{"id":105072,"date":"2025-12-22T16:50:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T16:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/105072\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T16:50:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T16:50:16","slug":"no-beer-no-wine-no-problem-sfs-newest-bottle-shop-sells-spirits-only","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/105072\/","title":{"rendered":"No beer, no wine, no problem \u2014 SF\u2019s newest bottle shop sells spirits only"},"content":{"rendered":"

Distilling is roaring back in San Francisco, and a new spirits shop just off a busy commercial corridor is championing the resurgence.<\/p>\n

Ahead of its grand opening north of the Panhandle last week, Bitters & Bottles (opens in new tab)<\/a> partnered with Mission producer Brucato Spirits (opens in new tab)<\/a> to produce a barrel-aged batch of its signature amaro, the herbaceous digestif Chaparral (opens in new tab)<\/a>. Bitters & Bottles proprietor Joe Barwin partnered with the distillery to come up with the ideal saffron-spearmint flavor, with amped-up notes of honey and anise. At 46% ABV, Brucato Chaparral Amaro Reserve has a higher alcohol content than typical herbal liqueurs and is darker and cloudier than regular Chaparral.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did a light filtering on this to leave some of the cloudy sediment, which can have a really lovely flavor,\u201d Barwin says. \u201cWe wanted the boldest version we could get.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ShelvesBitters & Bottles first opened in South San Francisco in 2013. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades\/The Standard<\/p>\n

Aged for two years in Rittenhouse rye barrels, the collaboration \u2014 which isn\u2019t available anywhere else \u2014 yielded 150 bottles, of which fewer than half remain. Otherwise, Bitters & Bottles\u2019 walls are lined with whiskeys, brandies, and liqueurs, and, given the proximity to Alamo Square and the Panhandle, there\u2019s a fridge filled with canned cocktails perfect for a picnic in the park. There\u2019s also a section of nonalcoholic alternatives, owing to explosive growth in the category\u2019s quality and quantity over the past two years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bitters & Bottles sells only spirits. There are no six-packs of beer or bottles of wine. \u201cPeople come to us for that hard-to-find cocktail ingredient,\u201d Barwin says. \u201cThey go around the store saying, \u2018Oh, you have that thing!\u2019\u201d The shop has a negroni club and an old-fashioned club that meet quarterly, allowing members to learn tips and share ideas.<\/p>\n

\"ShelvesThe store stocks only spirits, liqueurs, vermouths, and the like, no beer or wine. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades\/The Standard<\/p>\n

Barwin has observed that his customers seem to have an insatiable thirst for one item in particular. \u201cI\u2019ve been surprised by how much this neighborhood likes drinking vermouth on the rocks,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s more easygoing \u2014 not as boozy as a full-strength cocktail. It\u2019s an easy way to be a more balanced sipper.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bitters & Bottles occupies a former Bank of America location, which had long been vacant, at Falletti Plaza, the foodie hub near Divisadero Street and the Panhandle that\u2019s also home to Nopalito, Schlok\u2019s Bagels<\/a>, RT Rotisserie, and family-run specialty grocer Falletti Foods.<\/p>\n

This is Bitters & Bottles\u2019 second location; the first opened in 2013 in South San Francisco. This one almost didn\u2019t happen. San Francisco has strict zoning regulations that govern retail liquor licenses in commercial areas. Even though the shop fronts Fell Street at Broderick, the address was grandfathered into the restricted Divisadero corridor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ABrucato Amaro Reserve is Bitters & Bottles\u2019 collab with Brucato Spirits. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades\/The Standard<\/p>\n

To amend the law, Barwin appealed to the office of former Supervisor Dean Preston, a process that took six months and involved the Falletti family advocating on Barwin\u2019s behalf before the full board. However eye-glazing such bureaucratic hurdles may be, they\u2019re life-or-death; during his long search, Barwin found a great location across town, but the supervisor in that neighborhood was not amenable to tweaking the zoning.<\/p>\n

The original Bitters & Bottles, just off U.S. 101, is close to SFO, and for a time, Barwin sold mini cocktail kits that allowed people to mix up drinks in midair. Over time, airline crackdowns on bringing alcohol aboard put the kibosh on that gimmick \u2014 but he hasn\u2019t given up entirely. The Fell Street store carries 100 mL, premade cocktails in discreet cans, from San Francisco-based Golden Rule. \u201cThey\u2019re excellent,\u201d Barwin says. \u201cThey\u2019ve become my personal go-to smuggle.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Distilling is roaring back in San Francisco, and a new spirits shop just off a busy commercial corridor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[416,21400,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-105072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-cocktails","9":"tag-lower-haight","10":"tag-san-francisco","11":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","12":"tag-san-francisco-news","13":"tag-sf","14":"tag-sf-headlines","15":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}