“America’s Most interesting Metropolis” is a nickname San Diego earned largely for its famously good climate and seashores. However for whiskey lovers, its downtown, particularly the Gaslamp neighborhood, is a hotbed of standout bars. The town can also be well-known for its domestically beloved blissful hours, so ingrained that just about each watering gap joins within the enjoyable. Institutions have specials from late afternoon and/or early night on weekdays and in some circumstances weekends.
San Diego’s airport is lower than 10 minutes, with out site visitors, from downtown the place parking is scarce. Available rideshare companies are your greatest wager.
Make Aero Membership Bar the primary cease in your technique to the Gaslamp or the final cease earlier than you depart; there are over 1,000 whiskies to select from.
Day One
The Horton Grand Lodge opened within the Gaslamp District in 1886, and catered to celebrities from Wyatt Earp to Babe Ruth to President Benjamin Harrison. As we speak it’s a fairly priced historic hidden gem, filled with Nineteenth-century antiques—and most just lately, bar and restaurant Salt & Whiskey. It gives a lightweight breakfast menu, so begin your day with an egg sandwich, in a single day oats, or no matter else strikes your fancy.
Cutwater Spirits is the area’s best-known distillery, with excursions beginning at midday. Its signature is canned cocktails, however in addition they make whiskeys, most notably Satan’s Share bourbon and rye. One-hour distillery excursions embrace a alternative of 5 tasting flights, however solely the $25 Whiskey Lineup contains whiskeys, quarter-ounce pours of Cutwater rye and bourbon and Satan’s Share American whiskey and bourbon. It’s a strikingly fashionable glass-walled facility, with a standout restaurant the place you need to get pleasure from lunch. Cocktails embrace an Outdated Long-established ($13), Manhattan ($14), and a Satan’s Share Sazerac ($20). The meals menu is sort of different however the Whiskey Smash Burger, with whiskey-glazed onions, is a weekday lunch particular that features a canned cocktail ($17).
Cutwater is in northern San Diego, about 15 miles north of the Gaslamp Quarter, and two extra distilleries producing whiskeys are additional north in Oceanside (40 miles from Gaslamp), so if you would like extra excursions and tastings, this is able to be the most effective time to suit them in. Pacific Coast Spirits makes triticale and wheated bourbons, American single malt, and corn whiskey, plus different spirits, and has a restaurant and tasting room however doesn’t provide excursions. Alternatively, Oceanside Distillers, only a 10-minute drive from Pacific Coast Spirits, doesn’t have meals or a tasting room however gives non-public excursions and tastings by reservation.
In any other case, earlier than blissful hour within the Gaslamp, cease on the San Diego Zoo, one of many highest-rated on this planet and essentially the most visited in the US. Greater than 12,000 animals occupy the 100-acre campus within the metropolis’s inexperienced heart, Balboa Park. If animals will not be your factor, one other top-rated San Diego attraction is the USS Halfway Museum, that includes the eponymous longest-serving plane service of the twentieth century, which noticed motion from post-WWII via Vietnam, Operation Desert Storm, and extra. It’s celebrating its twentieth anniversary as a floating museum in 2024, inside strolling distance of the Gaslamp Quarter.
Again on the Horton, drop into Salt & Whiskey, the place its blissful hour particular is $2 off signature cocktails. The off-menu native favourite is the Frequent Fryer, created by bar supervisor Mick Cetera, who calls it a “tiki tackle whiskey,” made with apricot, candied mango, easy syrup, and Historic Age bourbon. There are over 300 whiskies right here, and the listing tops out at 30 12 months outdated Talisker ($425/2 oz.). Cetera created eight tasting flights, from $30-$145, every with three 1-ounce pours, together with the Irish ($30) that features The Sexton, Glendalough Pot Sill, and Connemara Peated.
Most whisky bars are within the Gaslamp, however Seven Grand is within the fashionable North Park neighborhood, and its Whiskey Society hosts a visiting distiller each Wednesday and Friday at 8 p.m. It’s an awesome deal at $25 and features a welcome cocktail and a four-flight tasting with gentle snacks. In any other case, there are near 900 bottles to select from, together with over 30 non-public single barrel bottlings, with costs starting from $7/2 oz. for Outdated Crow bourbon and Outdated Overholt rye to Yamazaki 25 12 months outdated at $2,500 (1 oz. pours are additionally obtainable). However the total worth proposition is stable, and there are inexpensive flights, together with one in every of non-public barrels (4 Roses 2023 OESQ, Balcones True Blue cask power, and McCarthy cask power, $39), plus they’ve a Suntory Highball draft machine.
Pendry is one in every of San Diego’s prime luxurious lodges and has an awesome restaurant, Lionfish, which celebrates the town’s seafood-focused delicacies in a contemporary, upscale means. There are a number of uncooked choices, from sashimi, crudo, and tartare to recent oysters, plenty of grilled recent catch, plus steaks and chops. You’ll be able to take a desk or eat on leather-based high-back stools on the bar, behind which is a formidable collection of whiskies, together with scotch, American, and Japanese, and home cocktails together with the Pink Eye ($19): Russell’s Reserve bourbon, espresso liqueur, amaro, and orange bitters. With a number of eating and consuming choices, the Pendry gives one thing for everybody.
Day Two
Breakfast Republic is a well-liked Southern California chain with a Gaslamp location that’s good for brunch. They’ve eclectic takes on eggs Benedicts (crab and crawfish, croque monsieur), omelets (shrimp and ricotta, mashed potato and bacon), pancakes (Oreo cookie, churro), French toast (banana break up), and regional specialties like shrimp and grits, breakfast jambalaya, and chilaquiles. It’s a enjoyable, hearty technique to begin your day.
San Diego Distillery is situated in a nondescript industrial park 20 minutes east of the Gaslamp. Its tasting room is open solely on Saturdays from 1-6 p.m., providing a pleasant, intimate expertise with a U-shaped bar and a few dozen stools, some worn couches, and draped cloth hung from the ceiling. Whiskeys are displayed in an vintage backbar cupboard and all alongside the bar itself. They do lots of small-run experimental expressions, a mixture of merchandise made right here and a few contract-distilled elsewhere. They age in specialty barrels and have an in depth lineup distilled from beers. After contemplating the choices, you get a complementary tasting of three merchandise of your alternative; most can solely be bought right here. Some of the widespread is a bourbon completed in peanut-butter stout casks, and a particular version Padres bourbon, blended from 4 handpicked barrels and bottled at 94 proof, honoring star Tony Gwynn’s 1994 season when he batted .394. In case you like quirky distilleries and stuff you gained’t discover elsewhere, that is your house.
You’ll be able to end the day within the Gaslamp on foot, and the can’t-miss cease is The Whiskey Home, proudly displaying its certificates from Guinness World Data proclaiming it the world’s largest whisky listing, with about 4,500. “We began with about 300 whiskies and simply hold including, it by no means ends,” says co-owner Alex Minaev. “We’ve got lots of worldwide whiskies.” Along with the same old U.S., UK, and Japan, the listing has whiskies from practically two dozen international locations, together with Austria, Switzerland, Iceland, Israel, Belgium, Finland, Italy, Brazil, and extra. There’s an alphabetical information to U.S. states, and below Unbiased Bottlers there are two dozen-plus past the same old Cadenhead, Signatory, and Gordon & McPhail. They’ve 10 non-public cask alternatives, together with Kilchoman ($16) and Japan’s Kaiyo – ($24), all 1¾-ounce pours.
What else might they consider? There are 10 signature Outdated Fashioneds, together with the Smoking West ($16) made with Excessive West Double Rye, Laphroaig Choose, burnt sugar, and barrel-aged bitters. It gives three dozen tasting flights, every 5 half-ounce pours, together with a San Diego regional, Indian, and Taiwanese. The Insane Pappy is $599 (Outdated Rip Van Winkle 10 12 months outdated, Van Winkle Particular Reserve 12 12 months outdated, and Pappy Van Winkle 15, 20, and 23 12 months olds). The When Cash is No Object flight is priced at $699 and contains Heaven’s Door 26 12 months outdated Mizunara, WhistlePig Boss Hog, Heaven Hill 27 12 months outdated, OFC 25 12 months outdated distilled in 1994, and Michter’s Celebration 2010. But when cash is admittedly, really no object, attempt a pour of Macallan 30 12 months outdated Sherry Cask at $1,100. Glad hour options $5 beers with a $1 whiskey shot (Benchmark or Jim Beam Black). There’s additionally a full menu, and since opening a decade in the past, the signature has been the Laphroaig ice cream, which is superb.
If The Whiskey Home was the neighborhood’s solely bar it might be sufficient, however there are a number of others together with Salt & Whiskey, bourbon-centric Whiskey Lady, and your subsequent cease, Barleymash. The proprietor mixed his 4 passions—sports activities, music, good meals, and whiskey—and created a large upscale sports activities bar. An enormous, marble-topped island bar with a number of televisions occupies the middle, there are tables and cubicles round it, and within the again a smaller bar the place the whiskies are displayed—together with these in a revolving whiskey carousel, a carnival journey for uncommon bottles.
The superb home Outdated Long-established, the Ron Burgundy, makes use of their present private-barrel bottling, most just lately Woodford Reserve, however they’ve additionally had Elijah Craig, Michter’s, and Templeton rye. The listing gives about 200 decisions, from $12 for Jack Daniel’s and $14 for Baker’s, 4 Roses Small Batch, and Outdated Forester 1870 to $295 for Pappy Van Winkle 23 12 months outdated. Barleymash has some of the widespread—and greatest priced—blissful hours on the town, with half-off most whiskies (excluding its Reserve listing) and cocktails Monday via Friday from 3-6 p.m.
Chef Kevin Templeton is a neighborhood hero who was a winner on TV’s “Chopped” and cooked on “Beat Bobby Flay.” He makes use of whiskey in his recipes, and you need to keep for dinner, which incorporates connoisseur skillet takes on poutine-style topped fries, artistic riffs on mac and cheese, barbecue, and bigger entrees from crimson chile and garlic-braised brief ribs to mustard-crusted salmon.
Distilleries
Cutwater Spirits cutwaterspirits.com
Oceanside Distillers oceansidedistillers.com
Pacific Coast Spirits paccoastspirits.com
San Diego Distillery sddistillery.com
Bars & Eating places
Aero Membership Bar aeroclubbar.com
Barleymash barleymash.com
Breakfast Republic breakfastrepublic.com
Lionfish pendry.com
Salt & Whiskey hortongrand.com
Seven Grand sevengrandsd.com
Whiskey Lady whiskeygirl.com
The Whiskey Home thewhiskeyhousesd.com
Accommodations
Horton Grand hortongrand.com
Pendry pendry.com
Sights
San Diego Zoo sandiegozoowildlifealliance.org
USS Halfway Museum halfway.org
