Keli Rivers

Keli Rivers is likely the only person on Earth with the job title of ginnoisseur. Which, she laughs, “definitely makes me sound like a drunk dinosaur.”

It’s fitting that Rivers should have a singular job title, because at Whitechapel (600 Polk St.), the year-old Tenderloin bar from Smuggler’s Cove owner Martin Cate, she plays an unusual role: More an educator than a drink-mixer, Rivers works the floor sommelier-style to explain Whitechapel’s 600-item gin selection to customers. She runs a social club called the Polk Street Irregulars, in which willing students work (and drink) their way through Whitechapel’s dossiers on the history of the spirit.

It’s a way of being a bartender that didn’t exist before, and perhaps still could not exist outside of San Francisco.

Rivers, who attended culinary school and worked as a cook, had attempted a similar type of spiritseducation program 10 years ago at T-Rex, a Berkeley barbecue joint that specialized in American whiskey. Rivers kept a tally of which whiskeys her regular customers had tried. They got competitive — and got geeky.

Whiskey happened. But gin still needs advocates. Rivers calls it “a palette of colors,” the spirit most capable of elevating diverse aspects of a drink: “Seeing that evolution that happened with whiskey, where people are now taking photos of bottles, talking about allocations — that’s happening now with gin.” With the largest gin selection in North America, she has a unique stage on which to showcase it. And for the price of a cocktail, you can see the show.