Sorry.  I’ve been watching a Cleveland sports team in the playoffs again. It’s something of a seasonal ritual for me, troubling deaf heaven with my bootless cries, pleading like Job to a merciless God … you know, that sort of thing.

Fortunately, I have also, like Job’s tormentor, been going to and fro in the City, and “walking up and down in it.” (Job. 1:7) This week’s wanderings took me first to Hayes Valley, and the pink awning of a neighborhood spot called Sugar Lounge. In addition to the off-putting entryway and the unpromising name, Sugar has the discrete disadvantage of sitting directly across the street from Absinthe, a bar whose reputation, like its cocktails, needs no polishing from an amateur like me. (”How can you review Absinthe? It’s an institution, you might as well review God.” — “gll s.”, writing for Yelp. “Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? He that reproveth God, let him answer it.” — Job 40:2.)

In fairness to Sugar, few elements of the lounge at 377 Hayes seem designed to compete with the more canonised proceedings at number 398. Sugar forgoes its neighbor’s encyclopedic drink menu (ok, “menus” — Absinthe has an entire trinity), and its oysters and artisanal cheeses, in favor of happy hour specials on well drinks, and a small selection of free appetizers. Sugar’s lighting and its decor are on the bold side, but not uninviting. The barkeep presented a welcoming Tuesday mien. (The depletion of the steam trays — salsa-less chips, a well-rummaged smattering of crudites — suggested that he’d already endured the night’s flurry of after-work drinkers. In which case, extra points for the friendly greeting.)

I asked for a house favorite or a recent creation, and received an “Original Sin,” composed of Tanqueray Rangpur gin, lime juice, and a bit of the divine St. Germain elderflower liqueur. The drink bore an enticing color, a pale green evocative of evenings spent curled up with the classics. In taste, it resembled an unremarkable, half-flowery Daiquiri.

The involvement of St. Germain dooms the Original Sin, in much the same way that comparisons to Absinthe may doom Sugar. A few sips of this fair green potion were enough to remind me that I’d sipped elderflower liqueur in several cocktails since its triumphant appearance on the S.F. scene, and that, sadly, almost all of them of beat the fig leaves off of the Original Sin. Memory, thus jogged, gave succor to a nascent boozy craving, and I set my course for the Tenderloin.

Locals may debate the exact boundaries of the ‘Loin, but for me its epicenter will always be the faintly-marked entrance to Rye, 688 Geary at Leavenworth. I ambled thirstily toward that address for my date with destiny — or rather, with a Destiny, one partly of my own creation.

The Pick of Destiny is by far the best of the elderflower experiments I have sampled. I sat down with Amanda Washington, the delightful and award-winning Rye mixologist, to wax Proustian about the circumstances of its birth. “I like including people in the process. I like feedback,” she comfirmed. “Like with this drink: you happened to be here, and I’d never heard it called the ‘Baby Saz’ …”

By “it,” Amanda meant Sazerac’s eminently mixable and refreshingly affordable 6-year-old bottling. Considerably younger than its top-shelf cousin, folks have taken to calling the 6-year the “Baby Saz.” Not hip to that particular bit of cocktail argot, and thinking that I’d asked for a drink involving “Baby Sass,” she took me for a Tenacious D fan. Thus was the title of The D’s recent foray into cinemas applied to her rye and St. Germain concoction. Amanda swears she’s been serving it to patrons as the Pick of Destiny ever since.

As a drinking experience, the Destiny (I personally prefer the short form nomenclature) is well-nigh perfect. Under Rye’s sparse track lighting and candles, the color sits somewhere on the Gimlet-to-Moonlight spectrum, which is to say: it’s a lovely pale orange. The flavor is brilliantly layered, fruity then lush and floral, but packing just enough boozy bite to remind you that this thing has Rye Whiskey, dammit. It’s an ideal selection under pretty much any drinking conditions; since that first encounter, I’ve craved it like the wicked man craves evil (uh, Proverbs 21:10).

After pausing to hug a regular (it’s that kind of town, even in the ‘Loin), Amanda explained why she’s loved her 2 years at Rye, and why she isn’t likely to leave any time soon. “I’ve never worked for or with better people … They give me a lot of wiggle-room here, which is really important. They let me experiment.” I took a healthy sip of my Destiny, the evidence of my agreement with that statement. “It’s like my home here, and my family.”

What else could I say to that, but: “Amen.”

—

The [Pick of] Destiny
as perfected by Amanda, at Rye

2 oz. “Baby” Sazerac 6 year Rye*
1 oz. St. Germain
3/4 oz. lemon juice
5 dashes Fee Brothers’ orange bitters
Shake vigorously, and serve up. Garnish with an orange twist (of SATAN!).

* = when the Baby Saz is out of stock or otherwise unavailable, Amanda will use Michter’s. Michter’s is a delicious Rye, but it doesn’t bring the same satisfying, earthy punch to the back end of the drink. Sampling a Destiny with Michter’s I wondered if wasn’t too easy to drink. Amanda shrugged: “[made like this], I could probably put it in VitaminWater bottles and serve it at my house!” I’ll leave it to you to determine whether that’s a good or a bad thing, in accordance with the circumstances of your cocktail occasion.

So me and Rob, we’re sitting on top of this ancient, abused, tarp-covered pool table, the only seats in front of the old Grog stage, and he’s telling me about Orlando, and his super-awesome band, and his big stupid rockstar plans for the future. And I’m nodding along, like a sullen teenager who thinks he looks half-courteous but doesn’t, smirking to myself about how much I hate this guy. Where does he get off, being all popular, and all good-at-writing-songs-that-people-like, and all friendly to me for no goddamn reason? What an asshole, right? (Whereas Cool for August: real musical pioneers. You could tell, because they didn’t sell any records.)

Ten years later, I’m not sure I’ve gotten any better at first impressions. I am, however, a serious and unrepentant Matchbox Twenty fan (Did you see my boy Rob on Bill Maher last week? He was awesome!), and a man whom experience has taught not to assume that commerce is always the natural enemy of art.

Duggan McDonnell, proprietor of Cantina, agrees. “I’m very much capitalist-oriented,” he says when I inquire about the genesis of his self-styled “Latin Art Bar” on Sutter Street. Cantina stocks a lot of top-shelf tequilas, he tells me, because that sector of the beverage industry is showing the most growth right now. His concept for marketing the bar experience centers on the notion of a “third place.” Mr. McDonnell is surprised, but not unhappy, to learn that the Sony Playstation has already latched on to these very buzzwords.

McDonnell is being more literal than Sony (which enlisted weirdness connoisseur David Lynch to turn the slogan into a series of trippy Euro-TV ads). Cantina, he says, is really an attempt to create a place, besides work or home, where one “can go to be [your]self, to be comfortable.” When you order a drink in this third place, McDonnell predicts: “I’m gonna put something in your mouth that makes you happy.” A substantial portion of Cantina’s menu consists of Latin-inspired and “community-oriented” pitchers: punches, caipirinhas, and “five-spice” margaritas.

On my own visits to Cantina, happiness has taken a more specific and solitary form: the Carmen Amaya, a rye whiskey beauty fashioned by Jordan Mackay for entry into a cocktail competition featuring sherry. This proposition was, says Mr. Mackay, “not as easy as you would think.” Jordan is behind the stick at Cantina as part of a long and prestigious tradition of writers (culinary, beverage, or otherwise) who seek “real world” experience to hone their creative craft. (Mr. Thomas, by contrast, wishes said real world “would just stop hassling [him].” But really, who can blame him?)

Mr. Mackay has written about his experience creating the Carmen Amaya at some length, and I won’t try to improve on that. I will note that the drink itself is a multifaceted wonder, a rival to even the most inspired and enticing creations I’ve encountered in the City. The rye holds hands with its old pal Cointreau, and goes skipping across your tongue as in a Frisco, or even the early stages of an Algonquin. The amontillado, meanwhile, lurks around the corner, a diversion not so much bracing (like the Frisco’s herbaceous Bénédictine) as rounded, and enticingly smoky. Remarkably, the fresh basil enhances the whole experience, stinging your nose first and the tip of your tongue last, and adding a sweet floral undertone to all the flavors in between. Neither bitter nor jarring, the Carmen Amaya wouldn’t bookend a perfect night’s tippling, but it’s complex, intelligent, and damned satisfying during those long, dreary mid-evening hours.

Sipping my Carmen Amaya on a reasonably uncrowded Thursday, I wondered if Cantina’s decorators felt particularly satisfied while away at university, or even at a slightly tropical boarding school. (Do they have boarding schools in the tropics? Besides on midseason replacements from the CW, I mean?) The view from the bar is wholly professorial, with classics of the drinks-book genre peeking out from between votive candles and sought-after treasures from historical mixology. I’ll list a few of the latter for the hardcore nerds: Pimm’s Nos. 2 through 4, Amer Picon, rare Piscos. Lots of rare Piscos.

I finished the cocktail, accepted a taste of a delightful Peruvian Pisco from Duggan, and began assembling a shaky metaphor concerning the advanced state of the craft on display: If Cantina’s festive punches are the core requirements (the “freshman mixers,” maybe?), then the straight-up classics are its more rigorous 200-level lecture courses, and the ingenious “culinary cocktails” would be junior and senior seminars. Which makes the complex and richly rewarding Carmen Amaya: what, a Master’s thesis?

Eh, screw it, I decided. The world has enough corny, half-apt comparisons already. I gave Duggan a friendly handshake, promised to see him again soon, and made my way back home, to order my copy of Exile on Mainstream.

—

Carmen Amaya
adapted from Cantina

6 leaves fresh basil
1 1/2 ounces Old Overholt rye
3/4 ounce amontillado sherry
1/2 ounce Cointreau
1 ounce lemon juice (1/2 to 1 lemon, depending on size, hand-squeezed)
2 dashes orange bitters
Simple syrup* to taste

Muddle the basil leaves — Duggan suggests Seattle style. Add the other ingredients. Shake and serve up. No garnish: the basil bits and ice shards should dance enticingly in the liquid.

Put something in your mouth that makes you happy.

* = Cantina uses a less-than-simple mix of turbinado sugar, white sugar, and a dash of cinnamon.

—

To look at it, you’d think the designers behind “B” Restaurant & Bar were similarly opposed to needless embellishment. The space is all glass, vegetation, and terrace seating, the better to take advantage of a location high in the tangles of the Yerba Buena complex. The outdoor tables provide a panoramic view of the majestic surrounding skyline. Behind them, the minimal white bar almost fades into obscurity.

The staff? Not so much.

Having established our small party’s interest in Happy Hour, the gruff bartender could spare no time for our questions about the drink menu, its origins, or its contents. Instead he insisted we choose a table, and dashed off to attend to the bar’s remaining (two) patrons. Perhaps, we mused, he was just keen to direct some tips the way of our younger, more enthusiastic server.

Enthusiasm can be a valuable trait in one tasked with pouring your ice water or conversing with you about the proper course for your early-evening merriment. I prize it somewhat less when it extends to bullshitting the customers about the available booze.

How important is the pineapple, my friend inquired, to that drink you’ve named the “LOVE ON”? “It’s, well, it’s an integral ingredient, because the pineapple helps us deliver the little bit of love we like to add, um … to each drink.” This kid had a future as Tony Snow’s replacement — or as the next Miss Teen South Carolina.

The LOVE ON, not surprisingly, was repugnant: three layers, all purple, each foamier than the one below. Like a liquid equivalent to Jell-O’s short-lived “1-2-3″ experiment of the late 1980’s, except less delicious. (But equally doomed, or so we can hope.) No amount of fruit-delivered love could save such a monstrosity. Onward!

A few blocks east of “B” sits Dada, a SoMa watering hole and art space of recent vintage. I approached the bar warily, in mind of last week’s Onion headlines (”Hard to Tell if Wikipedia Entry on Dada Has Been Vandalized or Not”) as much as the sour notes struck by “B.” Should I expect a menu populated by the chilled vodka of audience confrontation (poured, perhaps, directly on my shoe)? Urinal-cake mojitos? Situationist Sidecars?

More to the point: were we in time for Happy Hour?

“It goes until nine,” answered bartender Molly Williams, earning more than one appreciative nod. Not that we’d have left, anyway. “Purple Rain” was on the jukebox, and I’d already ordered Dada’s current signature drink, a pomegranate “margarita.” Molly asked if I wanted salt on the rim, and I deferred to her judgment on the issue. “It’s not integral to the drink,” she said. But then how do you deliver the LOVE, I caught myself before responding.

Dada’s pomegranate cocktail is also purple, but free of those senseless foamy layers. Its flavors intertwine as easily as the sozzled bankers and bankettes who populate SoMa beyond the end of a 9 pm happy hour. The smoky intensity of the tequila quickly recedes beneath the sweetness of the pomegranate liqueur and the acidity of the lime. A friend pronounced the drinking experience, like the surroundings, “surprisingly unpretentious.” Only one word of caution: the liqueur pushes its luck by the second round. It might be best at that point to turn one’s attention to the straight hooch, or to Dada’s discerning beer selection. (Fin Du Monde: a quebecois ale named for armageddon? Surely Tristan Tzara himself would approve.)

Between sips of Jameson on the rocks, Dada owner Michael Gouddou explained that the pomegranate margarita outsells the bar’s previous signature drink, a flavored-vodka concoction called the “Georgia Peach.” (Score one for the bankettes’ palettes.) Asked about the inspiration for Dada itself, Mr. Gouddou related his experiences at museums and galleries, where he invariably craved more time for reflection on each piece. He opened Dada to provide patrons the quality time, and the serious booze, he found lacking in the typical gallery opening.

As the Pet Shop Boys’ “Minimal” filled the air, I accompanied Mr. Gouddou toward a particularly engrossing piece: “it was worth it (frailty of man),” a 12-foot rendering of Icarus in motherboards. The tragic aeronaut was sculpted from the slightest wisp of frosted glass, while his plummeting wings stretched up the wall for the height of a tallish man, then downward for the same span and out — far enough to allow the curious a peek behind the shimmering green and copper PCB wings at the desiccated resistors within. A spray of motherboard feathers hung from individual cords around the uppermost wing’s tip. An allegory for the collapse of the dot-com bubble, explained Mr. Gouddou. Asking price: $18,000. I asked if Dada tends to attract reflective drinkers with that kind of disposable income. “In this town? Who can tell?”

He was right — anyone old enough to drink around here could be a software millionaire of one stripe or another. Your neighbor’s ability to afford “frailty of man,” and his eagerness to display the piece, might depend entirely on his fin-de-millennium stock options, and his relative proximity to the sun at the time he cashed them in.

It’s a tough climb, any way you look at it, and harder than hell to see clearly once you get up there. Best to start with a strong drink — and to bring along the Blue Blockers, just in case.

Pomegranate Margarita
adapted from Dada

2 oz. Sauza Hornitos Tequila

1 oz. PAMA Liqueur

1/2 oz. fresh lime juice*

* = Dada uses sour mix, but they will happily use the fresh juice if you ask. Take them up on it.

Shake like the anti-artist: a monster laying waste to everything in its path. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a lime wedge. Eschew the salt.