San Francisco's Classic Cocktails

This cultural cocktail class will guide you through the essential formulas, tools, and techniques for creating and appreciating exceptional cocktails. You'll learn about home bartending and savoring drinks around town by exploring recipes that originated or gained fame in San Francisco. These recipes are featured on our Cover Songs menu, where we honor some of the drinks (and the individuals who invented or popularized them) recognized globally as San Francisco cocktails.

It is an excellent class for beginners and experts alike, featuring engaging and informative stories about how San Francisco has played a significant role in the global evolution of cocktail culture.

The class lasts 2-2.5 hours and differs from our other courses in the recipes, formulas, and techniques taught, as well as the fascinating stories told.

What to expect:

• During the session, you will review essential bartending tools and learn how to use them.
• We provide all necessary bar tools and ingredients. When you purchase your ticket, you can also purchase a brand-new, clean set of our bar tools to take home. Just head over to our SHOP page.
• You will make FOUR full-sized, delicious cocktails from our menu, which you are welcome to enjoy (a $72 value!).
• There will be plenty of time for questions and conversation.

The four cocktails made in this class represent the four most fundamental formulas in the cocktail lexicon: the “coffee cocktail,” “punch,” “swizzle,” and “cocktail.”

The FOUR featured cocktails, unique to this class, are:

1. Irish Coffee - Coffee cocktails are hot (no pun intended) and though created in Ireland, this one was perfected at The Buena Vista Cafe. This is probably the cocktail most often associated with San Francisco, so let's start off the day with a spot of coffee!
2. Pisco Punch - The original "San Francisco original" from the first Golden Age of cocktails was made famous by Duncan Nicol at the Bank Exchange Saloon in the late 1800s and represents the "punch formula".
3. Chartreuse Swizzle - The first of our two "modern classics", this herbal “swizzle formula” was created by Marco Dionysus in 2003 at Harry Denton's Starlight Room.
4. Black Manhattan - Our second "modern classic" was created in 2005 at Bourbon & Branch by Todd Smith and helped fuel our fascination with amaros in cocktails. engaging and informative stories about how San Francisco has played a significant role in the global evolution of cocktail culture

21 and Over ONLY

**Note:** 1. We will review the number of tickets sold one week before your event date. If fewer than five people have signed up for your session, we will reschedule it for the next available date. Please share this link with your friends and encourage them to join you, which helps us ensure a full class. 2. If you need to change your class date, you may do it one time only. After that, rebooking is at our discretion, and we may not be able to accommodate you due to the significant disruption to our scheduling. Thank you for your understanding.

"We learned more than just how to mix some popular cocktails, we got to learn about the history from a passionate, detailed instructor. All of us left with plans for stocking our liquor cabinets and a new appreciation for bartenders." - A. Moore on Google Reviews

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Elixir, 3200 16th Street, San Francisco, United States

Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.

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