3 Famous Cocktails That Were Invented by San Francisco Bartenders

Ever since the gold rush, Northern Californians have been inventing new ways to get sauced.

Steam Beer

During the 19th century, lager was a popular American beer. By definition, the drink required cold fermentation, but in rugged Northern California where miners were thirsty for brew, refrigeration (and therefore cold fermentation) was a rare luxury.

So innovative brewers struck a compromise. They used a lager yeast, but fermented their beverages at higher temperatures usually reserved for ales. The result was a malty beer, with an aggressive hop bitterness and generous carbonation. They called it a steam beer.

There are several theories as to where the name comes from, the favored version being that due to the high carbonation, the bar keep had to tap it and let off some “steam” before dispensing it.

It was generally considered a blue-collar beer until Anchor Brewing Company refined the drink and trademarked the name in 1981. They claim the term “steam” referred to the steam that emanated from the roof of their brewery in San Francisco. Though the brewery’s history has been a rocky one, complete with earthquakes and prohibition, they have been brewing steam beer since 1896.

The Martini

Didn’t know the Martini was a San Francisco thing, did ‘ya?

Well, legend has it that on a foggy night in 1862, a traveler stopped in at the Occidental Hotel on Montgomery Street in San Francisco. Behind the bar he found “Professor” Jerry Thomas, often considered the father of mixology, and the author of America’s first bartending guide.

When the visitor told the Professor that he was headed to the nearby town of Martinez, the bar keep improvised a drink that was two parts sweet Old Tom gin, and one part vermouth. In honor of the traveler’s destination he called it the Martini.

As tastes changed over the decades the drink became progressively drier. By the end of WWII the drink was 10:1, gin to vermouth. These days the International Bartenders Association declares the appropriate ratio 15:1.

Aficionados of the drink eschew the “dirty” martini with its splash of olive juice, and out rightly dismiss anything with vodka or cocktail onions (technically a Gibson).

In 2009 a small committee of bartenders in San Francisco declared the perfect Martini as 2.5 ounces Distillery No. 209 gin combined with .5 ounces Vya dry vermouth, stirred (not shaken) for 40 seconds, with six ice cubes, and then strained into a cocktail glass. The Professor would be proud.

Irish Coffee

Legend has it that in 1952 Jack Koeppler, then owner of the Buena Vista restaurant in San Francisco, decided to reproduce a whiskey drink that Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Stanton Delaplane (1907-1988) had tasted in Ireland years before.

The basic concept was a coffee and whiskey mixture with a cream layer floated on top, but Koeppler insisted that it be just right. After many sleepless, drunken nights they hit upon the perfect combination.

The official recipe, still in use today throughout the country, was four parts hot coffee and two parts Irish whiskey stirred with two sugar cubes. Then one and one half parts lightly whipped cream was delicately floated on top of the drink.

It quickly became a hit, and the Buena Vista has since served up an average of 2,000 cups of Irish Coffee EVERY DAY. And in case that wasn’t enough, in 2008 they set the record for making the world’s largest Irish Coffee.

In a specially made glass they mixed 10 litters of Tullamore Dew Irish whiskey, four pounds of sugar, ten gallons of coffee, and topped it off with two gallons of lightly whipped cream. By all accounts, it was delicious.