The city of San Francisco consumes almost fifty percent of the Fernet Branca imported into the United States, but it’s not the kind of thing you drink while buying a Property of Alcatraz sweatshirt, or while fending off West Nile infected seagulls at Fisherman’s Wharf, or picking up a Penguin Classic copy of On the Road at City Lights Bookstore. You’re supposed to drink it on a Sunday morning at Ocean Beach while illegally fishing for Dungeness Crab with a few old Chinese guys as hungover as you are; on a Saturday afternoon in Dolores Park while trying to ignore the thwack of tennis balls and keeping an eye out for the pot truffle guy; on a Wednesday night while lying in bed and discussing whether Sutro Tower could fall over and pin you to your bed, squirming and bleeding, during a massive earthquake.

It tastes like the poison that the wicked queen used to try and kill Snow White. In San Francisco it’s traditional to order it with a ginger ale back but, hell, let your freak flag fly.

—Arlo Crawford