WHAT ARE THE 6 OLDEST BARS IN SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, USA?

San Francisco is really an iconic place on the west coast which greatly contrast with Los Angeles. You will not find much of anything old in Los Angeles whereas San Francisco offers an 'old world' feeling. Where to find to the oldest bars in SF I wondered?

(1) The Oldest is "The Embarcadero"
Old Ship Saloon was established in 1851
298 Pacific Ave., www.oldshipsaloon.com
The oldest bar in San Francisco (Elixir will have something to say about that), Old Ship Saloon is a bar made out of a ship hull that ran aground during a storm off of Alcatraz. It was later towed to the current location at the beach. Since renovated, the bar still preserves the memory of the ship.

(2) The second oldest is "Elixir"
Elixir was established in 1858
3200 16th St., www.elixirsf.com
Elixir has seen a lot going on since the Wild West days. In 2003, the bar was fully restored to its original glory by 'H', its new owner.

(3) The third oldest is "The Saloon"
The Saloon was established in 1861
1232 Grant St.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saloon
The oldest “saloon” in the city. Yes there are still saloons in the US.

(4) The fourth oldest is "Northstar Cafe"
Northstar Cafe was established in 1882
1560 Powell St., https://twitter.com/northstarcafesf
The oldest bar in the North Beach area with plenty of libations and free popcorns all day.

(5) The fifth oldest is "Shotwell’s"
Shotwell's was established in 1891
3349 20th St., www.shotwellsbar.com
Shotwell’s originally opened as a grocery store saloon by German immigrants with a backroom for beer drinking. Today it serves only beer, but many including craft beers from the Bay Area.

(6) The sixth oldest is Little Shamrock
Little Shamrock was established in 1896
807 Lincoln Way, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Shamrock
The oldest business in the Sunset-Little Shamrock area nearby the Golden Gate Park. The Shamrock first opened in 1896 to let people have a beer and play darts.

What's in Common between a Stradivarius and a Cognac?

Old and Modern Violin

Old violins are always better than new ones. Expensive violins are better than cheap ones. One could say that this is the same for cognac!

Professor Claudia Fritz of the University of Paris VI and Joseph Curtin, a violin-maker have discovered that this opinion is biased. Twenty one professinal violinists were given to compare blindfolded a Stradivarius and a new quality violin. In this comparison, the Stradivarius were estimated at about 3 millions USD each versus the modern violin were about 30 thousand dollars each. Obviously, they could not compare the Stradivarius against cheap violins but against substantial violins made using modern technology.

One simple question was enough to say a lot: "given the chance, which violin would you want to take home?". The results are quite revealing since the majority of players clearly indicated the modern violins as being better. This study suggests that it is hard for people to be objective when estimating subjective measures as emotional as the feeling given by playing an instrument. This emotion is even more enhanced when one knows the value given to the instrument.

I wonder if this study would be true for cognacs as one may question the alleged superiority of the old cognacs over younger cognacs, and of the superiority of expensive cognacs over affordable cognacs. Now that we have 3D printing technology could it be that the Stradivarius status is jeopardized? Could we ever think of a liquid-D printing technology where we would be able to replicate on demand our favorite cognacs.

I am just day dreaming!

Please Sir! Print me a cognac...

http://brain4biz.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/brand-and-item-excellence-just-about-marketing-and-social-status/

http://www.economist.com/node/18114327

Photo: Source: Didacool, Wikipedia