Seven nights a week, patrons at the Mission district bar Buddy slide into caramel-colored banquettes or sit at the Carrara marble bar to sip creative drinks like the New Old Bud, a coffee-infused aperitivo with amontillado sherry, or the Bambú, made with dry vermouth, cider, manzanilla sherry, and bitter citrus. As at any premier cocktail bar, the drinks incorporate seasonal produce and rely on labor-intensive, culinary-driven techniques like milk-washing. They arrive in charming, eclectic glassware.

But they’re missing one important ingredient: high-proof hard alcohol.

Since its 2021 opening by a quartet of hospitality pros, Buddy has stood out as a pioneer of a new low-ABV moment that’s currently sweeping the city. Though it’s sometimes known as a wine bar, its beverage program incorporates only aperitifs, sherries, and vermouth (as well as, yes, wine), without hard spirits such as bourbon, vodka, or mezcal. 

In other words, Buddy is proof of concept for a simple proposition: In San Francisco, you can drink less while still drinking well. 

Americans — especially Gen Zers — are definitively drinking less as study after study shows the risks of even moderate alcohol consumption. Alvaro Rojas, one of Buddy’s co-owners, attributes this shift in part to local factors; namely, the expense of city living. Younger people work harder to stay afloat than previous generations had to. 

“They’re a little more career-focused than when the cost of living was lower and you could work part-time and go to school and focus on your art,” he says. “They can’t be mumbling through their hangover when they have huddles at 8 a.m.” 

As a result, low-proof cocktails have become the latest frontier in San Francisco’s ever-evolving drinking culture. They appeal to people with a low tolerance or those who want healthier livers and dewier skin. They’re pragmatic, too, if you like a bit of socializing at the start of the evening without the risk of falling asleep later in a darkened theater, as full-potency classics like Sazeracs and Negronis can make one do.

At the Marina’s new no- and low-alcohol cocktail bar Lilah, partner Elmer Mejicanos has observed that San Francisco is warming up to vermouth, which, with an alcohol content of approximately 16% to 18%, is more potent than wine and beer but nowhere near the levels of most distilled spirits. As a result, patrons are able to navigate low-ABV menus more easily than they could just a few years ago. In 2021, when he opened the North Beach restaurant Red Window, there was confusion over what exactly was in its roster of low-alcohol drinks. “Now that [Lilah]’s been in business for a month and a half, people are starting to get more comfortable,” he said. “It’s becoming mainstream.”

The advent of “spirit alternatives,” which can have less than half the alcohol of traditional spirits like tequila or bourbon, has also been a boon. The sleeper hit at Lilah is the Pho Margarita, which Mejicanos developed for the brunch menu, only to see it take on a life of its own. “I wanted a Thai-inspired bloody mary, but then I thought, ‘Why don’t we do a margarita that has all the flavors of pho: anise, cinnamon, Thai basil, lemongrass, and mint?’” So he infused a low-proof tequila with the herbs, adding agave and manzanilla sherry for brininess. “It’s just like cooking,” he said. “You gotta have that salt.”

Now that Lilah is up and running, Mejicanos is turning his attention to his next project, a Latin-inspired cantina he hopes will open in early 2025. “We’re looking to do a lot more of this low-proof concept, because we don’t see not having a full liquor license as an obstacle,” he said. “We see it as something exciting.” 

This points to the other side of the low-ABV equation: People may drink these things because they like them but also because operators have to serve them. State law broadly differentiates between two categories of liquor license: Type 42 (beer and wine only) and Type 47 (full bar). Beer and wine licenses cost approximately $100,000, while more tightly regulated Type 47 licenses are heavily sought-after commodities that can fetch $250,000 — and have spawned an ecosystem of brokers to facilitate their sale. But the law is even quirkier than that.

For a beer-and-wine license, “the kind of alcohol that one can buy in California isn’t based on the alcohol content, but the method of production,” explains Andrew McCormack, chef-owner at Early to Rise, a breakfast-and-brunch restaurant in NoPa. In other words, restaurant owners and bartenders have to know if what they serve was fermented or distilled. 

This can lead to some counterintuitive situations. Take Early to Rise’s bloody mary, made with Klir Red, an alternative vodka that’s 24% alcohol by volume, versus the typical 40%. Because it’s fermented from agave — as opposed to distilled from, say, potatoes — it’s compliant with the restaurant’s Type 42 license. “But we can’t use Aperol, which is only 11% or 12%, because it’s distilled,” McCormack says. “Some wines are higher!” 

Experts with strong palates might suss out a slight difference in Early to Rise’s bloody mary. But this gave the staff room to play. “It’s such an assertive cocktail, so we emphasize the cool stuff we can do to make it great,” McCormack says, such as adding dehydrated chiles, fermented cayenne, freshly grated horseradish, and pickled okra. “We load it up with stuff from our pantry, so that people aren’t really concerned with the alchemy behind the vodka.” 

A drink like that — peppery and acidic — is a way of having a good morning while ensuring that the morning after is good, too.