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Liver Spots

Stumbling Tours of San Francisco Every neighborhood has its favorite haunts, but a successful night of excessive inebriation doesn't begin and end at the same place. In fact, one of the reasons to binge drink is for the crazy morning-after story--after all, if you sit on the same barstool all night getting plastered, it makes for a depressing confession rather than a wild anecdote. Here are my top three "stumbling tours" of San Francisco. (They can also be done backward for a refreshing change of pace.) North Beach: Start out at Enrico's for Italian tapas and a couple of their infamous mojitos, each of which contains no less than a double shot of premium rum. It's cool outside, but you sit outside under the melting glow of the sidewalk heat lamps. Even if you're a seasoned drinker, two mojitos will make you lit and you'll feel casual elegance oozing from your pores. Eventually, you pay your tab and cross the street to the Highball Lounge, where you have a quick vodka martini and forget exactly why you came to a swing club in the first place. You leave after only 15 minutes, and while some in your party are thinking now's the time to grab a cab, you dismiss the suggestion and guilt them into one last drink at Tosca. Ordering Dewar's on the rocks seems harmless enough--a nightcap at most, at which point you decide that what you really need to do is rage. After waiting an endless amount of time to hear the Andrews Sisters sing either "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" or "Rum and Coca-Cola," you realize you are perhaps too drunk to rage, so instead you all walk out the door and head for Spec's right next door and maybe order Scotch or maybe order Guinness or maybe have a couple rounds. Somehow, you get home (depending on your liver, how much of the preceding paragraph you remember will vary). Union Square: Begin on a Wednesday at Le Colonial, sipping gimlet after gimlet until it's 11pm. A short jaunt away on the 32nd floor of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel is Indulgence at Harry Denton's Starlight Room. Mingle with trashy Eurochic, chic Eurotrash and the odd socialite or celebrity. Having two martinis apiece is de rigueur after paying the $10 cover, and since you can run a tab on your charge card, you and your new friends can take turns buying rounds. Unfortunately, the music takes a turn for the worse as some Swede starts dancing out of control to "Raspberry Beret," so you collect your card and dignity ("Thank God I'm not that messy," you tell yourself) and head to C. Bobby's Owl Tree, which you can't quite remember the location of, but at least two people in your party are sure it's around the corner. You start hiccuping, and somehow that helps you locate it. You sit at the bar, eating the abnormally delicious Chex-style mix laid out before you, and have at least one more martini. Things begin to get foggy, but you vaguely remember playing "Hotel California" on the jukebox, and also "People." You wake up the next morning with a handful of the Chex-style mix in your jacket pocket and various owl-themed souvenirs (bar napkins, beer list, etc.) crumpled in your back pants pocket. Upper Market: Begin at Martuni's, but don't dare order the supersize cocktails, because you'll inevitably have more than one and get too drunk too quickly (the Upper Market stumbling tour involves some distance). Instead, a few simple vodka crans or Stoli and sodas will do nicely. If you are a homosexual male, you may want to start with (and stick to) beer, since you may end up ordering it later if you stop off someplace (like the Pilsner Inn or The Expansion Bar) where beer is cool. You venture to the Orbit Room where you, in your slight state of inebriation, decide that it's OK to start drinking supersize cocktails whether you either choose ones with sweet, clever names like Electric Blue Venus Lemonade or something more austere, like a Knob Creek Manhattan. You may end up in the Lower Haight at some point, slipping a bartender at the Top your phone number, or as far west as the Castro, raising the roof at The Cafe to "Believe (Club 69 Future Mix)." Eventually, however, all stumbles through Upper Market end at The Mint, where you hoot and holler while someone sings "Last Dance" for the third time that night and you bring the house down with "The Gambler." Someone informs you the next day that you also sang "9 to 5" and "It's a Hard Knock Life" but received little applause for your slurpy renditions. [ San Francisco | MetroActive Central | Archives ]