This is an exciting post! We’re trying something different and featuring cocktails that we didn’t make. This week’s cocktails are brought to you courtesy of our friend Alicia Walton, owner of The Sea Star in the Dogpatch. We also have an extra bonus cocktail this week, and a new Instagram cocktail contest with a real prize! Head over to @thetasteedit on Instagram to participate and win a $25 gift certificate to The Sea Star (don’t forget to follow us).
If you haven’t been to The Sea Star yet, you need to go. It’s one of our favorite neighborhood spots, and it’s been a bar since at least 1899, according to a fire insurance map made that year. In those days, bars were typically named after the gentlemen that owned them. Alicia also found a reference to the bar being called The Melody Room at one point in the 20th century, since no one wanted to use the words “bar” or “saloon” after prohibition, they used melodic terms. The bar was purchased by Southern Pacific Brewing in 2014, and then changed hands to the current owners, Alicia, Tommy Shaw, and Ryan Gilbert in 2015.
The Sea Star always has a great selection of beer on tap, but we go for the cocktails (there’s also an amazing mule on tap that we love), which are always creative and delicious. It was so hot the day we took these photos that Alicia made us a pina colada and mint julep (that she usually makes with basil) as soon as we walked in.
Not only is Alicia an amazingly creative mixologist, she is also fast! She currently holds the title as San Francisco’s winner of Speed Rack, an all-female bartending competition benefitting breast cancer research, education, and prevention. She heads to New York City this summer for the National competition.
We also got to hang out with Greg Robles of Bitter Queens, a local small batch bitters company. You never know who you’ll sit next to. Alicia used their Shanghai Shirley 5-Spice bitters in the cocktail some lucky person will be naming on Instagram soon. We’re looking forward to trying their other bitters!
Check out some of our the shots from the photoshoot we did for The Sea Star, then head over to our instagram to give your suggestion for a name for the Cynar-based cocktail in the recipes below.
The Golden Mean
- 1 ½ ounces of bourbon
- ¾ ounce of Cynar 70
- ½ ounce Pedro Ximinez sherry
- 2 dashes Bitter Queens Shanghai Shirley 5-Spice Bitters
- Stir and serve over ice.
ABC (ALWAYS BE CLOSING)
- 1 ½ ounces 209 Gin
- ¾ ounces Amaro di Angostura
- ¾ ounces Dolin dry vermouth
- 2 dashes of chocolate bitters
- Shake and serve over ice.
The Sea Star
2289 3rd St. San Francisco, CA
1 comment
I have yet to visit, but per naming TBD:
When you combine The Golden Mean (artichoke leaf structure) with The Gangster Lean (Bourbon being the choice of successful, Caddy driving street hustlers of my North Nashville youth) …you get “The Golden Lean.”
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