Great spots for chavelas - those hidden hipster dreams - in Monterey County.

It's not that chavelas are that hard to find, it's that most gringos don't even know they exist.

That's one reason we featured them as the cover stars of a Food and Drink 2014 special issue out today called "The New Hipster Handbook." Obscure and hard to find is very hipster.

But our last pursuit of the holy Clamato grail was as strange as it was difficult.

Weekly contributor and South County connoisseur David Schmalz and I were combing downtown Gonzales for a chavela spot when we came across Carlito's Two with a painting of a chavela on the window.

That certainly makes things easier.

Only inside nobody was there. Ghost town. 

I walked front to back 100 feet through the place to the kitchen. Still nobody.

All the video games were unplugged.

We sat and waited and eventually—poof!—a man named Jose Santos appeared, grinning. 

We put in an order for two, told him which choice of beers—recalibrated after both were out—and he disappeared again.

We were left for long enough to discuss why the chavela trumps the Bloody Mary as the new hipster drink of choice. 

As I write in the Hipster Handbook: 

The tricked-out Bloody Mary has been a hipster flagship, loaded with thick-cut bacon and pickled carrots. At Turn 12 (400 Tyler St., Monterey, 372-8876), the bloody even includes beef broth.

Chavelas – a celebratory combination of beer, tomato juice or Clamato, seasonings, citrus and occasionally tequila and jug wine – are a thorough upgrade on the adventure: more culturally ingrained, harder to find, creatively adapted place to place.

Most worthy spots to get them are authentic Mexican joints where English is rarely primero. Many call South County home.

At divey Carlito’s in Gonzales (148 Alta St., Gonzales, 675-3401), the empty bar-restaurant soon filled with an intoxicating smell of garlic.

Santos eventually emerged with freshly butter-sauteed shrimp on top of our glorious drinks, and a touch of wine and tequila in the heart ($8). 

We laughed our way through a tour of the dollar bills taped to the mirror above the bar and had just about the best chavelas ever. Only then I heard about the 32-ouncers at Mariscos and the secret ingredient at La Alteña...

A list of great chavela spots emerges here:

La Alteña • 542 E Laurel Drive, Salinas • (831) 757-5508 • Cerveza, Clamato, salt, lemon juice, ample shrimp and—oh yes—una ingrediente secreto ($8, see picture). 

Hacienda Grill • 1449 N. Davis Road, Salinas • 424-6400 • Tomato juice, Clamato, spices, Chardonnay, Tapatio, lime juice, beer ($10).

Mariscos Puerto Nuevo • 580 Broadway Ave., Seaside • 583-0411 • Two cervezas, Clamato, tequila, four shrimp, spices, celery and citrus fill up a 32-ounce pitcher, or jarra ($10, see picture, above left). 

Phil's Fish Market • 7600 Sandholdt Road, Moss Landing • 633-2152 • White Zin, Clamato, lime juice, Tapatio, celery salt, fresh celery and three prawns ($8).

The Watering Trough • 235 West St., Soledad • 678-1726 • Comes with salami, olives, shrimp, Franzia and cactus juice ($9).