroni, an Americano spiked with gin, but Campari has enough plant-life essence of its own without the gin's infusion of roots and herbs. Replacing the soda water with prosecco, however, makes for a mighty tasty cocktail.

The best place to enjoy an Americano is that little standup bar up the street and around the corner from the Venice train station, but fine local alternatives can be found in North Beach (natch), at Gino & Carlo (548 Green at Grant) or Tony Nik's (1534 Stockton at Union), or at Bix (56 Gold Alley at Montgomery). And a tasty method for acclimating yourself to the complex charms of Campari is at the Ciao Bella gelato stand in the Ferry Building, where the grapefruit-Campari sorbetto has enough delectable oomph to seduce all doubters.

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Cool, refreshing, and bold.

Midway through Raymond Chandler's magnum opus The Long Goodbye, erudite narrator-gumshoe Philip Marlowe samples his very first gimlet. "With the lime juice it had a sort of pale greenish yellowish misty look," he says of this restorative elixir, "[and] was both sweet and sharp at the same time."

Cool and refreshing yet bold and eminently satisfying, the gimlet is one summertime drink that's ridiculously easy to prepare. Once you decide how strong you want it, that is. "A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose's Lime Juice and nothing else," said Marlowe's quicksilver drinking buddy Terry Lennox, but the result is a bit too sweet for today's dry-martini palates. Other recipes favor fresh lime juice and simple syrup instead of the bottled stuff, but the wonderfully silky quality of Rose's is one of the cocktail's intrinsic pleasures. Opt for three or four parts gin (depending on your taste) to one part Rose's, shaken a good long time with plenty of ice, strained into a chilled martini glass and garnished with a wedge of lime.

Some of the city's finest saloons have tarted up this pure and simple concoction with grapefruit rinds, fresh basil, and elderflower f'chrissake, but the only variation we soundly approve of is the tequila gimlet, a dreamy marriage of longtime sweethearts agave and lime. (Don't get us started on the pallid, juniper-free vodka gimlet.) Make your first toast to Sir Thomas Gimlette, the 19th century British Navy surgeon who made his sailors' daily anti-scurvy ration of lime juice more palatable by spiking it with gin. Yum.

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A specimen from Frog Hollow, ripe for the blending.

Peach season is upon us, that marvelous time of pies and shortcake and crisps and cobblers. One of the best ways to honor Gaia's most glorious creation (aside from biting into a fresh freestone au naturel and letting the juice drip down your chin) is by blending up a batch of succulent peach daiquiris.

Find two medium-sized peaches that give a little when you press them. Peel, cut into chunks, discard the pits and place in a blender with 6 ounces light rum, 2 ounces Cointreau, Curaçao or Triple Sec, 4 ounces freshly squeezed lime juice, 4 teaspoons superfine sugar, and lots of cracked or crushed ice. Blend until the peaches are puréed and the drink is nice and frothy.

One batch serves four people two drinks apiece. Peach daiquiris are excellent with fried prawns, the collected works of Harry Belafonte, and a gentle breeze on a warm summer's day.

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Beer goes with the Fourth of July like hot buttered rum at Christmas or a sazerac on Bourbon Street. All those thick burgers, molten enchiladas, smoky platters of barbecue, and big slabs of pepperoni pizza cry out for a tall, cool beaker of suds in all its thirst-quenching glory.

The Bay Area is packed with brewpubs where you can toast Dr. Seuss, Jackson Pollock, Miles Davis, César Chavez, Jonas Salk, Ava Gardner, and other all-American worthies with a stein of beer and a bowl of gumbo as the shortstop turns the double play on the plasma widescreen. The Marin Brewing Co., Dempsey's of Petaluma, and ThirstyBear and the Beach Chalet here in S.F. are among our favorites.

Or if you want to fire up the grill in the comfort of your own backyard, Presley and Puente at the ready, be sure to stock the cooler with a potent array of local brews: Anderson Valley's downright nourishing Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout, for instance, or the Humboldt Brewing Company's creamy, spicy Red Nectar Ale, or Anchor's crisp, refreshing seasonal wheat beer, the perfect potable on a warm summer's day. And don't forget the blackberry pie.

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Score a prime example at Ramblas on Valencia.

Sangria is as delectable and as open to experiment and interpretation as paella, its great culinary cohort of the Spanish table. This fruity, sparkling concoction is the perfect light-spirited libation for the summer months and is malleable enough to be prepared in several variations.

The basic idea is to throw slices of fruit into a big pitcher with some sugar, a splash of brandy, and a bottle of wine, chill it for an hour or so, add a little seltzer for effervescence and pour into ice-filled glasses. Orange, lemon, and apple slices are the classic fruit options, but it's fun to mix it up with plums, cherries, and berries when you're using a red-wine base or kiwi, pears, peaches, and apricots when you're in a lighter, whiter mood.

You can also alter the flavor through your choice of liqueur. Supplement or replace the brandy with an orange-flavored kicker like Curaçao or Grand Marnier, or bring out the flavor of your chosen vegetation with applejack, kirsch, or peach or apricot brandy. Adjust the amounts of sugar and brandy to make your sangria sweet or dry, soft or potent, and muddle some of the fruit if you want a more summery flavor. A branch of mint is a nice touch. Or if you don't want the fun of stirring up your own, Zarzuela (2000 Hyde at Union) and Ramblas (557 Valencia at 17th St.) offer admirable examples.

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Mai tais at the Tonga Room: Evanescent as summer itself?

Summer arrives this weekend, and with it a crying need for all those tropical cocktails that deceive San Franciscans into believing that balmy evenings are on the horizon. The mai tai, a signature example of the genre, has a special connection to the Bay Area. It was actually invented at the original Trader Vic's in Oakland by the Trader himself, an early aficionado of Polynesian kitsch and cuisine who knew his way around a floating gardenia.

One legendary night in 1944 he whipped up a nightcap of rum, lime juice, curaçao, orgeat, shaved ice, and fresh mint and proffered it to a customer of Tahitian descent. The response was a happy cry of "mai tai-roa ae!" or, roughly translated "that's outta this world."

Nowadays every tiki bar worth its guava nectar serves a mai tai, many of them tarted up with maraschino cherries, but Le Colonial, located in the fronded recesses of an old Vic's outpost (20 Cosmo Alley at Post), shakes up a beautifully balanced, non-cloying rendition. If you ask for a mai tai at Hawaii West (729 Vallejo at Stockton) you'll either receive one of the city's finest or a blank stare, depending on the barkeep. Finally, although the Tonga Room (in the Fairmont Hotel, 950 Mason at California) makes its mai tai with triple sec instead of curaçao and fruit juice to boot, they do serve it in a coconut cup. Drink up: Due to close or relocate, the Tonga Room may soon find its thunder and lightning are outta this world forever. Literally.

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Sweet, potent, and limey

The solstice approaches, and at Bay Area beaches and swimming holes that don't happen to be in foggy San Francisco, the locals are slathering on the SPF 40, firing up the barbecue, and dreaming of Rio.

Rio, that summertime symbol of seductive oceanfront, languid music, tropical delicacies ... and caipirinhas. If you don't have the dough or the stamina to fly halfway around the world for the real thing, you'll just have to settle for a locally crafted facsimile. Although this sweet, potent, lime-scented concoction seems simple enough to prepare, there are only a few joints hereabouts that mix up a caipirinha evocative of a lazy afternoon in Ipanema. (Lots of places don't muddle the limes violently enough, or don't add enough sugar and ice, or add too much hooch, a grave error.) A fine place to sip this samba-riffic cocktail is Pesce (2227 Polk at Green), which is as famous for its carefully crafted libations as its menu of Italian seafood. A couple of chopped up limes are mashed together with just the right amount of sugar and ice plus a slug of top-shelf Agua Luca cachaça, a sugarcane spirit that is to rum as tequila is to tap water. The crowning touch is a dollop of Veev açai liqueur, which adds a subtle yet bracing hint of lush rain forest berry-osity and is rich in antioxidants to boot (if you're into that sort of thing). After downing one or two of these Brazilian bombshells you'll be flying down to Rio without leaving Polk Street.

dseang via Flickr

Barrel-aged Balvenie: Steel yourself to do the unspeakable

The Broken Record saloon (1166 Geneva at Edinburgh) not only serves exceptional pub grub, their whisky selection is breathtaking: well over a hundred different ryes, bourbons, and scotches, most of it from the top of the shelf and served by a squad of barkeeps who know their stuff (read our review here). Following the local trend, the majority are single malt scotches, and while we admire and respect the smoky intensity of all that carefully crafted peat juice, bourbon's our choice when it comes to a tumbler of unadulterated hooch. And when we run out of Booker's and the only thing left in the larder is a bottle of barrel-aged Balvenie, we prefer to do the unspeakable and doctor it up into a Rob Roy.

Shake up one part sweet vermouth (preferably Carpano) to three parts scotch with a dash of Angostura bitters and plenty of ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass and imbibe. The vermouth tempers the smokiness of the scotch without submerging it altogether, and the bitters add a pleasant hint of invigorating snark. Despite the gentling sweetness of the Carpano, the Rob Roy is a strong, robust cocktail worthy of its swashbuckling namesake, so don't screw it up with a maraschino cherry.

sneedy via Flickr

Victoria Pastry: Perfect for a brioche pit stop

One of the best ways to appreciate San Francisco is to cross it on foot, coast to coast, an ideal weekend activity. Of course an undertaking like this demands plenty of tasty vitamins and minerals, which are available in abundance no matter what trail you happen to take.

Last week we took the northern route from the Embarcadero to the Cliff House via Pacific Heights and the Richmond, and decided to kick things off with wonderfully chewy, savory asiago rolls from the Acme bakery in the Ferry Building.

By the time we got to North Beach it was time for a light-as-air brioche from Victoria Pastry (you can't have too many carbs on an outing like this), and after crossing Russian Hill at its most vertiginous we really needed a cup of joe from Peet's at Larkin and Vallejo.

kirsten.c via Flickr

The Beach Chalet's version: Frothy morning goodness

The Ramos fizz has been the cognoscenti's brunching tipple of choice ever since that fateful day in 1888 when Henry Ramos invented the thing in New Orleans. This sweet, creamy nectar of the gods is not only the perfect infarctionary accent to eggs Benedict, French toast, and other Sunday morning indulgences, its stomach-lining cream, protein-rich egg white, and subliminal hair of the dog will banish any hangover. (Boozer extraordinaire Frank Sinatra was particularly devoted to its curative powers.)

It's a fairly complex drink to assemble but is well worth the effort. Rim four wine glasses with lime juice and powdered sugar and place in the freezer. Throw a dozen ice cubes in a blender. Add 6 oz. gin, 1/2 cup heavy cream, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 1/4 cup lime juice, 4 egg whites (coddled for 45 seconds if you're squeamish), 1/4 cup superfine sugar, a splash of seltzer, and up to a dozen drops of orange flower water. Blend until it's smooth as silk. Taste. (You'll probably have to add more sugar, but that's up to you.) Pour into the chilled wine glasses, dust with a little nutmeg, and either serve to three worthy friends or drink them all yourself.

More reliable than Google Maps: Directions to Fish

Fish 350 Harbor near Gate Five Rd., Sausalito, 331-3474.
It's May, that happy season of blooming honeysuckle and brilliant sunshine, the perfect time to hop a ferryboat to Sausalito and enjoy the year's most intoxicating weather. Just make sure to keep yourself properly fueled during your day in the country. The North Bay's best seafood venue has to be Fish, where the chowder is fragrant with Madeira, linguica, and freshly shucked clams, the fish and chips are all about crispness, lightness, and the rich, meaty flavor of Alaskan halibut, and the Saigon salmon sandwich is ribboned with cilantro, jalapeño, and gingery scallons.

Fish's dedication to organic and sustainable seafood of exceptional quality is reflected in its top-flight ceviche, poke, fish tacos, and oysters both barbecued and on the half shell, not to mention the crab roll, the tuna melt, the fried oyster po' boy, the linguini with clams... Maybe the best way to approach Fish is to check the blackboard to see what the restaurant's trawler pulled in that morning. Order whatever strikes your fancy, grilled on an oak plank and served on an Acme torpedo roll with a little bit of tangy housemade tartar sauce and a pile of gloriously crunchy shoestring potatoes on the side.

You can sit out on the deck overlooking the bay, there's Guinness and Anchor Steam on tap, and if you feel like doing your own grilling, the attached market sells the freshest fish you'll find anywhere. Cash only. Caveat: Despite its rustic counter-service picnic-table setting, Fish's prices tend towards the exorbitant.