Post #76472 by thejab on Tue, Feb 17, 2004 12:26 PM

I feel your pain! I would gladly pay twice as much for a well-made cocktail than for a lousy mixed drink. Like Al I tend to order highballs in most bars, unless I know I can get a good cocktail. And like Shelley sometimes I give the bartender the third degree about the ingredients or their technique. My typical manhattan order is "rye manhattan with bitters, stirred not shaken, up with a twist". Usually the bartender doesn't mind, but occasionally you get a jerk. Recently I went to Roy's in San Francisco and asked the bartender about their "famous Mai Tai". I just wanted to know if there was fresh lime in it and asked if he could leave out the pineapple juice. He replied "do you want to come back here and make it?". He blew that tip.

As far as I'm concerned, the only places one can get a good cocktail in the East Bay are Trader Vic's, Club Mallard in Albany, and the Albatross Pub in Berkeley. In San Francisco there are quite a few places - many of the better restaurants make decent cocktails. It's harder to get a good drink in a bar that isn't part of a restaurant. I've had good drinks served to me lately at House of Sheilds. But nothing beats the Foggy Grotto!