Things to Do in Orinda

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.

Monte Carlo Night combines the indulgent pleasures of gambling and carousing with a wholesome investment in the health of the community. This year's event is a fundraiser for the City of Dreams organization to help San Francisco's youth in low-income housing achieve success through education and mentorship programs. The VIP pass allows guests to mingle at the mezzanine level alongside an open bar kept flowing by Jaqk Cellars and innovative sushi from Yoshi's executive chef. Throw money around like a child millionaire in a candy store with $1,500 in 21 Fun gambling money, 10 Casino Prize coupons, 10 Ace in the Hole coupons, and 10 Lucky Buck coupons, all good for competitive play around high-limit blackjack and craps tables.

Within the Winery Collective's multi-winery tasting room, grape savants uncork the flavorful nuances of liquid harvests hailing from more than 2 dozen of California's boutique wineries from Santa Barbara to Napa Valley. Winemakers and enthusiasts guide palates through wine-flight menus, which are culled from the more than 100 vinos that line the tasting room's walls and, like the political views of a housecat, change daily. The Winery Collective also hosts private and semiprivate parties and corporate events, during which guests mingle and sip in a lofted earth-toned lounge outfitted with crisscrossing wooden shelves that display colorful wine bottles and shapely decanters.

A pianist's ivory tickling underscores Big City Improv’s heralded cast of joke tellers during one-of-a-kind improvised comedy shows. Crowds lob laughs and suggestions toward the performers who incorporate shouted-out ideas into scenes, games, and skits. The entertainers also invite audience members onstage to participate in bits and get the spotlight to stop staring at them.

The thick September fog haunts the water like a lonely ghost, obscuring the boat’s passengers’ view of everything but their fellow riders. Convinced that they’ll see nothing more that day, Captain Joe Nazar turns his vessel around and heads back to shore when suddenly, out of the brume, a graceful hulk breaks through the rolling waters. The boat has unwittingly happened upon a pod of humpback whales, and everyone––including the seasoned naturalist guides aboard––suddenly falls into a stunned silence as the majestic creatures spout water and dive into the mist. Fostering humbling, awe-inspiring interactions with nature such as this is Captain Joe’s raisons d'être and the driving force behind the founding of San Francisco Whale Tours.

San Francisco Whale Tours demonstrates the beauty and diversity of the Bay’s bustling ecosystem with regular nature tours that trawl the coast. Captain Joe––aided by his expert crew and sage naturalists––shares his passion for aquatic adventures with his guests via leisurely excursions through the waters of the Farallon Islands aboard the Kitty Kat, his trusted watercraft. The catamaran ferries its curious passengers in style with a sun deck and enclosed cabin, and its low wake and gentle underwater noise make it a model marine houseguest. Aiding the crusade to preserve whale populations, San Francisco Whale Tours donates a portion of profits to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

GoCars are little, sunshine-yellow storytelling cars, acting as magic transport eggs by safely cradling up to two passengers (aged 5 and older) through a narrated, GPS-guided tour of San Diego's hot spots. GoCars navigate the city terrain, describing the significance of historic sights such as Fort Stockton, originally a rest stop on the Comanche Trail, and the California Missions Museum, which hosts life-size replicas of Civil War–period Spanish missions and nearly half of Arnold Schwarzenegger's doppelgangers. Adventurers can choose between two different narrated tour routes: downtown San Diego or Point Loma. The downtown San Diego tour showcases urban views of Petco Park, Seaport Village, and the San Diego Zoo, and the Point Loma trek ventures into San Diego's maritime attractions, including the sleepy, shore-bound community called Ocean Beach. These copilot cars invite tour-goers to make detours and food stops, giving riders the freedom to shape their own tour according to their camera wants, appetites, and traveling intuition.