Third Rail

Third Rail occupies a corner on 20th Street in Dogpatch, a neighbourhood the city's drinking guides tend to skip in favour of the Mission. The Infatuation lists it among the twenty best cocktail bars in San Francisco and notes the bar's other speciality: house-made jerky, cured on site and sold by the bag alongside the drinks. The room is small and dark, with house-made bitters and cordials behind the bar, and it trades late on Friday and Saturday, opening at 2pm and running to 2am.

What distinguishes the alcohol-free offering here is the structure rather than the length of the list. Instead of a separate mocktail section, Third Rail annotates the main cocktail menu, marking individual drinks as available as non-alcoholic so the same build, the same house cordials and the same house bitters go into the glass either way. Four of the shaken drinks carry the note. The house Third Rail is lemon, honey and orange bitters. Evil Twin is grapefruit and lemon with the bar's house-made spicy bitters. Pawloma pairs grapefruit, lime, agave and elderflower with sparkling grapefruit soda, and proceeds from it go to Muttville Senior Dog Rescue. Yuzu Cute combines elderflower, yuzu, pineapple, lemon and mint. Alongside those, the bar keeps one purpose-built zero-proof cocktail on the list year-round: Dragonfly, made with Ritual Zero Proof tequila, butterfly pea flower, agave, lime and clove, which is priced as a standard cocktail with a small supplement if a guest wants a well tequila or mezcal added. The result is that a table can order together from the same menu, which is a materially better experience than being handed a separate card of three sweet drinks. The bar is closed on Mondays, opens at 4pm Tuesday through Thursday and on Sunday, and from 2pm on Friday and Saturday, and takes bookings for parties by email. For Dogpatch, which has very little in the way of a cocktail scene compared with the Mission or North Beach, it is the neighbourhood's most serious drinks room and the only one in the district running a standing zero-proof build.