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One thing I learned at BlogHer Food last year -- you don't have to stray far from the conference site to have one heck of a time and plenty of beverages to keep you sated both during the conference and during the after-hours activities.
Last year, I recommended a set of bars that I will still stand by this year. If you didn't get to them, I encourage you to try them out. But this year, I have two additions to the San Francisco cocktail scene that I very much consider worth your attention while you're in town for BlogHer Food 2010.
Smuggler's Cove
If you're a fan of rum-based cocktails, then run, don't walk, to Smuggler's Cove. This bar, which has been open less than a year, features an amazing range of rums for drinking, as well as a giant menu of more than 80 cocktails that put rum -- and other spirits -- to work in the best possible way. In fact, I'd go so far to say that if you only have time to hit one bar in the vicinity of BlogHer Food, this is the one to hit.
Anita of Married With Dinner got to check out Smuggler's Cove just before its official opening.
What sets Smuggler’s Cove apart from the tiki pack is its focus on top-notch bartending talent (Martin’s gathered an enviable collection of West Coast heavy hitters), quality ingredients, and solid technique. It’s a serious rum-focused bar with retro-tropical decor, but there’s refreshingly little of the tongue-in-cheek cheesiness that you might expect. (Don’t get me wrong, I love me some ooga-booga. But I like a well-made, properly measured cocktail even more.)
Karen of It's Karen's World visited Smuggler's Cove earlier this month and loved it.
What a place! Unless you know the address you would never find it. The number is above the door and thats the only indication. It wasn't until we walked up to the door and a man (who looked like he was just standing outside on his phone) comes up and cards us and then opens the door. Ooh and what a shock! You walk right into a fantastic little bar that resembles (loosely) a ship's hold. I pretended it did. We went down stairs which stands next to a wall of water, it was pretty neat the water sort of runs down the wall to the lower floor and fills a pool.
We were handed drink menus the size of a regular restaurant and proceeded to read our way through the rums. Oh the rums! Leigh decided he was going to get a flight of rum. Called the Bounty. It had 4 types of rum in it Rhum JM, Mount Gay 1703, Appleton Estate 21 Year, Ron Zacapa XO.
Jessica Battilana of 7x7.com gave Smuggler's Cove a rave review, as well.
For career rum drinkers (a few of whom we're gathered at the bar, clutching a paperback copy of this book), the ne plus ultra is the chart pictured above, listing 75 rum drinks from the Smuggler's menu. Try them all (and get the boxes signed off by the bartender) and you're assured fame and fortune—or, at least, according to bartender Marco Dionysus, "some free stuff and your name carved on the bar."
Smuggler’s Cove
650 Gough Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
415.869.1900
www.smugglerscovesf.com
Comstock Saloon
This relative newcomer to San Francisco's cocktail scene hit it big right of the bat by making the list of GQ Magazine's Top 25 American Cocktail Bars. It's a gorgeous space with a turn-of-the-century, Gold Rush feel to it, and excellent cocktails.
Sharron of The Hostess Diary tried out Comstock a week after they opened.The cocktail menu is old-school. Nothing too fancy, but lots of delightful traditional cocktails you don’t often see elsewhere, like the Hop Toad Cocktail, with is made from Jamaican rum, lime, apricot brandy, and bitters. When I order the “Barkeep’s Whimsy,” letting the bartender decide what to make me, I got a perfectly made Hemingway Daquiri, a favorite of mine that includes rum, maraschino liqueur, lime, and grapefruit juice. When Jeff Hollinger sat down with us for a while, he told us that they wanted to maintain the integrity of the original space, which is a beautiful high-ceilinged spot that has an elaborately carved bar that dates back to 1907. And if there’s any justice in this world, this place is destined to take off with both the cocktail cognoscenti
