The newest restaurant in the restaurant ghetto of Valencia Street is West of Pecos, and it's a southwestern affair from the family that owns Woodhouse Fish Co., the MacNivens — including Tyler MacNiven, who's best known to Amazing Race fans for showing up as one of the winning "hippie" team in Season 9. The bar is doing a small selection of tequila and mezcal concoctions, including today's drink of the week, the Mezcal Mule.

It's of course a twist on the classic Moscow Mule, made with vodka, but in this version they use smoky mezcal and pungent, spicy Bundaberg ginger beer. The combination melds into a pleasant sweetness by the bottom of the cup, and we should note they're using aluminum prison cups to serve the drink — it's kind of a play on cowboy-camp cups, to go with stuff like their excellent skillet cornbread with molasses and chipotle butter, and tasty lamb albondigas.

Mezcal Mule

1.5 oz Vida Del Maguey Mezcal
1 oz freshly squeezed lime juice
2 dashes Angostura bitters
2 oz Bundaberg ginger beer

Shake mezcal, lime, and bitters in a shaker with ice. Serve on the rocks in a metal prison cup, topped with ginger beer.

The drinks are kind of the star over at six-month-old Wo Hing General Store in the Mission, though many have said some nice things about the food (it's good mind you, but we love those drinks!). And today brings with it the first update to bar star Brooke Arthur's cocktail menu, which includes a couple of new full-strength concoctions, as well as a list of four brand new, lower alcohol spritzers that are a perfect alternative to beer or wine when it's time to eat.

The most intriguing of the bunch is the Sparkling Chrysanthemum, which is a vermouth-based spritzer made with some stuff from Sonoma-based Sutton Cellars, which is a neutral white wine fortified with unaged brandy and infused with seventeen botanicals. And if you're curious about the name, it actually derives from a classic cocktail in the Savoy cocktail book.

Sparkling Chrysanthemum

2.5 oz. Sutton Cellars vermouth
0.75 oz. benedictine
3 dashes absinthe
1 dash Bitter Truth orange bitters
3 oz. sparkling wine

Fill a tall cocktail glass with ice and pour each ingredient in. Stir gently and garnish with an orange peel.

The Burritt Room (417 Stockton Street) just reopened this week after a brief remodel that now connects it to a full-service restaurant, the Burritt Tavern, from celebrity chef Charlie Palmer. The hotel where the restaurant and bar live is being renamed from the Crescent Hotel to the Mystic Hotel, and Palmer and his development team are marketing it as a chef-driven boutique hotel — something they say they may be doing more of in San Francisco.

Bar manager Liam Gillmore has crafted a new drink list for the bar that includes a number of classic cocktails, like the Clover Club cocktail, and a few new ones as well. One of the new concoctions is this easy-drinking punch, with malty Bols genever as its base and a touch of peach liqueur and citrus. Just as soon as the weather warms up, make yourself a pitcher.

Basil Peach Punch

2 oz. Bols genever
3/4 oz. Mathilde peach liqueur
0.5 oz. honey
0.5 oz. fresh lemon juice
1 pinch of salt
2 large basil leaves

Muddle the basil with the honey and lemon in a shaker. Add the remaining ingredients and shake vigorously with ice at least 15 times. Strain over ice in a rocks glass and garnish with a basil sprig.

Related: Step Inside Burritt Tavern, Opening Tonight

New Fifth Floor bar manager Brian Means has just unveiled an entirely new and rather extensive cocktail list at the tucked-away bar inside the Palomar Hotel. (See all the details over here at Alcademics.) There's plenty of kitchen magic happening with some of these drinks — tinctures and gastriques and such that you may not want to try at home, and are perhaps best tasted at the bar.

But there's an incredible variety of flavors, too, and we're especially into this bad boy, which is a combo of tequila and sherry, brightened with some lemon and balanced out with Calvados and orange bitters. And you won't have to infuse anything to make it at home, just make a trip to a fine liquor seller near you.

Aguamiel

1.5 oz. Espolon Reposado tequila
.75 oz. Lustau Amontillado sherry
.5 oz. Calvados
.5 oz. lemon juice
.5 oz. agave syrup
3 dashes orange bitters

Shake all of the ingredients together and strain into a coupe glass.

Recently reopened down in Pacifica is Moonraker restaurant, which was indeed named for the 1979 James Bond film, was closed for many years before brothers Shawn and Gary McNamara came along to revive it late last year.

It sits on a lovely piece of coastal property, and to complement the food from executive chef Jason Yeafoli is a new cocktail list created by consultant Victoria D'Amato-Moran. Below, the signature concoction, which is one of several Victoria created to reflect the restaurant's history and seaside locale. It's a white Manhattan, with corn whiskey and the lovely Dolin Blanc vermouth, which is not a dry vermouth but a sweet, floral, white vermouth that we even love on the rocks.

The Moonraker

2 oz. Original Moonshine corn whiskey
1 oz. Dolin Blanc vermouth
2 dashs of grapefruit bitters

Stir the ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and strain into a martini glass. Serve with a spiced brandied cherry.

If you haven't heard, Zero Zero is a good place for drinks, and food. Not only are the pizzas solid and the small plates excellent, they make a mean, well balanced cocktail. One brown-liquor concoction on the current menu (all of which is pretty interesting) is called the Park City. It's a rye-based drink that comes out a golden color with the addition of ginger liqueur and a little bitter hit from Cynar (an artichoke-based aperitif from Italy that you should really get to know if you haven't).

It's a simple drink, and perfect for rye lovers who don't like their Manhattans too sweet. But we'd recommend getting the High West Double Rye, as the flavor is kind of key here.

Park City

2 oz High West Double Rye
½ oz Canton Ginger
1 bar spoon Cynar

Stir all ingredients thoroughly with ice, and strain into a coupe or martini glass. Serve with a lemon peel garnish.

B Restaurant & Bar has been a bright cocktail oasis in Old Oakland for quite a few years now. They've got a new cocktail menu these days, and the concoction below is one of the highlights — a mixture of tequila, sage, lime, and habanero shrub, making it kind of an herbacious, spicy margarita.

The Wild Child

12 sage leaves
1.5 oz 7 Leguas Reposado
1 oz lime juice
.5 oz simple syrup or agave nectar
10 drops habanero shrub
.5 oz egg white

Muddle the sage with lime juice in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add the rest of the ingredients with ice and shake vigorously at least 20 times. Double-strain into a rocks glass, over ice. Garnish with a lime slice or sage leaf.

Not to confuse you after we posted a drink from new Oakland restaurant Haven the other week, but another brand new restaurant opened its doors last month, this one in the Lower Haight, called Maven (598 Haight). It's a concept by two guys with a bunch of restaurant experience around town — think Michael Mina, Saison, and Beretta — and behind the bar is a vet from Michael Mina and Wexler, Kate Bolton, who's been featured in this column twice before, and whose drinks are balanced, interesting, and go down easy.

Today's selection, the International Mistress, is a refreshing winter drink with an herbal-smoky Mezcal-Amaro base, served as a highball and topped with soda. And it's paired on the menu with a dish of braised fennel and watercress — the menu, you see, is a little grid of pairings, with cocktail and beer/wine options for each dish. And we should add, the food is pretty tight too!

International Mistress

1.5 oz Amaro Nonino
.5 oz Sombra Mezcal
.5 housemade orgeat*
.75 fresh lemon juice
Soda water

Shake all ingredients (except soda) with ice. Fine strain into collins glass with ice. Top with soda and garnish with long zest of grapefruit

*can substitute Small Hands Foods orgeat, available at Cask and elsewhere.

Over in Oakland, chef-restaurateur Daniel Patterson has just opened a fourth new restaurant, after just recently opening Plum Bar next to his one-year-old Plum at Webster and Broadway (he also owns the Michelin two-star Coi in North Beach). Haven is a New American bistro of sorts with an emphasis shared dishes, and the chef is the talented Kim Alter, who won some raves for a brief stint earlier this year at Plate Shop in Sausalito.

The cocktails at Haven are being created by Ron Boyd, who's also the chef at Plum and Plum Bar, and this one is a bright and refreshing beverage with a sort of unusual, savory ingredient: celery juice.

Flash Gordon

2 oz gin
1 oz celery juice
1/4 oz lime juice
1/2 oz simple syrup
1 oz soda

Shake the gin, celery juice, lime, and syrup with ice. Double-strain into a rocks glass. Top with soda and garnish with a celery stick.

So, check it out: There's a new restaurant in central SoMa, directly across Mission Street from the 9th Circuit, and it's called AQ (1085 Mission Street between 6th and 7th). They're taking the frequently heard "seasonal" thing to an extreme, swapping out decoration (lighting, bar top, foliage on several 'trees' in the space), glassware, the whole food menu, and even the servers' uniforms as each season changes. But just this week they launched their cocktail program, from the mind of bar manager Tim Zohn, and we already have a favorite beverage on the tight, ten-drink list.

This is a very fall-winter beverage, with spice, malt and apple notes, and it's made with a house-infused raisin genever that would be simple to do at home. Or you can just head over there to try one yourself.

New Amsterdam #1

1 oz and a half of raisin-infused Bols Genever*
1/4 oz of maple syrup
1/2 oz of apple cider spiked w/ apple cider vinegar
2 dashes of old fashioned bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a coupe glass.

* Steep a cup to a cup and a half raisins in a bottle of Bols genever for at least 24 hours.

What better time of year to do a little hotel-bar drinking around Union Square than December, right? It's about the only place in the city that feels truly Christmas-y, if you ask us, and the hotel lobbies are all decked out with enormous trees, and gingerbread structures, and whathaveyou. So we checked back in at the newly revamped Starlight Room, atop the Sir Francis Drake, and found this delicious new punch on the menu that's perfect for the season. Bar manager Joel Teitelbaum infuses his own apple-cinnamon gin, and adds a few more fall-wintery-spicy things to create a deliciously balanced little drink.

Here's the recipe below, sized for a crowd (at the Starlight room it's only available in this quantity, as a punch bowl for four).

Seasonal Punch

1 cup apple-cinnamon-infused gin*
1/2 cup Le Compt Calvados
1/2 cup unfiltered apple juice
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup honey syrup**
1/4 cup water
5 dashes St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram

Mix all ingredients in a punch bowl (can be sized up as needed, for parties). Add a large ice cube made by freezing a sturdy bowl full of water.

* To make the infused gin, steep four bags of apple-cinnamon tea in a liter of gin for 30 minutes.

** Honey Syrup: 1 part honey to 1 part hot water. Combine well. Chill.

Over in Oakland an exciting new cocktail option is opening tonight, in time for 11/11/11: Plum Bar (2214 Broadway), from the minds of chef Daniel Patterson and bar star Scott Beattie (Artisanal Cocktails). The place is right next door to Plum, the casual restaurant Patterson opened over a year ago. The drinks are all of extra-high caliber, and you can expect to see a foam gun get whipped out here and there. But Patterson's empire continues to expand, and at Plum they're actually serving a few drinks created by Beattie for Haven, the restaurant they're opening in December in Jack London Square.

Below, one of those drinks, from a menu that is going to take gin as its focus — though there will be other stuff available too. And over at Grub Street you can check out a slideshow of Plum Bar, which has its own drink and snack menus.

Live Basil Gimlet

1 1/2 oz Blade gin
3/4 oz fresh lime juice
1/2 oz Tres Agaves agave nectar
5 large basil leaves or 10 small ones

In an empty mixing glass, muddle the basil leaves then add the liquid ingredients. Add enough ice to fill the glass completely, seal with the metal part of the shaker, shake hard for about seven seconds, and double strain onto a small martini glass. Garnish with a basil leaf.

What do you know! There is such a thing as a piña colada that isn't thick with Coco Lopez, clocking in at 1000 calories and sickly sweet! Brooke Arthur, who's created drinks and tended bar at two of the city's more high-profile establishments, Range and Prospect, has just started work as the bar manager at Charles Phan's new Wo Hing General Store -- a Chinese concept in what was once the original Slanted Door space, at 584 Valencia Street.

Phan wanted Arthur to create a whimsical and fun drink menu to go with the uncomplicated, street-food-focused menu of the restaurant, and in addition to a delicious daiquiri and an equally tasty brandy sour, she created this refreshing and tart version of a tropical classic -- served on the rocks, not blended. Check it out if you're in the 'hood, and if the place isn't too slammed.

Piña Colada

2 oz. Barbancourt unaged rhum
1 oz. fresh-pressed pineapple juice
0.5 oz. pineapple gum syrup
1.5 oz. house-made coconut cream
0.75 oz lime juice

Put all ingredients in a shaker, give it a quick shake, and pour over crushed ice. Top with grated nutmeg and a speared cherry.