Mission Coverage in the NYT – Beretta Cocktails

The NYT Travel Section visits the Mission yet again — this time around they managed to find Beretta and their finely crafted cocktails (while on a fancy-drink-tour of the city):

Todd Smith, who helped start Bourbon & Branch, developed the bar at Beretta, in the Mission District. I visited on a Thursday, the day Mr. Smith still works the bar. It was hot, so I led a small group of obliging friends through an extended flight of gorgeous drinks. A lucid pink Nuestra Paloma, of tequila, elderflower and grapefruit, glowed in the sun. The Agricole Mule was a tangy song of Martinique rum, sweet but not cloying housemade ginger syrup, lime and mint. The almond viscosity of fresh orgeat made by Small Hand Foods, a Berkeley company that specializes in craft cocktail ingredients, offset the phenolic astringency of St. George absinthe in the Gaby de Lys.

We continued with a Pisco Punch that married satisfying pineapple gomme richness with pisco’s depth. The Airmail was beautiful — the cocktail version of latte art — and mixed the tickle of prosecco with honey’s roundness. It gave way to the best thing we drank that day: a refreshing Rangoon Gin Cobbler that tasted like a liquid Dreamsicle.

I still stand behind the Improved Whiskey Cocktail, not that you can really go wrong with anything you get there. A couple of pictures of Beretta (well, the drinks, at least) in the review.

Airmail at Beretta

(Note to self — must use “redolent”, “tawdry” and “pellucid” more often.)