10 livers, 10 days, 99 bars

It’s that time again. Time for millions of Americans to don an emerald hue and drink themselves silly in honor of the pied piper of Ireland and, yes, the patron saint of Sacramento, St. Patrick.

Coincidentally, every year around this time, SN&R would typically include an advertising section, devoid of editorial content—boo!—highlighting the area’s drinking and night life establishments.

Well hell, us writers drink—OK, some of us are reformed, and hopefully still so after this assignment—so why not invest some of that editorial talent and experience in a full-blown Drinking Guide? Write what you know, as they say.

So we did. We revisited old haunts, and we made it a point to find new ones. We talked to patrons and bartenders, searched through jukebox selections, tested the level of pool tables, and we drank. A lot. All in the interest of informing you, our thirsty readers.

Of course, we couldn’t cover every bar in our monster round-up. For that, we’re sorry. It’s not that we didn’t want to, but our primary-care physicians explained to us that cirrhosis—as cool as the word sounds—was something to be avoided. Huh. But hey, let us know if we missed one of your favorite hangouts. We’ll be sure to come by, get righteously arse-holed, make a scene and maybe remember to write about it next time around.

Until then—sláinte, skál and l’chaim!

Drinking issue listings

Contributors: Kimberly Brown, Sena Christian, Matt Coker, Edward Dunn, Josh Fernandez, Cosmo Garvin, Jonathan Kiefer, Nick Miller, Emily Page, R.V. Scheide