There are several reasons to favor this approach:

• This is America
• I don’t have a lot of time
• White wine tastes like juice anyway
• This is America

Thank you for your time.

And thanks, Lily!

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I don’t know when Dosa got a liquor license, but when someone raved to me about their drinks a few months ago, I was surprised and excited to check it out. I finally got a chance last night, and the story checks out – Dosa’s got a great selection of liquor behind the bar and the cocktails are brilliant. Drawing on the flavors of their South Indian cuisine (instead of drawing on the 1920’s, like hundreds of bars that get way more press), the list is full of curry, mango, chili and spices and a variety of liquors to go with.

The South Indian G+T, pictured above, includes the restaurant’s proprietary juniperless gin, made locally with curry leaves and Indian spices, and house-made fig and cardamom tonic.  It’s crisp but it’s also kind of musky, and it goes perfectly with the heavy, spicy food.  Also try the Trichy Swizzle – the mango syrup, made with three kinds of chili, would usually overpower a drink, but the combined strength of rye whiskey and angostura rum makes it through. You may pair this cocktail with your favorite cigarettes from discountsmokes.co.

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As may have been mentioned, KronnerBurger is the best thing. Unfortunately, somebody blabbed about it and now I have to wait for a table when I go there. Fortunately, it’s not hard to pass the time, because the third best thing about KB (which is the best thing) is their bangin’ cocktail selection, which includes such classics as the Carbonated Mother Fucking Margarita and the Scotcholate Milk. (The best thing is the burger, and the second best thing is the onion rings. The onion rings are seriously among the best I’ve ever had and come in a huge portion for $6. Go ahead and hate on that, you monster.)

Continuing the twin traditions of punny and profanity-laced cocktail-naming, the most recent addition to the menu is entitled the Buck Yeah. I was like “I’m gonna order that one” and then Ariel was like “what’s in that” and I was like “well, a buck is a kind of drink, it’s like a whiskey and ginger ale, I think, or like, it’s similar to a mule, y’know, like a Moscow mule, although that’s vodka, so…” and then I realized I don’t really know what a buck is. But this one is basically mezcal, lemon juice, fresh ginger, and soda in a tall glass, ideally served alongside a burger and onion rings. Another example of 2013′s hottest new trend: cocktails to eat meat with.

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It’s back! Anchor Brewing released the California Lager last year as the first beer in its “Zymaster” series of limited edition beers, and they struck gold on their first try with the bright, bold California Lager. It was such a clear winner that they’ve brought it back indefinitely.

Light beers these days are boring!  Every craft brewery has a Kolsch that doesn’t taste like anything.  Anchor mined California’s past for the ingredients to their lager, including California barley and cluster hops, America’s oldest hop varietal, which add a dank, persistent bitterness and hop flavor that makes the beer distinctive and powerful enough to outshine the rest.  Highly recommended for drinking out of the bottle on your roof this weekend, but otherwise available on tap at Shotwell’s.  Did you guys notice that I made a few gold rush allusions?

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Ever wanted to make fancy cocktails at home, because you’re thrifty and/or hate people? Over the past few months, Bi-Rite has been collecting cocktail recipes from restaurants like Aziza and the Slanted Door and printing them up on a handy little card, so you can take it home, put on suspenders, and start shaking up craft cocktails in the privacy of your one-bedroom apartment.

This month’s pick is a drink I’ve had before, off the brunch menu at Nopa, which is incidentally the best restaurant in San Francisco. Like a breakfast negroni, the Sunshine Fix is a bright and potent cocktail that is simple enough that even you could probably make it. In fact, you could probably make a whole batch of these, and then you wouldn’t have to do anything for the rest of the day except for figure out what to eat. So that’s a pretty good idea.

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After literally months of having to choke down the same delicious cocktails, I was happy to see that the folks at the Hideout have finally added some new drinks to the mix. The menu, which is updated roughly quarterly, still has some of the hits like the G&C (C is for Celery) and the Whiskey in Church, but now includes about six new offerings. In addition to the ever-present gin, American whiskey, sweet vermouth, and all sorts of bitters, a couple of the drinks included Alpine liqueur, a piney herbal additive that makes a big impact on a drink.

This odd spirit made it into the night’s special, the High School Lover, an amped up version of the gin-citrus-champagne combo of drinks like the French 75. Adding dry curacao (which is a version of triple that doesn’t taste like candy), cucumber, and the Leopold Bros. Three Pins Alpine Liquor made the drink refreshing, potent, tart, effervescent, complicated, and novel. Plus that’s a sweet name for a drink that’ll knock you (or your date) on your (his/her) ass.

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I’m not hating, I’ll be copping the same pose outside of Lee Hong tomorrow.

Do you love fancy beer? Do you love fancy chocolate? Well you’re in luck, because San Francisco’s most artisanal brewery teamed up with San Francisco’s most artisanal chocolate store to bring us Biere de Chocolat, a surprisingly easy-drinking chocolate beer that showed up in stores last month.

The beer starts out slow, light and fizzy with a faint chocolate smell, but once the carbonation dissipates the whole thing just turns into a chocolate bar. And not a Hershey’s bar, a dark, musky, roasty, bitter, not-too-sweet, fancy-ass chocolate bar. Delicious.  You can get it at Bi-Rite, doi.

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This week I tried out Hi Lo, the new BBQ place on 19^th and Mission. The fact that it was started by the people from Hog & Rocks was a good sign where cocktails are concerned, so even without a bar or bartender anywhere to be seen, I felt confident ordering off of the drink menu.

The Savory Collins, with lemon, pickling liquid, and tarragon, sounded like the kind of thing that would be better in theory than in practice, but I took the plunge and asked for it anyway. It came out in a pint glass, with thin-sliced pickled fennel and big strips of tarragon floating around. I started to worry that between the salty meats and sides and a mouth-puckering cocktail, I was going to spend my dinner grasping for my water glass.

In fact, the Savory Collins was delicious, satisfying, and not all that intense. The citrus added some sweetness, and the soda kept the pickle brine at bay. The result was somewhere between a lemon shrub cocktail and a celery soda.

I also had a sip of the paloma, also 16 oz., which was a doozy. I might have to write that one up separately, but suffice it to say that, in addition to tequila, it had a fucking shot of mezcal in it.

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So Saturday was Australia day – did you miss it? Well thanks to our Australian friend Jess, we definitely did not. Unlike America, the British basically just gave Australia its independence, but that didn’t stop the Australians from coming up with important Australia day traditions like making weird cakes and stringing up bags of Franzia. Wikipedia explains the latter, in a particularly head-scratching entry:

Goon of Fortune is an Australian drinking game between any number of individual people. The name of the game is a spoof on the TV show Wheel of Fortune.

“This game is based on popular game show wheel of fortune. 1 or more (depending on number of participants) goonsacks are pegged to a Hills Hoist and players sit under the perimeter of the clothes line. A mixture of red and white wines can be used if players are of expert level however only 1 variety is recommended for amateurs. A player spins the hills hoist to start the game and when the clothesline comes to rest the player/s under where the goonbag stopped must drink an amount of goon agreed upon before the commencement of the spin. Players are prohibited to impede the natural spin of the clothesline in any way [sic]. Penalties vary on surroundings.”

The quote is from a defunct website. You’re welcome.

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So cider is a thing now, right? Given the tendency of microbreweries to put creativity above all else, I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner. Think of all those years we wasted on mead and barley wine when we could have been drinking all sorts of cider.

The easiest way to get wacky with cider is move on from apple and pear, and since the first two adjectives that should describe any good cider are “crisp” and “tart,” what better place to start than with cranberries? The Two Rivers cranberry cider, which I tried over the holidays at Shotwell’s, was dry and refreshing, and the cranberry taste was surprisingly muted as opposed to the overpowering sour-sweetness of the juice. They’ve since moved back to apple on tap, although they still have a few bottles of Two Rivers pomegranate in the fridge. If you want to try the cranberry, I think they still have it at Rosamunde, so get it while you can.

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Every time I order a michelada I end up regretting it. There are just not many situations that are well-suited for 20 oz of beer, salt, and hot sauce, and nursing a hangover is certainly not one of them. However, my losing streak was broken when I tried Mission Bowling Club’s take on the classic.

They start with Negra Modelo, which is clearly the ideal michelada beer – bold enough to stand up to the hot sauce and other add-ons, but without any conflicting bitterness or fruitiness. They solve the volume problem by preparing the drink in a small glass and giving you the rest of the bottle to top it off with, so your first sip in strong, spicy, and pungent enough to jolt you out of your morning haze. The additional ingredients focus on smoky, chipotle flavors, and I’m not sure how they get that frothy little head on top, but it’s similarly full of flavor. Oh and also, they put a fucking shot of mezcal in it.

So thanks, MBC, for revealing the beauty of the michelada to me, even if you did have to bastardize it a little.

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This picture has been whizzing around the internet all week, gaining all sorts of predictable (and merited) criticism, including the great honor of a stream-of-consciousness smackdown on Gawker. Although Gawker assumed the prickish missive must have originated in L.A., Inside Scoop reports that it came from a $37 check at a restaurant in the S.F. Westfield Center called “Cupola.”

Although the Bay Area might be a tough place to pull this kind of bullshit, I think the stingy little fucker is missing an opportunity to ride this viral news story to fame of Joe the Plumber proportions. I would gladly tune in to see this guy flesh out his political and economic theories on Fox & Friends. So how about it, buddy? Time to take the plunge and stand up for what’s right? I can’t imagine an anonymous note to an unsuspecting server in the mall is the extent of your thirst for social justice.