Caviar, kimchi and cotton candy: San Francisco’s strangest, most expensive cocktails

As a well-known foodie and nightlife paradise, San Francisco has no shortage of extravagant food and beverages—or insanely themed bars. Whether you’re in the mood for an alcoholic Girl Scout cookie or simply for dropping as much on one drink as you’d ordinarily spend on a pair of designer jeans—this city probably has what you crave. 

Cocktail menus, like the seasons, are ever-changing.   

Here are a handful of stand-out libations currently being mixed or shaken at watering holes in or near San Francisco.

🍸 Hog Island Oyster Co. 
📍 Ferry Building | Marin Country Mart, Larkspur 
🔗 hogislandoysters.com (opens in new tab) 

This nautical concoction from the minds of Hog Island Oyster Co. costs twice as much as your average cocktail ($30) but also comes as an appetizer and a drink in one, with an oyster and a spoonful of smoked trout roe delicately set upon a lemon rind. Pulling inspiration and additional ingredients from the Pacific, the cocktail blends Gray Whale gin, vermouth and aperitifs with lemon oil and nori seaweed foraged from Tomales Bay and kina, a sea urchin endemic to New Zealand. Order one at Hog Island’s Ferry Building or Marin Country Mart locations. 

🍸 Orafo at the Four Seasons Embarcadero 
🔗 fourseasons.com/embarcadero (opens in new tab)

San Francisco’s famous fog has stopped many a tourist in her tracks, and so too can this cocktail named for the city’s signature weather phenomenon. The Four Seasons Embarcadero mixes its Karl the Fog Cocktail with Hennessy VSOP, Santa Teresa 1796 rum, Heering cherry liqueur, Zucca amaro and crème de noyaux. For a dramatic tableside finish, a smoker is placed on top of the glass and ignited with a blowtorch, creating a dramatic and moody layer of maplewood smoke resembling San Francisco’s perennial marine layer, infusing the drink with smokey notes. It’ll warm you right up.

🍸 Causwells 
🔗 causwells.com (opens in new tab) 

Kimchi may not be the first ingredient that comes to mind when you think “cocktail,” but Causwells in the Marina has concocted its latest wacky drink creation around Korea’s favorite salty, spicy fermented cabbage dish. To translate the flavors of kimchi—ginger, garlic, chili, and seasonal fruits and veggies—Causwells’ Beverage Director and Managing Partner Elmer Mejicanos made a shrub using pears, shishito peppers and cucumbers. Mezcal pays homage to the smoky flavors of Korean barbecue, and Thai bitters finish out the recipe. The glass comes garnished with a spicy salt rim, or “Kimchi tajin” as Mejicanos calls it, which sticks to the glass thanks to a tart syrup of lacto-fermented raspberries. 

Causwells is also debuting an old-fashioned that’s like baklava in a glass and a French-inspired martini with blue cheese-infused Tito’s vodka. 

🍸 Miller & Lux 
🔗 millerandluxrestaurant.com (opens in new tab) 

While some of these gimmicky drinks might seem downright corny, we have a feeling the TikTok corn kid (opens in new tab) would approve of this particular libation–if he were old enough to drink.

Steakhouse Miller & Lux offers the equivalent of liquid corn on the cob with this beverage made from milk washed roasted corn bourbon, roasted corn maple syrup,  sweet corn extract and licor de elote (yup, corn liqueur (opens in new tab)). The upside is you won’t have to worry about kernels getting stuck in your teeth.  

🍸 Son & Garden’s Secret Lounge 
🔗 sonandgarden.com (opens in new tab) 

Son & Garden’s Secret Lounge just a stone’s throw away from the popular brunch restaurant has no shortage of whimsical cocktails perfect for posting on Instagram. One is topped with cotton candy. Or you can sip hibiscus liqueur and sparkling wine from a bird-shaped vessel. But the most decadent of them all is the $32 Snow Queen, a “specialty cocktail”-slash-dessert served with Korean-style bingsu shaved ice served in an ornate metal bowl (opens in new tab) along with Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey, Sunora Pineapple Colada rum, pineapple juice, candied bacon and a dash of 24k gold, according to the menu. It’s a bargain, really. 

🍸 Empress by Boon
🔗 theempresssf.com (opens in new tab)

The newly minted, three-figure martini from high-end Cantonese restaurant Empress by Boon is priced for tech—or real-life—royalty. 

While the martini only has three ingredients, one of them—a rare yellowish gin infused with saffron—is more valuable than gold. The mixture tastes like “buttery gold,” writes The Standard’s Julie Zigoris, with notes of umami and ramen broth. At $150 a pop, the Empress is allegedly nowhere near (opens in new tab) the city’s most expensive cocktail, and sommelier Dylan Dasher reports that they’re selling at a relatively brisk pace, with one table ordering three of them on a recent Wednesday night.  

The beverage is made tableside on a rolling cart complete with crystal decanters and golden bar tools.   

🍸 Sons & Daughters
🔗 Sonsanddaughterssf.com (opens in new tab) 

🍸 Lazy Bear
🔗 lazybearsf.com (opens in new tab) 

Even if you don’t imbibe, you, too, can go broke ordering drinks. 

Michelin-starred Sons & Daughters, the “Nob Hill jewel box (opens in new tab)” known for its minimalist Nordic-style cuisine, offers a $115 menu of nine “house-made non-alcoholic beverages” to pair with its $229 tasting menu. A coriander shrub with white and purple currants comes with a filet of cured halibut; a chilled tomato tea seasoned with honey and lemon zest arrives with a plate of tomatoes, white asparagus and Hosui pears; and beetroot juice with blackberries smoked over applewood is delivered with Umpqua Valley lamb.  

Each drink is designed to complement a corresponding dish on the menu, explained Sons & Daughters General Manager George Cole, but two are available by the glass, including a blend of “juiced green apples with Douglas fir” and an elixir of juiced grilled cherries from K&J Orchards with torched rosemary and peppercorns, if you prefer to go the à la carte route. 

Hunting lodge-themed Lazy Bear (opens in new tab) has also created an apple-and-mushroom mocktail to go with the savory portion of its tasting menu and duck courses. While the beverage won’t get you buzzed, it does tap into the Bay Area’s love affair with shrooms of all kinds. The drink is made from a cold-brewed tea made from dried porcinis and leftover apple skins fermented into a fruity syrup similar to a Korean cheong. A torched sprig of wild incense cedar garnishes the glass, which bears an ice cube imprinted with the restaurant’s eponymous mascot.