🍸 Cocktail nerds

Bear-focused SoMa bar with a pool table, patio, and DJs.

Neighborhood gastropub with $25 bottomless mimosas for two hours.

Plane-crash-themed tiki bar with dense jungle foliage and dim lighting.

1937 Chinatown dive with a dangerously strong Chinese Mai Tai.

A sultry underground supper club bringing nightly jazz back to the historic Tenderloin.

Cruisy SoMa leather-and-dance bar with a back patio.

Bond-lair cocktail spot with red velvet and lunar-inspired drinks.

Castro bar for show-tune queens with Musical Mondays.

Thai fine-dining spot famous for its pandan parfait with salted coconut cream

Femme-centered bar bathed in sultry purple light.

Spanish taberna with porron service and live music.

Historic Tenderloin dive hosting the Hot Boxxx Girls drag revue.

Irish-owned, largely LGBTQ-owned pub with Guinness and cocktails.

Iconic worker-owned queer bar with go-go dancers and wild parties.

Art bar on Divisadero famous for Prince vs Michael Jackson dance nights. Eclectic, sweaty, joyful. Costume-optional.

Barbary Coast time travel. Tin ceilings, a live piano some nights, and proper old cocktails. Sit at the bar and pretend it's 1907.

A three-story pirate ship of a tiki bar with 70-plus rums and flaming drinks. Tiny, dark, theatrical. Get there early or wait.

Speakeasy behind an unmarked door, password and all. Pressed-tin ceilings, serious cocktails, a library room in back if you reserve.

Cavernous Chinatown dive with a giant gold shrine and the famous Chinese Mai Tai that will end your night. Dark, weird, perfect.

Tiki kitsch in the Fairmont basement: an indoor lagoon and a thunderstorm every half hour. Absurd, expensive, unmissable once.

Tiki done seriously: a volcano that erupts, elaborate rum drinks, and a wait. Book ahead, order something on fire.

The bar that brought Irish coffee to America in 1952, still lining them up ten at a time. Touristy, sure, but the ritual is the point.

Plush, vaguely Victorian cocktail lounge on Valencia with a hidden patio. Dressier than the dives, still unpretentious. A date that turns into a night.

A cocktail bar that reinvents its menu like an art project, in an old warehouse off the beaten path. Go with a group, go a little early, stay too late.

Beloved piano bar for show-tune sing-alongs and stiff martinis.

Industry-favorite cocktail bar with elevated drinks plus cheese and charcuterie.

Second-story Castro bar and nightclub with top DJs over a busy intersection.

Vintage neighborhood tiki dive pouring strong scorpion bowls.

Sunday brunch on a tree-filled patio with endless bubbly, breakfast martinis and drag.

All-inclusive Castro bar with theme nights from Vice Tuesdays to RuPaul Fridays.