San Francisco Vintners Market

Independent and perennial craft distilleries take center stage during the San Francisco Craft Spirits Carnival. Across two days, more than 80 producers—including Great Lakes Distillery, Bulleit Bourbon, and St. Germain—pour samples for aficionados and curious customers alike to highlight the taste and texture of handcrafted whiskeys, gins, vodkas, mescals, absinthes, and spiked grape juice. The festival also works to expand knowledge of the alcohol arts through industry and consumer educational forums, dinners with spirits pairings at well-known local restaurants, and a culminating two-day tasting event at the Fort Mason Center Festival Pavilion. In keeping with its vaudeville-style carnival theme, the festival will also feature live performances by fire-eaters, trapeze artists, and contortionists, who keep any self-proclaimed Twister champions from bragging all day long.