It’s hard to believe we once made cocktails using juice in tin cans that tasted like off-brand SunnyD and the periodic table.
Craft cocktails are now the baseline. If you’re not squeezing fresh juice, attempting a fat wash, or dissembling local farm treats into liquid form, then, hell yeah, take pride in your slam-and-grimace retro.
CH Projects will likely always anchor San Diego’s serious-drinks scene (especially Polite Provisions, Raised by Wolves, and Youngblood), but even the restaurant group is probably tired of us telling you that. This year’s big story was the Mexico City–inspired cocktail den Roma Norte, where Beau du Bois and Derek Cram were nominated for a James Beard Award for things like a tamarind old fashioned (made special with tamarind purée and exactly six drops of 16-year Lagavulin single-malt Scotch).
But we’re also seeing once-very-serious titans of the industry poke the craft in the ribs. At Happy Medium in North Park, Christian Siglin and Eric Johnson are using ’80s astronaut drink Tang in the Ward 8 cocktail (alongside bourbon, lemon, pomegranate, and bitters). And, in Point Loma, Ian Ward left three-Michelin-starred Addison to open Ponyboy, serving a bubblegum margarita with Bazooka syrup. At El Sueño in Old Town, Pietro Busalacchi (who came up through his cousins’ Little Italy restaurant, Barbusa, then made cocktails at TomTom when it was a set for Vanderpump Rules) is harking back to El Dorado Cocktail Lounge (RIP) with craft shooters flavored like Mexican candy, churros, and Sour Patch Kids.
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The standard-bearers of drinks obsessives—The Lion’s Share, Sycamore Den, Mister A’s, The Fishery, Realm of the 52 Remedies, Grant Grill, Juniper and Ivy, and so many more—remain the top-tier “just point at something and it’ll be good” providers.
