Twice a year, Trick Dog, the award-winning San Francisco cocktail bar, shreds its elaborately themed cocktail menus and starts from scratch. For the 21st go-round, it officially debuted its latest effort, a riff on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s production “Cats”—except, as you might guess, it’s called “Dogs: The Musical.”
Past Trick Dog menus dove into themes like yoga, a map of San Francisco landmarks and the Pantone color scheme—some of which have grown truly elaborate. Instead of transforming the entire interior into a 19th-century ship bound for a mythical version of Tahiti as it did last time, this time Trick Dog has channeled its creative energy into 16-page Playbill-inspired menus—booklets which come complete with fake, 1980s-style ads for liquor brands like Bacardi and Herradura that the bar’s creative team shot themselves, giving the sales reps a head’s-up. (There’s also a plug for Quik Dog, the hot dog-centric spinoff restaurant opening in Mission Bay later this year.)
The physical menu is styled as a 16-page theatrical Playbill. As always, a copy can be had for $30, the proceeds of which go to a scholarship fund for students whose parents were hospitality workers and who became the first kids in their family to attend college. All 16 drinks are riffs on “Cats” characters—if you’re a musical theater buff, names like “Mr. Woofistoffeles” or “Kibbleshanks” may sound familiar. Accompanying each $18 cocktail’s blurb is a head shot of a Trick Dog staffer in elaborate feline face paint.
A staff favorite is the Bonzo (Grey Goose vodka, Chareau aloe liqueur, makrut lime, Sprecher cream soda, rosemary and lime juice), which owes itself to beverage director Nick Amano-Dolan’s distaste for one of its components. “Rosemary’s a really played-out ingredient,” he said, wearing a tuxedo for opening night. “Five, ten years ago you were seeing people smoke rosemary and make rosemary tinctures all over the place.” Instead, the Bonzo balances the herb with fragrant makrut limes. The result tastes like a key lime pie—with the cream soda adding a rich, foamy top.
The Puparina (Patron Silver, Luxardo Bitter Bianco, a tomato-raspberry cordial and a white cacao wash) came together after workshopping it at pop-ups up and bar takeovers up and down the West Coast. Mellow and summery, it’s perfectly clarified but for the half-tomato garnish resting atop the one big cube—a “very nice little savory kind of tequila Negroni,” as Amano-Dolan put it.
Perhaps the prettiest drink is the Poochy, a riff on a Ramos Gin Fizz that evokes a Szechuan pepper-inflected Strawberry Quik and almost sparked a rebellion when it was announced. (That drink, a New Orleans classic, technically involves shaking it for a full 15 minutes.) To spare the staff’s shoulder muscles, it’s whipped in seconds in a Hamilton Beach blender, resulting in a thick, shake-like, candy-pink drink that, like a pint of Guinness, takes a minute or two to settle.
Any regular at Trick Dog knows they’re committed to offering top-tier non-alcoholic options. Josh Harris, the founder and owner of Bon Vivants, the hospitality group for which Trick Dog is the flagship, is sober, and insists on putting serious effort into the bar’s alcohol-free offerings like the Gizmo (the sea buckthorn-centric NA aperitif Everleaf Marine, Giffard pineapple syrup, kombu and a gummy yuzu pear garnish).
“We’ve been challenging ourselves to employ techniques that would be harder for us to do at the scale of the alcoholic drinks: clarifications, forced carbonations, things like that,” Harris said. “The person who’s having the nonalcoholic cocktail, in some senses, is getting a more special thing.”
Time and again, a Trick Dog theme goes all in. Minutes before opening the door for the official debut of “Dogs: The Musical,” Harris led the team in a congratulatory shot—mezcal for the drinkers, a zero-alcohol equivalent for the rest—that nodded to the famously superstitious world of theater. “Break a leg,” he said.