San Francisco: Booze & caffeine

House bitters? Bor-ing. We’ve got bartender geniuses making black-pepper tinctures and pineapple gum. We’ve got small-batch booze cred with Distillery No. 209 Gin. And by the time Angelenos were catching onto terms like “artisan roasted,” we had moved on to single-origin wash-processed espresso grown on east-facing Andean slopes. Sounds ridiculous. Until you get your first jolt from Blue Bottle Coffee and realize that coffee, in the right hands, has all the nuance of fine wine.

Score: 10