Each month, as part of an ongoing portrait of rising talent in the bartending community, PUNCH hosts a resident bartender who has demonstrated a strong sense of personal style. In this installment, New York’s Nathan McCarley-O’Neill is taking over our bar, and debuting a custom menu of four original cocktails that we’ll serve throughout his month-long residency.

Since he started bartending more than a decade ago, Nathan McCarley-O’Neill has studied alongside the the most forward-thinking figures in the industry. 

When he began working at The Merchant Hotel in his native Belfast, McCarley-O’Neill overlapped with Sean Muldoon and Jack McGarry just before they set off for New York to open The Dead Rabbit. Not long after, he moved to London where he worked under Ryan Chetiyawardana at the White Lyan, and then Dandelyan, where he held the position of head bartender for a year and a half before moving to New York to work for Leo Robitscheck, bar director at The NoMad. While McCarley-O’Neill surely has the resume to open his own bar, he’s chosen a path of mentorship for now—a route that feels all-too-rare in today’s bartending world.

O’Neill’s work with Robitschek and Pietro Collina, bar director for NoMad Europe, has helped further refine his approach to layering flavors—something for which The NoMad team has looked to the back of house to help master. “We all enjoy drinking pretty much the same style of drinks,” he says, citing their shared love for vermouth, sherry and bitter aperitif wines. McCarley-O’Neill also notes the open dialogue with the kitchen as a huge source of inspiration for him. “Being able to be influenced by the likes of Chef Humm is a huge factor for me,” he says. “Being able to see… how they balance characteristics in the food, which might look one way, but within each of those dishes you have so much complexity—it’s a surprising factor.” 

The same element of surprise is a recurring motif in McCarley-O’Neill’s drinks. Take his Kingdom of Savoy, for example. The drink’s use of pineapple, lime and coconut, signals tiki, but where one might expect to find rum, a few unorthodox ingredients—absinthe, Branca Menta, amaro—come into play instead. Likewise, his Longfellow, a savory, Collins-style drink that incorporates horseradish-infused gin and cardamom, is served in an opaque black highball glass garnished with a daikon ribbon that further obscures the drink from above. “The idea is you don’t really see the drink,” he explains, “and then whenever the flavor actually comes around, it’s completely different than you expected it to be.”

It’s McCarley-O’Neill‘s instinct for building clear flavor profiles from seemingly disparate ingredients, often presented in ways that defy the drinker’s expectations, that defines his style. Yet while his drinks are often cerebral and technically advanced, they stop short of demanding anything more than enjoyment from the drinker. “I’m driven by flavor and complexity,” he says, “but also making sure that whenever I’m making drinks that they’re fun.”

Here, get to know Nathan McCarley-O’Neill in four drinks.

Kingdom of Savoy

The Kingdom of Savoy takes McCarley-O’Neill’s signature tack of defying expectations by looking one way and tasting another. “When people order this off the menu, nobody really knows what to expect,” he says. “It doesn’t really read like a drink that you’re going to like straight away.” A combination of absinthe, Nardini Amaro, Branca Menta, pineapple, lime and coconut syrup, it reads like a tiki drink by way of Europe. “The idea was to kind of not necessarily go down the route of rum, but to try and build off a multitude of different flavors.”

McCarley-O’Neill cites the Absinthe Colada at Maison Premiere as a key inspiration for this drink. “Maison [Premiere] really opened my eyes to the use of absinthe as a driving force behind a drink,” he says. “I tasted the Absinthe Colada when those guys first created it and it’s still one of the most outstanding drinks ever. I’d always wanted to kind of look at that as a perspective but then also play on the fact of how delicious some amaros are.”

Longfellow

Created when Eleven Madison Park, where McCarley-O’Neill also oversees the bar, re-opened after an extensive renovation, the Longfellow takes direct inspiration from Chef Daniel Humm, particularly the notion that one dish, or in this case one drink, can use multiple elements to reinforce a single idea. “The idea was to do a savory-style Collins,” explains McCarley-O’Neill. To this end, horseradish-infused gin serves as the base, offering a slight heat that pairs with cardamom and complements small amounts of pear and apple brandy, all amplified with a few drops of saline solution. “The idea of using horseradish in it was to add something that paired very well with cardamom, to carry the length of the drink as long as possible,” he explains.

Eight States

“Pretty much every drink that we do will contain some form of vermouth or sherry, or a low-ABV ingredient,” says McCarley-O’Neill, “It’s kind of like a calling card.” The Eight States contains three: equal parts blanc vermouth and Cocchi Americano, a measure of aloe vera liqueur and, to round things out, a hefty dose of mezcal. “I wanted to create something a bit lower in ABV, a little more approachable, but still similar to what a Negroni is, but more so like a white Negroni,” he says.

Coco En Rama

“This one is just fun,” says McCarley-O’Neill. “When myself and Leo were in Miami a couple of years ago we fell in love with fresh coconuts with rum in them.” He channels the refreshing spirit of the simple mixture, but puts a decidedly high-brow spin on it. Fino sherry replaces rum and is paired with tarragon-infused blanc vermouth, Cocchi Americano, falernum and un-pasteurized coconut water, which adds a richer mouthfeel. “It’s super easy drinking,” he says.   

Kingdom of Savoy: A combination of absinthe, Nardini Amaro, Branca Menta, pineapple, lime and coconut syrup, it reads like a tiki drink by way of Europe. [Recipe]

Longfellow: A savory Collins-style drink built on horseradish-infused gin. [Recipe]

Eight States: A low proof twist on the White Negroni calling on mezcal, aloe liqueur and Cocchi Americano. [Recipe]

Coco En Rama: An easy drinking recipe consisting of fino sherry, tarragon-infused blanc vermouth and coconut water. [Recipe]

The post Nathan McCarley-O’Neill Is a Rarity appeared first on PUNCH.

Since the early days of the cocktail revival, the Amaretto Sour has been regarded as little more than the butt of a joke. In fact, the widespread ridicule of the drink quickly became a banner cause for the movement, which was defined by fresh ingredients and a rejection of any cocktail created after 1950. For Jeffrey Morgenthaler, the blanket derision of what was once “just a drink that nobody had an opinion on” never sat well with him.

“I didn’t get into this business because I wanted to make fancy drinks. I just liked working in bars,” says Morgenthaler. “I thought it was pretty stupid to just say that all these drinks that we’d been drinking and making for the past however many years was just pointless.”

But even the staunch defender of the Amaretto Sour saw room for improvement. “What if,” he ask, “we applied everything that we’ve learned over the past 10 years of quote-unquote mixology and just make the drink the way it should be?” His updated version first appeared on the Pepe Le Moko menu five years ago and has since become something of an industry standard.

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Jeffrey Morgenthaler's Amaretto Sour

This update calls on overproof bourbon for added backbone and balance.

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What truly sets Morgenthaler’s rendition apart—even from other contemporary versions—is his departure from the traditional sour formula, which results in too cloying a drink. Instead of using two ounces of amaretto he dials the bitter almond liqueur back to one and a half ounces, making up the last half ounce, and then some, with cask-strength bourbon. “The whiskey was the thing that makes it really different,” he says. “You can’t make that drink taste good without putting in a different spirit; amaretto is not strong enough on its own.” For this, Morgenthaler opts for Booker’s, but notes that Old Granddad 114 is also a good standard. “You just need something 100 proof or higher—the higher you go the better it’s going to be.”

In place of the typical sour mix, an ounce of fresh lemon juice stands in for brightness, and a small teaspoon-measure of rich (2:1) simple syrup accounts for the smaller pour of amaretto, adding additional roundness to the palate. For greater texture, a half-ounce of egg white is added. “I just think that the trend these days of putting like a six-inch egg white head on the drink is really, really gross,” says Morgenthaler. “Egg white was supposed to be just used as a dollop to give it a kind of rich creamy mouthfeel.”

Here, the proper texture is achieved by pre-whisking the egg white in lieu of dry shaking, before shaking with regular ice to chill the drink. Morgenthaler notes that to make it even fluffier, he’ll sometimes build the drink in a mixing tin and then use an immersion blender before shaking with ice. “All it does is just kind of make the shaking part easier, not to develop this giant stinky cake on top of the fucking drink,” he says.

For garnish, Morgenthaler typically calls on a lemon twist and brandied cherries, in a nod to the bright red maraschino cherries favored in ‘70s-era versions of the drink. “It really is like the best Amaretto Sour in the world.”

Jeffrey Morgenthaler's Amaretto Sour

Jeffrey Morgenthaler dials back the amaretto in his recipe, adding a measure of cask strength bourbon to give the drink backbone.

An immersion blender breaks up the egg whites in lieu of dry shaking.

An ounce of fresh lemon juice balances out the sweetness of the amaretto.

There's no need to dry shake Morgenthaler's version of the Amaretto Sour.

Morgenthaler's Amaretto Sour has become something of an industry standard.

In a nod to the maraschino cherry garnish of '70s-era versions of the drink, Morgenthaler adds a house-brandied cherry to his Amaretto Sour.

The post Mastering the Amaretto Sour With Jeffrey Morgenthaler appeared first on PUNCH.

Applebee’s has had a rough few years. As it strains towards its 40th birthday in 2020, the “Neighborhood Grill + Bar” chain closed more than 100 locations in 2016 and 2017, with plans announced in February of last year to close even more. But in the year since, it’s turned things around. It has the Dollarita to thank.

“We set a goal to become the most improved restaurant brand in America in 2018,” said Applebee’s president John Cywinski during the company’s most recent earnings call, “and we absolutely delivered on that goal.” Indeed, for the third quarter of 2018, its same-store sales grew 7.7 percent over the previous year, more than six times the industry average.

Driving a lot of that success is its too-good-to-be-true $1 Margarita—aka the “Dollarita”—which launched chain-wide in late 2017. Since then, Applebee’s has introduced a total of 16 different “Neighborhood Drinks,” a rotating set of $1 and $2 cocktails and beers available at nearly all of Applebee’s more than 1,800 outlets across all 50 states, Guam, Puerto Rico and 13 foreign countries—all while turning a profit.

How, exactly? Patrick Kirk, vice president of beverage innovation for the brand, wondered the same thing. “A franchise in Texas started doing $1 Margaritas. We started to ask ourselves, ‘Is this even possible as a brand to do this nationwide?,’” he says, adding, “A drink special can’t easily be promoted in just one state or one market; word spreads really quickly online.”

Consisting of an ounce and a quarter of tequila and nearly four ounces of Applebee’s house Margarita mix (the company uses an undisclosed proprietary formula), there’s nothing terribly unusual about the Dollarita—other than its price tag.

The particular brand of tequila that each Applebee’s uses can vary, though. “For the Dollarita, we use well tequila,” says Kirk. “We work with seven or eight liquor distributors around the country to identify the best option for our franchisees.” A few phone calls yielded varying answers as to the well tequila of choice: in San Francisco it was Tequila 1800; in Chicago either El Toro or Montezuma; and in Queens, New York, one location cited Conquistador. What doesn’t change from location to location is that Applebee’s makes money on every Dollarita it sells.

While none of these tequilas are very expensive, it’s tough to run the Dollarita’s numbers without one single brand to point at. However, we can at least get some insight by looking at Applebee’s featured Neighborhood Drink for March, the Absolut Rainbow Punch, a $2 St. Patrick’s Day special that combines Absolut vodka with “green apple, ginger and lemon flavors” and is topped with a rainbow gummy garnish.

Let’s do some math: The best wholesale price you can get on Absolut from its New York distributor, Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, is $15.99 for a 1-liter bottle. That’s if you buy at least 15 cases—180 bottles, or just short of 45 gallons—at a time. (Which, let’s be honest, should be pretty easy to do if you’re selling $2 drinks.) With a generous allotment for spillage, each of those bottles will pour twenty five 1 1/4-ounce shots, at a cost of 64 cents each. (This doesn’t even take into account the possibility that Applebee’s has negotiated an even better price—or even a kickback scheme—with Absolut itself, something that’s illegal but still widespread in the bar business.)

In California, where Southern Glazer’s also distributes Absolut, the best price is quite a bit higher: $16.43 for a 750mL bottle (if you buy at least 26 cases), for a per-drink cost of 91 cents. Either price leaves at least some room to cover the other ingredients—not to mention the labor—needed to make the $2 drink while still turning a profit. And considering there are plenty of tequilas that sell at retail for less than 10 bucks a bottle, a profitable $1 Margarita really doesn’t seem all that out there.

But Applebee’s isn’t making money hand over fist on the drink itself. Cywinski, in a story reported for CNBC, explained that “because [customers] are getting a great value on the beverage side, they tend to be ordering desserts and appetizers.” Kirk echoes the assertion that the drinks program gets people in the door, and has even expanded the restaurant’s demographic. “Our bars are more crowded than they were 18 months ago, and we’ve attracted a younger crowd with our Neighborhood Drinks program.”

The patchwork of liquor laws in the U.S. does throw a bit of a wrench into the Applebee’s plan for Dollarita domination, though not as much as you might think. “It’s a big country with lots of laws, and we want to make sure we’re compliant,” says Kirk. “We work with many of the state liquor authorities to make sure this is the right thing to do.” In New York, for example, customers are limited to three drinks, and in New Mexico, Applebee’s cannot sell $1 drinks (though it can sell $2 ones). Despite this, Kirk says, “nearly 100 percent” of the locations do offer Dollaritas.

“You see posts all the time that we’re using a half an ounce of tequila or doing something shady,” says Kirk. “I’m here to say there’s no smoke and mirrors.”

The post Is the Applebee’s Dollarita Too Good to Be True? appeared first on PUNCH.

Almost always, we’d come late and stay late. In those days, the bar didn’t even open until 8 p.m. But the path was always the same: Walk down East 9th Street, find the “ON AIR” sign glowing above a flight of stairs, descend and ring the buzzer next to an otherwise unmarked, locked door.

Eventually, someone would open it with a wary look, not because the place wanted to keep a low profile—often there was a line up the stairs—but because back then the East Village went bad pretty quickly east of 3rd Avenue. Inside, you would supplicate before a thin rope and eventually, hopefully, be ushered to a seat in a small back room with dim light, a few booths, a low bar with a maneki-neko (the ubiquitous beckoning cat) statue behind it, a tatami screen or two and graffiti on every wall.

Decibel, which quietly celebrated its 25th birthday last year, proclaimed itself to be New York’s first sake bar. But it was far more than that, at least to a generation of thirsty and often disillusioned New Yorkers. Sake Bar Decibel, as it’s officially known, was a last stand of sorts before the East Village went the way of Whole Foods—and just as important, it was the place where many of the city’s professional eaters and drinkers learned about sake.

In the mid-1990s, I’d go there on a date, or a would-be date, or with hacker friends who wanted to discreetly talk about how technology could make the world a better place (spoiler: it didn’t) or about the dystopian undercarriage of the dot-com era (spoiler: there was one). But many of the customers were Japanese punks or art kids—as were most of the servers—and on occasion when it grew late you’d notice men there in what I’ll call transactional arrangements. You could still smoke in bars in those days, and Decibel’s darkness always had a perceptible haze that added to the overall grunge. The soundtrack would rev with punk and trance and the precursors of emo.

While you could order shochu or a saketini, if you were serious about drinks, you came to Decibel for sake. The space may have been stygian, but its sake selection was more extensive than probably anywhere in the country at the time. Its list was filled with 60 or more of some of the best sakes being exported from Japan, denoted by terms like daiginjo and yamahai, that were as yet unfamiliar not only to newbies like me but to many Japanese as well. You’d soak them up with rudimentary snacks, prepared in the microwave up front.

Decibel is improbably, remarkably, as busy as it ever was—maybe more so. The stickers and graffiti that always graced the walls seem to cover nearly every inch of every surface today; the bathrooms are cleaner, and “they use a computer now,” says Miki Kanematsu, one of Decibel’s early managers. But the experience of drinking there has remained very much the same for a quarter-century—and that’s hardly supposition. I’ve been going there since its beginning, when I was as many of its customers are today: barely out of college, dreaming of a future of creative bliss while accepting a more sobering reality in a mundane corner of tech, in my case as an early employee of one of the first online ad firms. (Oh, for the days when the font of evil was spelled A-O-L.)

Of course, that was a totally different New York. Unemployment, just 4 percent today, was over 13 percent. Tompkins Square Park, a couple blocks away, had recently reopened after riots and attempts to empty its homeless encampments, although you still didn’t walk its perimeter at night if you had any sense. The East Village was a melting pot of Ukranian emigrés, smack addicts and post-punk burnouts, whereas today it has become a haven for Urban Outfitters, fancy hotels and four Starbucks. Veselka wasn’t yet a tourist attraction, just a coffee shop with Slavic accents. But somehow, of all places, it’s Decibel that has remained largely unbowed through the years.

I realized not long ago that I really knew nothing about Decibel’s history, despite its seminal spot in my drinking history.

At the surface, its longevity tells  a tale of survival in New York’s brutally unforgiving restaurant economy. Its 25th birthday quietly passed last year with nary a mention, but any establishment that keeps its doors open so long earns an enviable status. Its origins in the last stretch of 20th-century New York puts it in company with stalwarts like Tribeca Grill (1990), Gramercy Tavern (1994) and Balthazar (1997). Much like its neighbor, the equally pioneering Angel’s Share (which opened the same year and similarly endures), Decibel predated by nearly a decade most of the city’s recently important bars, even Milk & Honey. Indeed, most great 1980s and ’90s bars, including the epic I.M. Pei–designed Fifty Seven Fifty Seven, in the Four Seasons Hotel, have vanished. (So have most of the shitty ones, like Decibel’s neighbor Continental, which helped at least two generations of college kids make bad decisions before closing, largely unmourned, late last year.)

Arguably, the sheer improbability of its aesthetic was what helped it to survive. A Japanese punk speakeasy, but with great sake? It’s the sort of combination that, if you conceived of it today, would feel utterly contrived, as though you’d drunk too much cough syrup and were dreaming up hotel-bar concepts with Ian Schrager. Yet even its sillier cocktail offerings, like the Lychee Martini, were benchmarks in their own way. “It was the first place in New York that had that drink,” recalls Takahiro Okada, another former manager.

I can’t quite say Decibel’s creation was entirely uncalculated, but it was calculated in a relatively innocent way, in that it mirrored its neighborhood’s growth. By 1990 that part of the East Village was morphing from its Ukrainian roots into a miniature Japantown. It had become a sanctuary for Japanese expats who had escaped to New York to pursue careers in art or fashion or music, described by the New York Times as the early-1990s equivalent of “the young Americans who flocked to Paris in the years after World War I.” And they frequented the passel of Japanese restaurants and bars that had opened along 9th Street.

Several of those were run by a man named Shuji Bon Yagi. In 1984, he opened his first Japanese restaurant there, the Edo-style sushi spot Hasaki, to compete with tonier joints uptown that he couldn’t afford. (Hasaki remains open today, just up the street from Decibel.) By the mid-1980s, Bon Yagi had the lease on an underground bar space at 240 East 9th Street. And in 1989, he opened Candy B1, a karaoke joint that was notable for its live band (technically making it a namaoke joint). Four years later, he refitted the space as Decibel, although initially it served whisky and beer.

But good sake had finally started to arrive in the United States, and Yagi was ever more taken with it, in particular after he tried one called Koshi No Kanbai from the mountainous Niigata prefecture. True, it was early to induce Americans to drink sake, but Yagi took an essential long view. Before long, the bar found a steady clientele—mostly Japanese at first, then increasingly mixed. “When I opened Decibel, it didn’t take off right away,” he tells me. “Most people, when it doesn’t take off right away, they decide to change.”

The punk aesthetic was partly a segue from the space’s former karaoke days. But it also was a reflection of the East Village, and those young Japanese who were busy rejecting the conservatism of the culture back home while embracing nearly everything foreign: music, tattoos, radical art, you name it. Shonen Knife, one of the seminal female punk bands, was already famous. In 1996, Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori, the trip-hop duo known as Cibo Matto, released their debut album, Viva! La Woman, which intertwined that New York expat culture with their love of eating and drinking. (Extra sugar, extra salt / Extra oil and MSG!) More than a few of these expats ended up working at Decibel, which helped to explain why its staff typically looked they’d stepped off a stage at an underground Tokyo club.

But that would have quickly grown tiresome, if not for how dead-serious Yagi and his managers took their sake selections. Even if most of the staff wasn’t particularly versed in the nuances of various styles—things aren’t much different today, candidly—you could point to just about anything on the list and taste something far better than any sake you’d had before.

This wasn’t just curation. Yagi had the good fortune to open Decibel at a transformative moment for the sake industry. During much of the century, sake was graded on a tax-based system that forced most brewers to downgrade their best products, making low-grade sake the norm. But as of 1992, a new scale was enforced, based in part on the degree of rice polishing. It catalyzed a preference for more refined sakes, including the highly polished junmai daiginjo style, whose muted style and clarity were considered—especially among the finance types who did business with Japanese counterparts—to represent the same “purity” that the neutrality of Grey Goose would a decade later. As ever more high-quality sake began arriving in the country, shipped in refrigerated containers, Yagi bought all he could. Many of these were revelations not only for Americans, but also for many of Decibel’s Japanese customers and staff, who’d grown up drinking the cheap stuff.

“Even when I was in Japan,” says Kanematsu, who came to New York as a tourist from Kochi prefecture and began working at Decibel in 1996, “I hadn’t really had sake like that before.”

On the one hand, Decibel oozed its punkish cool with a Tokyo twist, an extension of the fascination many Americans had with anything Japanese during the 1980s: Benihana, Nintendo, Comme des Garçons. The food—now as then—wasn’t meant to be particularly notable; it was a combination of the familiar, like shumai, and the traditional but unfamiliar, like the wasabi-doused raw octopus known as takowasa. But the drinking was always serious, or could be. That unique mix drew a growing cadre of industry types and budding writers, such that most people who were serious about food and drink in New York during the 1990s have a Decibel story.

“These aloof, insanely attractive punk-rock Japanese kids seemed to be running the place,” recalls Besha Rodell, a longtime restaurant critic who now covers Australian dining for the New York Times and frequented Decibel during her college years. “It was that hospitality-kid fantasy of someone just opening the exact thing they wanted to do and having it work.”

By the time he opened Decibel, Yagi had been in the neighborhood for nearly two decades. He had arrived in the United States in 1968 and came to New York in 1976, hanging out in the East Village through those darker days, which helps to explain the framed picture of him, lounging on a couch with a full pre-hipster beard, that hangs above his desk. Among his endeavors: running a diner, 103 Second Ave., one of the late-night 1980s hangouts for an increasingly arty downtown crowd—including, in his telling, a patron who would provide inspiration for the graffiti on Decibel’s walls. “Keith Haring would come in, and he’d write in my bathroom,” says Yagi. “And being Japanese and believing in cleanliness, I’d scrape it off.”

As time went on, Yagi became a sort of Keith McNally of New York’s Japanese food community, an unofficial mayor of 9th Street. Today, his company, T.I.C. Group, essentially controls most of the block on which Decibel sits, encompassing a mini-empire of 15 restaurants and bars. That includes Rai Rai Ken, which helped to introduce New Yorkers to ramen years before a guy named David Chang opened his noodle bar around the corner; Soba-Ya, one of the city’s seminal spots for buckwheat noodles; the teahouse Cha-An; the Japanese coffee shop Hi-Collar; and another basement sake bar, Sakagura, which opened in midtown shortly after Decibel, with an even more extensive sake list—now up to 250 selections—for those who might not vibe the punk thing. “The midtown salaryman, Japanese office workers, they didn’t want to come downtown,” recalls Yagi. (A second location of Sakagura recently opened across the street from Decibel.)

If Yagi’s empire has become relatively corporate, that hardly seems to have dented Decibel’s rebel yell. Music was always at the bar’s core—the “ON AIR” sign was quite intentional—and that remains as such. The current manager, Ken Arii, who started working there 12 years ago, still sports a Mohawk and plays in an electronic noise band called Coput. Each night’s bartender selects a playlist from a selection of around 10,000 songs, with a tacit understanding about standards. “I got really angry one time because I went into Decibel and Top 40 was playing,” says Sakura Yagi, Bon Yagi’s daughter and the restaurant group’s COO. “And I said, ‘This is not Decibel.’” (On a recent visit, the soundtrack veered from Beta Librae’s “Skyla” to Nelly Furtado’s “Afraid,” indicating the pop-hating may have relaxed of late.)

That culture was designed to be self-sustaining. The staff still evaluates each new hire, less for hospitality than to ensure they’re appropriately offbeat. If today’s servers trend a bit more skate-kid and emo than overtly punk, they haven’t lost the attitude—including a certain apathy toward the Gen X gaijin who’s seated before them—their predecessors espoused two decades ago. Now, as then, they’re likely to be artists or musicians who came to New York for that expat life. In a way it reminds me of how David Schomer, whose Espresso Vivace in Seattle pioneered latte art in this country, sought out artists to be his baristas, proposing that it was a job where they could “make a living without being degraded.”

And if the staff aren’t really trained in the nuances of sake, that’s actually more feature than bug. Courtney Kaplan, who now co-owns the Los Angeles izakaya Tsubaki, built a career around the sake knowledge she learned at Decibel. But she was first drawn there as a student at Columbia in the late 1990s, when she was spending time in the East Village, going to hardcore shows. Primarily interested in a job where she could maintain the Japanese she’d learned while studying abroad, she called the bar, was told to come in and spent the evening over cups of sake, being peppered with questions about her taste in music. (The manager at the time was partial to Todd Rundgren.) As she discovered, it was the sense of belonging, rather than any expertise, that catalyzed the staff. “The bar closed at 4, and then somebody would usually make a second family meal, and we’d drink sake and hang out until the morning,” she recalls. “Because what else are you going to do at 4 a.m. on a Tuesday?”

Yet Decibel became a training ground for sake knowledge, perhaps in spite of itself, imbuing its servers with a serious interest many brought along to other restaurants. It also maintained a very Japanese view of the continuity of tradition—which I find to be the most reassuring part of its story. After all, so much of the East Village’s defining culture has been wiped away. Yagi’s 103 Second would eventually become the site of Vandaag and now the barbecue spot Mighty Quinn’s. The original location of the 2nd Avenue Deli is now a Chase branch. Holiday Cocktail Lounge, once a hole-in-the-wall selling $3.75 Dewars, is now a boîte with $16 drinks. But Decibel rages on, much as it always did.

Even today, I still get carded before the rope is lifted, gray hairs be damned. And its patrons carry on as we once did—ranting about the perils of tech, settling farther into a booth as the night wears on. Most are unaware of how unlikely it is that Decibel is still here after all these years, and how such a place almost surely could never come into existence again. The New York of 2019, the eminently predictable one that has birthed a place like Hudson Yards, simply would not allow it.

The post The Quiet Defiance of Decibel appeared first on PUNCH.

In Cuba, there’s an old adage: Sin azúcar no hay pais. Translation: Without sugar, there is no country. Hiking among the decrepit remains of mills, barracks and plantations in Cuba’s Valle de los Ingenios, a UNESCO World Heritage site near the colonial city of Trinidad, it’s apparent just how vital sugar once was to the country’s national identity. At its peak as Cuba’s principal sugar region, the valley had over 50 working mills requiring an engine of 11,000 laborers. It’s also here that the Canchánchara cocktail was created, its formula a reflection of Central Cuba’s agricultural and emancipatory heritage.

Virtually unknown off the island, the Canchánchara is made with aguardiente de caña (the first distillation of sugar cane), honey, limón crillo (also known as Mexican lime or key lime) and water. Its invention is attributed to the mambises, guerrilla fighters in the Ten Years’ War (1868–1878) and the War of Independence (1895–1898).

“It’s the original Cuban cocktail,” says Julio Cabrera, co-owner of Miami’s Café La Trova, a new Cuban restaurant and bar in the Little Havana neighborhood. “The drink is named after the leather-covered flask that the mambises carried on their saddles. They would drink it before battle and as a morning toddy to ward off cold, hunger and fatigue.” Cabrera, who grew up in Cuba, where his father owned a bar, has built a career in the tradition of cantinero, or Cuban-style bartending. The Canchánchara, he says, “never gained the same recognition as the Daiquiri or Mojito because it wasn’t created by a bartender or a bar, nor promoted by a liquor company.” He explains that it also didn’t benefit from popularity in Havana during Prohibition, when Americans flocked to the island to skirt temperance.

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La Chancleta

The Canchánchara combines aguardiente de caña, honey, lime juice and water.

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Travel guide Dennis Valdés Pilar, who hails from Trinidad, says the Canchánchara has always been intertwined with his city’s identity and culture. “It incorporates the region’s history of slavery and struggle for independence,” he says. For slaves working 18-hour days in the cane fields of the Valle de los Ingenios, the drink acted as a restorative tonic in the same way that switchel did in the American South.

According to Pilar, slaves historically consumed beverages from jícaras, squat vessels made from the dried fruit of calabash trees, which are now typically made from clay. Though ice was not part of the Canchánchara’s original recipe, today the drink is stirred or shaken and served over ice in a jícara sans garnish, except for perhaps a slender bamboo straw.

When the Soviet Union, Cuba’s longtime ally, collapsed in 1991, the island’s sugar empire declined; today cane is grown only for domestic use and is supplemented by imports. And for a time during the late 20th century, says Cabrera, the Canchánchara was lost to Trinidad, even as it achieved some popularity in Havana. Happily, the cocktail has experienced a revival in its birthplace.

Despite the simple formula, there’s considerable variation amongst Cancháncharas, ranging from delightfully viscid to cloying or watery. Most Cuban bars now use plata rum instead of aguardiente (Cabrera attributes this to availability), and the drink may be made with pure honey or honey simple syrup. In Trinidad, a UNESCO-designated site where horse carts nearly outnumber cars, the most popular spot for a Canchánchara is Taberna la Canchánchara. Formerly a residence in one of the city’s oldest buildings, it’s a rustic bar with stone floors and heavy wooden beams. Since 1994, locals and tourists have come to sip the namesake cocktail on the shady patio and purchase bottles of Santero Aguardiente de Cuba. At Restaurante El Criollo, a paladar (privately owned restaurant), an excellent Canchánchara rich with fragrant local honey can be had while overlooking Trinidad’s cobbled streets and pastel-hued, 16th-century colonial buildings.

In Cabrera’s version, called La Chancleta (Spanish for “flip-flops”), he uses local sunflower and orange blossom honey syrup laced with ginger juice for aromatic zing. “I add just enough to the cocktail to flavor it, rather than make it viscous,” he says. “It’s too hard to get dissolution if you use honey straight.” Cabrera uses Yaguara Cachaça Ouro because its profile is similar to Cuban aguardiente. Alternatively, he likes Clément Premiére Canne Rhum Blanc Agricole.

Perhaps it wasn’t touted by Hemingway or created in a famous cocktail bar in Havana, but like so much vital to the persistence of Cuban culture and memory, says Pilar, “[the Canchánchara] has the power to take you to the past. Its magic is rooted in our struggles and ancestors.”

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It’s rare to walk into a bar and recognize none of the bottles on the backbar. After all, most commercial spirits are distributed by a few multinationals whose global reach allows you to order a familiar cocktail, no matter where you are in the world. But even the most seasoned drinkers will tell you: Becketts Kopf is unlike any other bar.

“I have no idea what any of their stuff is,” says Naren Young, creative director of New York City’s Dante and one of the world’s most-traveled bartenders.

Husband-and-wife duo Oliver Ebert and Cristina Neves opened Becketts Kopf in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg more than a decade ago as a traditional cocktail bar. Over the years, however, it has evolved into a compendium of obscure spirits sourced from nearby producers. Today, nearly all of their bottles bear the names of small German and Austrian distilleries. There is a red-beet brandy from Austria that Ebert and Neves mix with an almond liqueur, red quinquina, blood orange juice and a grain spirit distilled from wheat, rye, and malt in a cocktail called Red Roots. There is a rowanberry brandy from Bavaria that they stir with tequila and Madeira in the Bird of Pray cocktail. Their coffee cocktails are redolent, with a coffee distillate from beans from the Barn, one of the most famous roasters in Berlin. They have several bottles of Korn, a grain alcohol that Ebert calls the “German vodka,” and they mix their Manhattans with German rye.

Ebert and Neves aren’t scouring Germany and Austria for products simply for the sake of being local, which can result in less-than-stellar results. “Germans and Austrians are the best distillers in the world,” says Ebert. The realization has transformed Becketts Kopf into a distinctly German and, at the same time, world-class institution. (After his most recent visit, Young declared Becketts Kopf, not for the first time nor likely the last, the “best bar in Germany.”)

It’s an impressive feat considering Ebert and Neves had no bartending experience when they opened Becketts Kopf back in 2004. But at that time, they weren’t alone—practically no one in Berlin could mix a proper drink when they first opened. “Fifteen years ago, no one in Germany knew what a Sazerac is,” says Ebert.

The pair’s own interest in cocktails began when Ebert brought home a copy of Harry Craddock’s Savoy Cocktail Book from a used bookstore. They began mixing cocktails for friends, and their collection grew to include more volumes, like Jerry Thomas’ Bar-tenders Guide. After a while, they wanted to share their drinks with a wider audience and sought out a space for a bar on an empty block of Prenzlauer Berg, one of the hippest neighborhoods in Berlin at the time. They put a picture of Samuel Beckett in the window (Ebert has a background in theater) and installed a gold-tiled backboard with a painting of a lily at its center. They screwed in a few Edison bulbs above the bar and dimmed the rest of the lights, creating a dramatic Caravaggio-like contrast.

In the early days, Ebert and Neves struggled to find even basic ingredients like bitters. They had to persuade their ice supplier to build a new machine just so they could have big, transparent cubes, one of the hallmarks of a quality cocktail bar. Customers were skeptical of the higher prices. “The first year, we always heard, ‘Is this the whole cocktail? It’s very small,’” says Ebert. “The second-most-common complaint was that the drink was too strong.”

With time, though, Ebert and Neves developed a loyal base of regulars, and as they became more confident in their bartending skills, they developed a deeper interest in the spirits they were using. “We started to think about what’s inside the bottle—how it’s made, what the raw product is and where it comes from,” says Ebert.

They realized that most of the commercial distilleries knew little about the provenance and quality of their ingredients. Their disappointment led them to the German countryside, where many small distilleries made Obstbrands, or fruit brandies, with local crops. Few of these brandies ever travel far from their distilleries; you would be hard-pressed to even find them in German bars. “Nobody used Obstbrand for mixing,” says Neves. “It was not classic.”

They were amazed by what they found. “We discovered a lot of flavors we did not know existed,” says Ebert. They tasted brandies with flavors like mandarin, rhubarb, sea buckthorn and sunchoke. The Obstbrands somehow tasted truer to the fruits than the fruits themselves. “You can never taste the soul of a fruit if you have it fresh and bite into it,” says Ebert. “You have to distill it.”

The distillers that Ebert and Neves sourced their spirits from often farmed their own crops, inspecting every individual berry or piece of fruit to make sure it was ripe. They fermented without sugar or any other additives before distilling it. (They used a slightly different process for nuts and herbs with no natural sugars, macerating them in a neutral alcohol and then distilling them into a spirit known as Geist.) They controlled the temperature precisely and distilled slowly in order to preserve the fruit’s flavor. One particular Austrian distiller, whom Ebert visited recently, needed two tons of fresh raspberries to make just 50 liters of raspberry brandy. “Fruit brandies are the most complicated things to distill,” says Ebert.

Slowly, Ebert and Neves replaced the fruit liqueurs at their bar with local products. They ditched their commercial cherry brandy (made from cherry juice, neutral spirit and sugar) for a cherry Obstbrand from a small German distiller called Schloss Zinzow. Instead of applejack, they mixed a Jack Rose with an unaged Obstbrand made from Elstar apples.

By 2012, several classic cocktail bars had opened in Berlin, expanding the city’s cocktail literacy. Sazeracs and Negronis were no longer novel, but Ebert and Neves, consistently one step ahead of the curve, were turning heads with their new recipes built on German spirits. In 2013, Mixology Magazine named Ebert Germany’s mixologist of the year, an award he earned again this year.

Along the way, he and Neves developed relationships with many local distillers and began to collaborate on a range of specialty spirits as part of Freimeisterkollektiv, a platform designed to allow independent distillers to sell directly to consumers (Ebert is a partner). It opened up an avenue for the duo to collaborate directly with some of their favorite distillers and make those products available outside the confines of their bar. Ebert had always wondered why, for instance, coffee liqueurs never tasted like the coffee he drank in the morning. He introduced Ralf Rüller, the roaster from the Barn, to Josef Farthofer, an independent distiller in Austria, and together the three of them developed a clear coffee distillate from single-origin Kenyan beans.

Now the rest of the cocktail world is waking up to what Ebert and Neves discovered years ago. The notion of sourcing local ingredients and terroir-driven spirits is no longer unheard of; German, Austrian and Swiss distillers have dominated the World Spirit Awards in recent years; and it’s not uncommon for representatives of multinational brands to stop by Becketts Kopf and praise the drinks (just recently a group of Campari employees passed through and were wooed by a Campari-less Negroni). For Ebert, the lesson is simple: “If you are open-minded, if you do not always think in small-minded business terms, you will enjoy more things in life.”

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Douglas Fairbanks is best remembered for playing self-assured, sword-swinging heroes in silent films throughout the 1920s. A versatile actor turned action icon, he delighted moviegoers with his cocksure, debonair portrayals of Zorro, D’Artagnan and Robin Hood, performing all his own stunts to showcase his acrobatic prowess.

“A superb physical specimen, possessing an inherent radiance and magnetism,” according to Hollywood historian Jeffrey Vance, Fairbanks stayed in peak fighting form via vigorous exercise, and a fierce abstinence from alcohol. “Perhaps the greatest foe to athletic success among young college men is strong drink,” writes Fairbanks in Making Life Worthwhile, a self-help book he authored in 1918. “Personally, I have never tasted liquor of any sort.”

This means the teetotaler likely never tried his own cocktail, a mixture of gin, apricot brandy, lemon and egg white whose tracks lead back to Prohibition-era Cuba.

Brian Kane, bartender at The International in Philadelphia, first encountered the potable Fairbanks in an old Sloppy Joe’s Cocktails Manual he picked up at a used bookstore. Printed seasonally throughout the 1930s, it’s a pocket guide to everything José Abeal Otero offered customers at his famous Havana dive in the years preceding the 1959 revolution. Shaken and served in a flute, the Douglas Fairbanks shared the Sloppy Joe’s bill with other luminaries of the period, including his second wife Mary Pickford, whose rum-based, Cuban-made namesake enjoys much more modern attention.

While it appears in the pages of a Cuban cocktail book, there is little evidence confirming where, when or even if the Douglas Fairbanks was born on Cuban soil. The Savoy Cocktail Book from 1930 features a Fairbanks recipe close to the Sloppy Joe’s version, offering evidence that it had existed prior to publication. But complicating matters is the mention of a second Fairbanks in the same book—this one a 2-to-1 Martini with orange bitters and crème de noyaux.

Turns out the latter variation, also listed in Harry McElhone’s 1921 ABC of Mixing Cocktails and in a 1930 edition of Bill Boothby’s World Drinks and How to Mix Them, was invented in St. Louis in 1907, inspired not by The Thief of Bagdad but by a lawmaker—Charles W. Fairbanks, Teddy Roosevelt’s vice president from 1905 to 1909. Predictably, these dueling Fairbankses have blurred together over the years, but it’s the Sloppy Joe’s spec that got Kane’s gears turning.

“You can’t just take a cocktail out of a book and not tinker with it,” says Kane, who began messing with the recipe in his previous position as beverage director of Abe Fisher. His updated version, the Fairbanks Loan No. 2, starts with a split base of gin and Plantation Stiggins’ Fancy Pineapple Rum, which incorporates the actual rind and flesh of Victoria pineapples—a nod to the fruit brandy base of the original.

Related Recipe

Fairbanks Loan No. 2

This loose interpretation of the Douglas Fairbanks is “reminiscent of a Daiquiri on steroids.”

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A desire to keep the Fairbanks fruit-forward informed what might be Kane’s wonkiest tweak. In a separate glass, he’ll stir together Lillet, Cynar and Campari in a ratio of 4 to 2 to 1 in an impromptu cordial, then add a half-ounce of this “Lilletperitif,” as he calls it, to the Douglas Fairbanks tin. The acidity of Lillet mellows the gin, he says, while the citrus notes present in all three backbar staples reinforce the fresh lemon and lime, kept to a cumulative half-ounce (there’s only so much room in the glass). “If you really want to go to town on this drink, I will always say this is the best way to go,” says Kane, adding that a straight half-ounce of either Lillet or Aperol would work “in a pinch.” Nixing the egg white and adding a touch of honey syrup completes Kane’s version of the drink, which, he acknowledges, takes a few creative liberties.

“This variation is a bit of a stretch. But it’s delicious, so consider it a director’s cut,” or, he says, “a Daiquiri on steroids.”

The post Bring Back the Douglas Fairbanks appeared first on PUNCH.

Jägermeister is the liqueur everyone loves to hate. Blame the Jägerbomb—or college, in general. But the German amaro’s fortunes have improved. Over the last several years, “Jäger,” as it’s better known, has graduated to find its place in a host of grown-up cocktails. While some iterations elevate the liqueur, finessing it into established formulas like the Old-Fashioned or Negroni, others fully embrace its down-market appeal.

Consider the Jägerita. As Jäger is often served ice-cold in shot form, incorporating it into a frozen drink seems only natural. David Cordoba of 28 Hongkong Street did just that, subbing tequila with the herbal liqueur for a more biting take on the frozen Margarita. At New York’s Amor y Amargo, Sother Teague draws parallels between Jäger’s strong-bitter-sweet profile and the core components of an Old-Fashioned. His Black Apple Old Fashioned builds off the liqueur as a base, simply upping the spirit and bitters quotient by adding apple brandy and apple bitters to the mix. Similarly, Gaz Regan’s Negroni calls for Jäger in place of the regular Campari, which still supplies the drink’s signature bitter flair, but with darker, more intense herbal notes.

In an unexpected pairing, bittersweet Jäger teams up with funky aged cachaça in the Rio Grande Sour, where the two ingredients face-off within the context of a traditional sour. Perhaps even more unconventional, in Brother Cleve’s Loser—named for the song by Seattle grunge band, Tad—Jäger is backed up by Pepsi Cola, beef broth, espresso liqueur and spicy habanero bitters. It’s a bold lineup, made only more so by the finishing touch, which comes in the form of a Slim Jim. It’s meant to drink like a distant relative of the Jack and Coke, and it’s just the kind of recipe that manages to pay homage to both Jäger’s past and present.

Jäger's All Grown Up

Black Apple Old-Fashioned: Sother Teague’s take on the classic ups the spice quotient. [Recipe]

Rio Grande Sour: Funky, aged cachaça stars in this bittersweet, frothy sour. [Recipe]

Loser: Brother Cleve’s jerky-garnished spin on the Jack and Coke. [Recipe]

Jägerita: The frozen Margarita takes on a new form. [Recipe]

Gaz Regan's Negroni: Is it a Negroni if you make it with Jäger? [Recipe]

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Spring is finally here and the harbingers are all about. Baseball season has begun, backyard grills have been put back into use and cocktail bars are frantically scrambling to roll out their new menus.

You’ll hear a similarly frantic clattering of tins and jiggers again come July, when the summer menus are due. And then again in October. Then January. And then the cycle begins all over again. The seasonally-changing cocktail menu, an idea that arose some ten or so years ago during the creative heyday of the craft cocktail movement, is still the prevailing model. Some bars, like Trick Dog in San Francisco and Pouring Ribbons in New York, have escaped the grind of flipping their entire menu every three months by going in for the concept menu. But even those have to be turned over at least once or twice a year.

There is, however, a third, far-less-explored option: Don’t change your menu at all.

While it was once the norm, in today’s environment of hyper innovation and constant reinvention, the idea of a set drink list is downright unusual and, to a certain extent, held in disdain. The rare bars that stick to the same array of drinks risk being labeled as lazy museum pieces.

Perhaps not surprisingly, most of the high-profile adherents to this menu approach are in New York, a city with a reputation for honoring the cocktail classics. These include Sauvage, The Long Island Bar and Fort Defiance, all in Brooklyn, and Pegu Club, which is arguably the mothership of the stay-the-course school of cocktail menus. Several modern classics created by Pegu co-owner Audrey Saunders—including the Gin-Gin Mule, Earl Grey MarTEAni, Tantris Sidecar and Fitty-Fitty Martini—have been on offer since day one, in 2005.

For Toby Cecchini, who co-owns The Long Island Bar, as well as The Rockwell Place, a new bar also in Brooklyn, a steady menu just makes good business sense. “I have friends who kill themselves turning out these incredibly elaborate lists four times a year, when I feel like customers, who don’t drink seasonally anyway, largely wouldn’t care or perhaps even notice if you kept the same list for a year,” he says. He recalls doing a stint at Death & Co. years ago, looking at the 95-drink menu and thinking the staff was purposefully making themselves miserable. “I’ve never been convinced it’s necessarily worth the incessant striving to change for change’s sake.”

When St. John Frizell opened Fort Defiance, he planned to follow the herd and flip his menu every few weeks. “That idea lasted about three months,” he says. “I learned that consistency is, I think, the most important criteria by which diners judge restaurants, even if they don’t realize it.” As a result, familiar drinks like the Criterium (a long drink made with gin, Zucca Rabarbaro, grapefruit, lemon juice and sugar) and the bar’s famous take on the Irish Coffee greet regulars every visit.

“Simply put, Martinis and Sazeracs aren’t seasonal,” says Frizell. “And I like having simple, classic drinks like that on the menu.”

The honing of classics—both old like the Sazerac and modern like the Criterium—is one of the greatest advantages of the unchanging menu, according to advocates. And such constancy can be said to be in keeping with The Bar’s traditional standing, in the patron’s mind, as something to lean on—a bastion of familiarity and comfort.

To others, however, too much comfort is a danger. One of the regular knocks against such lists is that they breed apathy and boredom among the staff, but Frizell and Cecchini, as well as William Elliott of Sauvage, think steadfast menus actually breed as much creativity in bartenders—just of a different sort.

“Like food, the results are best after making a drink hundreds and hundreds of times,” says Elliott. At Sauvage, there are four core house cocktails that never leave the list: Riding Tigers, a sparkling cocktail made with crémant, pisco, armagnac, Pineau des Charentes; Sloe Moon’s Rose, a fruit-forward crushed ice drink with sloeberry gin, framboise, lime and bitters; Bitter Storm Over Ulm, another crushed ice drink made with Suze, lemon, Macvin du Jura wine and pear; and the Pastis Cobbler, a cobbler with a pastis base, as the name suggests. “Tiny tweaks to technique can truly bump the end result to an all-time high. Thus, bartenders make a cocktail better after six months of making them.”

Elliott added that the time bartenders might devote to learning the specs of 30 new cocktails every few months can, instead, be devoted to developing and sharpening other skills associated with bartending, such as timing, poise, wit and worldliness.

Cecchini, who is lucky to run what he calls “a kind of retirement home for super-veteran bartenders,” agrees. These barkeeps, like Phil Ward, KJ Williams, David Moo and Cecchini himself, have arguably matured in their attitude towards their craft in such a way that they find interest in any drink order put before them, even if it’s the 100th request that night for a Boulevardier, one of the bar’s mainstays. To their seasoned eyes and hands, there is more potential profit sharpening their advanced drink-building and people skills than learning a new parlor trick.

“There may be only eight or nine drinks on the cocktail list, but the arsenal of expertise embodied by our combined years behind the bar means that we can accommodate and generally improve on nearly any request,” he says.

None of the menus at these bars are immutable, however. At Pegu, one quarter of the menu changes every season, and Cecchini admits that even his customers enjoy a little novelty now and then. But they also, conversely, dislike change. More than once, he has experienced the ire of patrons when a favorite drink has been removed from the LIB menu.

“We have this group that’s been coming in for six years who call themselves The Pendennis Club, and basically only drink the iteration of the Pendennis Club Cocktail I’ve put on the list,” he says. “When I once took it off, they screamed bloody murder. I tried to placate them with the seemingly obvious point that, you know, we can still perfectly easily make that cocktail for you. But so many others continued asking for it; in the end I just caved and put it back on.”

While the benefits of a familiar list—especially at places like The Long Island Bar and Fort Defiance, which are, in essence, neighborhood bars with strong local fan bases—may be evident, they may well remain in the minority. The seasonal menu will continue, in Elliott’s fatalistic appraisal, “because it sounds good, and is an industry norm; and because most people copy things that sound good and are industry norms.”

Frizell partly blames seasonal menus on the deadline-a-minute press of the Internet age, whose thirst for new cocktail recipes is never quenched. Without new menus, there would be no more “7 New Spring Cocktails to Try Right Now” articles. And we can’t have that. Bartenders play along because new cocktails gain them momentary notoriety and increase their earning power. He longs for a day when the media praise bartenders for something other than rampant, non-stop creativity. That thing? “Knowing when to leave well enough alone,” says Frizell.

The post Dear Cocktail Menu, Never Change appeared first on PUNCH.

The Tequila Sunrise wasn’t always a punchline. Traditionally a simple mix of tequila and orange juice with a bit of grenadine added to create an ombre effect, the drink earned a reputation as a kitschy, sweet “disco drink.” But like so many other ’70s drinks exhumed from the dustbin of history, the Tequila Sunrise has reinvented itself for the modern era.

Take, for instance, the version at New York’s Ghost Donkey. Head bartender Ignacio “Nacho” Jimenez begins with a split base of tequila and mezcal, which is lengthened with bitter orange juice and topped with spicy hibiscus-habanero syrup in place of grenadine. It’s the fourth-biggest seller on the menu. “I was surprised that so many people appreciate it,” he says, simultaneously acknowledging the double whammy appeal of an agave-based cocktail paired with an Instagram worthy presentation.

The most widely-accepted Tequila Sunrise origin story points to Prohibition, when Hollywood celebrities flocked to the famed Agua Caliente racetrack and resort in Tijuana, where the signature drink was known by the same name. Drink historian David Wondrich has described the original as a Margarita-like “tequila daisy,” made with tequila and lime, plus a bit of crème de cassis for the “sunrise” effect. The Arizona Biltmore Hotel also claims ownership of a similar drink, created during the 1930s or early 1940s, when bartender Gene Sulit devised a drink for a guest seeking a poolside-appropriate refreshment. A third story places it in 1970s Sausalito, California, where Bobby Lozoff, a bartender at the Trident restaurant, is generally credited for adding orange juice and grenadine in place of lime and cassis, creating the version we know best today.

While no one has been able to confirm which origin story is accurate, there’s no doubt that the drink rose to canonical status in the 1970s, at least in part thanks to Keith Richards, who nicknamed the Rolling Stones’ 1972 tour, “The Cocaine and Tequila Sunrise Tour.” The following year, Don Henley and Glenn Frey also gave the drink an assist when the Eagles released “Tequila Sunrise” on their album Desperado.

“My mom would listen to that Eagles song,” remembers Todd Thrasher of Tiki TNT in Washington, D.C. “It’s not a terrible cocktail, but the Rose’s grenadine aspect is absolutely terrible.” His tikified take on the drink drops the red grenadine and swaps in blue Curaçao, which is backed up by lemon, passionfruit and saline.

At Houston’s Anvil, Bobby Heugel offers a version that hews more closely to the original, using a mix of crème de cassis and grenadine; he drops the orange juice altogether in favor of lemon. Like Thrasher’s version, Natasha David’s Sumerian Sunrise also skips the grenadine, instead calling on Campari, which is cleverly trapped beneath a rock of ice so that it swirls into view when the glass is tapped. She’s not alone; in her Mujer Italiana Va a Jalisco, Gina Chersevani of Buffalo & Bergen in Washington, D.C., also uses the iconic red bitter, which adds a burst of refreshing bittersweetness, “like a Sour Patch Kid,” she says.

Chersevani also notes that the Sunrise provides an opportunity to explore seasonal and exotic produce, options that weren’t available in the midcentury. “You can manipulate that into anything,” she says. “Your yuzu, ugli fruit, rambutan, different kinds of lime, oranges from Valencia—so many things to choose from.” That variability adds nuance to the drink, but also enables it to slot into a wide range of bar and restaurant concepts, she adds.

Perhaps the ultimate sign that the modern Tequila Sunrise revolution has arrived: Most consumers don’t even realize they are ordering one. In part, that’s because some bartenders are soft-pedaling the connection. For example, Jimenez named his riff the Mezcal Sun-Risa, a deliberate misdirect. It omits the tequila reference (though there’s just as much of it as mezcal in the recipe), and plays on the word sonrisa, Spanish for “smile.” Had he stuck with the original name, he protests, “people would think it was sweet, and mine is anything but sweet.”

Similarly, Thrasher’s blue drink is named Wet Money—not even a nod in the direction of its inspiration. He takes a certain subversive pleasure in that stealth revival, though. His blue version sells briskly, he notes, but “no one has asked me for a Tequila Sunrise in 10 years.”

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We’ve partnered with Bacardi Women in Leadership for a series dedicated to exploring the theme of “originality” with some of today’s most inspiring leaders. For more information and tickets, click here.

It’s easy to mistake novelty for originality, but—thanks in part to our rapidly diminishing degrees of separation—it’s also never been easier to sniff out and experience innovation in all forms. In healthcare, originality can mean creating new conduits for access as Hers has done for birth control and prescription skincare. In food, it can mean quietly tearing down the gendered system of exclusivity that surrounds it, as chef Niki Nakayama has done at L.A.’s modern kaiseki restaurant, n/naka.

Ironically, in cocktails, it’s partly the field’s constantly referenced relationship to the past that makes the craft of tending bar so intriguing. How can one innovate when nearly every drink must necessarily be built from a classic blueprint? Because most new drinks’ very DNA is based upon those Manhattans and Negronis and Daiquiris that came before, it can be difficult to suss out innovation. But within distinct boundaries, true creativity can be mined. And when done well—The Aviary’s flamboyant aestheticism, Ryan Chetiyawardana’s proposition for zero waste, the whiz-bang science approach at Existing Conditions—originality takes on a singular, philosophical meaning. From the vibrant petri dish of the cocktail renaissance have arisen entire spirit category reinventions, a decade-strong tiki revival and science-ing of all stripes. At this point, it seems cocktails have hit a saturation of innovation.

So, in a world where nothing seems new anymore, what does originality really look like in drinks, and how do we define it? As an unwitting reaction to so much baroque invention, innovation seems to be cropping up in ways much subtler than in years past. For example, at Nitecap in New York, Natasha David imposes boundaries upon her staff, asking that they find originality via the ingredients and materials already available within the bar’s four walls. In Chicago, Carley Gaskin founded her city’s first cocktail catering company. And in Toronto, Kelsey Ramage co-created Trash Tiki to challenge the idea that fantastical cocktails can’t be sustainable.

In wine, sometimes originality means reconsidering the back-end—literally upending or subverting the dominant business model for an unconventional, smaller and, necessarily, more considered approach. For Helen Johannesen, originality meant tucking her eponymous, diminutive wine store into the rear of a restaurant, like a secret bonus cellar. And for Krista Scruggs who farms her own land and makes natural wines near Burlington, Vermont, innovation means going with your gut and making yourself vulnerable, even when it’s scary or risky.

To get an idea of how originality is imprinting upon the drinks world, we surveyed a cross section of women at the top of their fields to see how they set themselves apart in a day and age where nothing seems new anymore.

Natasha David | Owner, Nitecap | New York

A fixture on New York’s cocktail scene for nearly a decade, Natasha David has built bar menus from coast to coast alongside her husband Jeremy Oertel for You & Me, their consultancy company. Best known as the unflappable leader behind Nitecap on the Lower East Side, David is constantly pushing for innovation from inside the bar.

“While I think innovation is important and creating new techniques is important, I like to challenge myself and my bartenders to come up with a drink with things that are on the back bar. I think it’s pretty boundary-pushing to stick to the back bar because you’re not relying on this cool thing with an automatic hook. Standing out with simplicity is much harder. Relying on the basics helps somebody to learn how to develop the more complex skills.

“Now, for us at Nitecap, originality and innovation means always trying to find ways to be sustainable. We don’t advertise it, but we use a ton of cordials made in-house with our waste juice. We turn the waste of the raspberry syrup into a fruit leather, which we use as a garnish. Pineapple pulp gets spiced and put it in a dehydrator. When we pickle we use the brine in drinks.

“When I first started working with Alex [Day] and Dave [Kaplan] the newest thing I learned was how to sous vide. I had never heard of it because it was only used in kitchens. When it started crossing over into bars it was completely revolutionary. It changed the way that syrups were being made. Suddenly raspberry syrup, whose flavors were always muted, became very bright flavors. It changed things for me a lot, knowing I didn’t always have to muddle fresh fruits to get those flavors.”

Carley Gaskin | Owner, Hospitality 201 | Chicago

Winner of USBG’s 2018 Most Imaginative Bartender competition sponsored by BOMBAY SAPPHIRE® Gin, Carley Gaskin started her career in Chicago at Bad Hunter, where she became deeply interested in sustainable drink-making, and pivoted to open her own cocktail catering company.

“A lot of new creations come from necessity. I’ve had the privilege of working at a lot of restaurants where chefs work alongside bartenders to create fluid concepts. I like to go to a kitchen and ask what they’re throwing away—to find a way to build a cocktail around sustainability. I own a cocktail catering company in Chicago, and we go through a lot of waste. We juice 200 liters of something and we’ve got over 200 lemon peels left over. So, we need to find a way to reuse things.

“We try to use citrus peels to make stocks. We dehydrate a lot, we do a lot of work with a company called The Roof Crop, which builds rooftops around Chicago and grows vegetables and flowers and herbs. We take the things they wouldn’t usually sell like ugly produce or browned basil for syrups and infusions. And it’s all locally sourced.”

Helen Johannesen | Owner, Helen’s; Partner, Jon & Vinny’s | Los Angeles

The long-time beverage director for Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo’s restaurant empire, New York-native Helen Johannesen defied convention and opened her eponymous wine shop nested within an all-day restaurant in West Hollywood.

“[It’s] too much pressure [to think about doing something new]. That’s like wishing to get nominated for a James Beard Award. The place I always start from is ‘What am I interested in? What do I think is cool?’

“I think sometimes [originality] happens on a subconscious level more so than through an active determination to create something fresh and new per se. I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel. I just think about what’s inspiring me and what my staff is attaching to. I think it’s dangerous to go about curating or revitalizing or creating programs to set a new trend. That feels like a gray area.

“I spent six years running other peoples’ businesses and other peoples’ beverage programs, and even though I thought of them as my own, I didn’t own them. You should take ownership in the world for what you’re doing, but when you do that you align your identity with someone else’s vision. It’s different to say ‘this is my shop and it’s called Helen’s.’ No one’s going to define it for you, you have to define it for yourself. That requires a great level of humility. I couldn’t assume people would know what [Helen’s] was. The reality is that you have to create the world, you have to create the baby.”

Kelsey Ramage | Owner, Trash Tiki | Toronto

A professedly punk rock bartender, Kelsey Ramage co-founded the pop-up known as Trash Tiki as a thesis statement against waste in the cocktail industry.

“Innovation is probably at the forefront of what I think about whenever I’m creating something new. All of my drinks come from classics, and everything’s been done when it comes to creating a new spec. When I’m ideating, I start thinking about a story or an ethos, which often comes from ingredients. Where’s it from, how was it farmed?

“To me, innovation takes a little bit more insight into the future. Where novelty is of the moment—it’s a flash in the pan, or lasts the five to 30 minutes you have the cocktail in front of you—truly innovative drinks take some thinking toward ‘What will this be like in six months or a year, two years from now?’”

Krista Scruggs | Owner, ZAFA Wines | Burlington, VT

Winemaker Krista Scruggs dreams up some of the natural wine world’s most subversive blends, including apple-and-grape co-ferments that have drinkers reconsidering what American wine can look like.

“I try not to consider [innovation] when I’m making things. I believe in open-source. I believe we’re influenced by our surroundings. I rely on my instincts and what’s going on in my head and my heart. If I were to think about trying to be different, I would put a boundary on myself. If you put me in a line with everyone else, I’m still the only me. I’m not trying to mimic or emulate anyone else. I’m just trying to be me.

“It’s a vulnerable thing to do and I think most people are scared to do it. And when you’re out there being vulnerable and taking risks, people resonate with it. On one side of the coin, it’s beautiful and reaffirming, and on the other side, to be honest and transparent in the industry means people want to put you on a pedestal. I think there’s great expectation and criticism and judgment from people who are willing to be transparent or vulnerable. The cost is that I feel a lot of anxiety. I’m speaking on my sixth panel this year. I have anxiety attacks before all of them. Being vulnerable is not easy, but that’s being free. I get to be me. The worth outweighs the cost.”

Find out more about the Spirit Forward Women in Leadership program here.

The post Is Anything New Anymore? appeared first on PUNCH.

Over the past couple years, the conversation about how to build more sustainable cocktails has evolved from high-concept solutions, like seasonal ferments, to simple, more widely applicable techniques or tricks. The question isn’t just about how this can spawn creativity and waste reduction at craft cocktail bars, but how it can trickle down to home bartending, as well. 

Citrus in particular, undoubtedly one of the bar world’s biggest waste products, has been a primary focus of bartenders Kelsey Ramage and Iain Griffiths of the bar pop up and online platform, Trash Tiki. They’ve been calling on “citrus stocks,” an umbrella term for a liquid made by extracting flavor from juiced fruit, which can be used in place of fresh juice in a variety of drinks. These stocks can be used on their own in place of citrus, or incorporated into more cordial-like syrups for use in cocktails.

“About two years before we started Trash Tiki, we were standing at Dandelyan in London, where Kelsey was head bartender, as the trash was being taken out,” says Griffiths. “It was something like 20 kilos of lime, orange and grapefruit, so the room smelled amazing.” It inspired the pair to consider ways to extract those flavors and aromas: “As bartenders, we know that 80 percent of what we taste is what we smell,” he adds.

In its first iteration, Griffiths and Ramage came up with a recipe they dubbed “Pink Citrus,” which was less of a stock and more of a hot steep involving freshly-brewed hibiscus tea poured over blanched lime shells, adjusted with malic and citric acids. Using that base, the duo developed a fully fledged citrus stock, made with added sugar, which would offer both flavor and body to drink recipes and be shelf stable. 

The power of the citrus stock method lies in its adaptability. While its main purpose is to function as a stand-in for citrus, you can also mix it with fresh citrus juice (the Trash Tiki team calls on an equal-parts blend that they call “stuice”), which is particularly effective in highballs and frozen cocktails. Another option is to fortify the stock with sugar to make an ingredient that reads much like a cordial, and can be used in the same applications.

Today, plenty of other bartenders have begun to use the Trash Tiki specs and develop their own, which can each be used in a wide variety of cocktail applications, from sours to highballs. Here, four ways to extract that last bit of flavor from your citrus to create a stock—plus, what you can do with it after.

Trash Tiki’s Citrus Stock

This citrus stock formula was created with plenty of wiggle room and customization in mind. Griffiths suggests adjusting it based on the type of citrus you are using, as well as the drink you hope to make. More recently, the Trash Tiki duo has been cutting down the stock with fresh juice to make an ingredient they call “stuice.” “We’ve created this recipe to be totally scalable as venues for our pop-ups tend to vary a lot” write Griffiths and Ramage on their website. “Literally you could do a half batch, or times this by 10 and the only variable will be time it takes to reduce.”

Try it in: Winter Mojito, Saigon Lady, Whiskey Smash

Sour Lemon

Working closely with the Trash Tiki team,Pouring Ribbons’ Brooke Toscano uses their lime stock for the bar’s kegged cocktails. In addition, she’s developed a hybrid formula she calls Sour Lemon: “It is closer to an in-between of a stock and a cordial. We add more sugar to stabilize it and help with the viscosity of the cocktail. While the lime stock stays good longer than fresh lime, it still has a shelf life. Our Sour Lemon no longer has to be tossed in a certain amount of time.”

Try it in: Pins & Needles, Garden State Julep, Gin Sour

Sprite Syrup

Houston’s Michael Neff created this playful riff on a low-waste stock that also happens to taste something like classic Sprite. At Cottonmouth Club, Neff uses the Sprite syrup in their rye-based Long Lost Pal cocktail alongside dry vermouth and Bruto Americano. “Use this concentrate as you would simple syrup for a zesty, bright, and citrusy addition to cocktails,” says Neff. “Or, to make ‘Sprite,’ combine one part concentrate with two parts Topo Chico and enjoy over ice or in a highball.”

Try it in: Astral Plane, Seven Hills, It’s So Easy

Aaron Polsky’s Citrus Blend

For a no-heat version of flavor extraction, Los Angeles’ Aaron Polsky developed this formula that uses peels only (rather than husks). He’s worked with various iterations of the recipe to create a fresh-juice cocktail program for Coachella and other large music festivals, as well as for kegged cocktails prepared for Harvard & Stone

Try it in: Satan’s Whiskers, Between the Sheets, Kitty Highball

The post Hack Your Drink: The Magic of “Citrus Stock” appeared first on PUNCH.

This year, the change in seasons is accompanied by a bevy of noteworthy new bar openings across the country. In New York, David Chang and Danny Meyers’ empires continue to expand with new properties in Hudson Yards, while aperitivo culture thrives in new all-day drinking destinations like Pisellino and Abraço. Elsewhere, the classic cocktail canon re-takes center stage, winning out over the more outré concepts of years past. In New Orleans, the Martini and its various iterations receive their proper attention at the re-opening of The Franklin in the Marigny, while the Brandy Crusta finds a new home at the Jewel of the South. And, lastly, in Chicago, Lazy Bird’s static menu of 52 timeless classics signals a welcome shift back to basics. Here are our picks for the most notable new and forthcoming bar openings this season.

New York

Pisellino 

What: An all-day cafe from the team behind Buvette, I Sodi and Via Carota.
Who: Jodi Williams, Rita Sodi, Jon Mullen
Where: West Village
When: May
Why It’s Important: For owners Rita Sodi and Jody Williams, Pisellino is a concept rooted in Italian nostalgia. Situated across from its sister restaurant Via Carota, Pisellino will function as an all-day community-centered spot serving coffee, snacks and cocktails reminiscent of traditional Italian cafes. The drinks will be crafted by Jon Mullen, formerly of Metta and Maison Premiere.

Jungle Bird

What: A cocktail bar from a veteran bartender formerly of Gramercy Tavern and The Wren.
Who: Krissy Harris
Where: Chelsea
When: May
Why It’s Important: Krissy Harris brings more than 20 years of experience to the menu at the forthcoming Jungle Bird, where easy-drinking, yet thoughtful drinks seem to be the theme. The bar’s namesake cocktail will be served on tap alongside a calamansi Daiquiri variation and a tropical-minded spritz featuring papaya, lime, Aperol and sparkling wine.

Kāwi

What: The latest Momofuku outpost at Hudson Yards.
Who: David Chang, Eunjo Park, Isabella Fitzgerald, Lucas Swallows
Where: Hudson Yards
When: April
Why It’s Important: Part of David Chang’s expanding empire, food comes first at Kāwi, but Momofuku bar director, Lucas Swallows, has created a menu of cocktails designed to pair with chef Eunjo Park’s Korean-leaning menu, featuring everything from yuzu marmalade to ginger-infused sherry. On the wine side, Isabella Fitzgerald has curated a small sake menu along with a more robust wine selection divided into “French” and “not French” sections.

Public Records

What: A lush, plant-filled vegan cafe by day, record bar and state-of-the-art music venue by night.
Who: Francis Harris, Shane Davis, Erik VanderWal, Henry Rich (Rucola)
Where: Gowanus, Brooklyn
When: April
Why It’s Important: Public Records hopes to draw a crowd to an area largely devoid of a nightlife scene, with weekly jazz performances, visiting artists and a different vinyl DJ every night of the week. The drinks menu is as yet undisclosed, but with an emphasis on a state-of-the-art sound system and a curated schedule of record collectors passing through, the space feels like a Tokyo record bar by way of Gowanus.

Cedric’s at the Shed

What: An all-day bar and restaurant by Union Square Hospitality Group at the Shed, a nonprofit cultural arts center.
Who: Danny Meyer
Where: Hudson Yards
When: April
Why It’s Important: Located in the lobby of the Shed, Cedric’s 3,000-square-foot space operates as an all-day cafe and a bar in the evenings, with cocktails, beer and wine on tap.

Altar

What: A neighborhood bar, serving cocktails, wine, beer and small plates.
Who: Phil Ward, Arturo Leonar
Where: Crown Heights, Brooklyn
When: May
Why It’s Important: The new project from veteran barman Phil Ward, co-founder of the pioneering agave bar Mayahuel, which closed in 2017, will offer a focused, tightly curated list of a dozen or so drinks in a renovated space located alongside Franklin Avenue mainstay, Chavela’s. Drawing on a broad range of spirits and styles, the menu is designed to be approachable, first and foremost, but will offer the same signature twists that you’d expect from one of the bar world’s most idiosyncratic players.

Chicago

Bar Politan

What: A craft cocktail bar inside of the new food hall from the owners of New Orleans’ St. Roch Market.
Who: Sophie Burton
Where: West Loop
When: May
Why It’s Important: Sophie Burton of Chicago’s Dove’s, Cindy’s and Big Star, has been tapped to run the drinks program at Bar Politan, which will serve as the hub of the new marketplace that also includes a beer garden called Perle and another as-yet-undisclosed bar.

Cocktails at Lazy Bird | Photos: Huge Galdones

Lazy Bird

What: A cocktail lounge with live music at the Hoxton Hotel.
Who: Lee Zaremba, Boka Restaurant Group
Where: Fulton Market District
When: April
Why It’s Important: The AvroKo-designed basement bar within Chicago’s brand-new Hoxton Hotel offers a foil to the bright, rooftop restaurant, Cabra, helmed by Stephanie Izard. With a menu of 52 classics curated and crafted by beverage director Lee Zaremba (formerly of Billy Sunday), the space will also feature weekly live music performances.

Philadelphia

Bloomsday Café

What: A cafe and bottle shop by day, natural wine bar by night.
Who: Kelsey Bush, Zach Morris, Tim Kweeder
Where: Headhouse Square
When: April
Why It’s Important: Tim Kweeder, one of the city’s most outspoken voices in natural wine and formerly of Petruce Et Al, will act as beverage director and sommelier of the new all-day cafe and wine bar.

Separatist Beer Project

What: The first brick and mortar location for the nomadic brewers.
Who: Joe and Laura Fay
Where: South Philadelphia
When: April
Why It’s Important: Sole Artisan Ales has rebranded as Separatist Beer Project and opened their first brick-and-mortar space featuring a 15-seat bar and capacity of up to 70.

Washington, D.C.

Reveler’s Hour

What: A casual bar and restaurant from the team behind fine dining destination Tail Up Goat.
Who: Bill Jensen, Jon Sybert, Jill Tyler
Where: Adams Morgan
When: Summer
Why It’s Important: From the team at Tail Up Goat, known for inventive pastas and poetry-laden wine lists, comes this freewheeling bar named for a line of Greek poetry. Reveler’s Hour, across from The Line Hotel, will be more casual than Tail Up Goat and feature craft beers, vermouth cocktails and a freeform wine list by beverage director Bill Jensen.

Charlotte, NC

Billy Sunday

What: The first outpost of the Chicago institution of the same name.
Who: Matthias Merges, Stephanie Andrews
Where: Optimist Park
When: Summer
Why It’s Important: Stephanie Andrews, the creative director of Chicago’s Billy Sunday, will work her magic at the first outpost outside the Logan Square original. The bar, which will offer both vintage and modern amari-focused cocktails, is set to open within Optimist Park, a forthcoming food hall located in a former turn-of-the-century mill.

Columbus, OH

Law Bird

What: A wine and cocktail bar focusing on unconventional ingredients.
Who: Annie Williams Pierce and Luke Pierce
Where: Brewery District
When: TBD
Why It’s Important: The forthcoming bar from husband and wife duo Annie Williams Pierce and Luke Pierce will feature a selection of natural wine alongside an array of cocktails crafted by Williams Pierce, a former Curio bartender.

New Orleans

Belle Epoque

What: An absinthe cocktail bar behind the Old Absinthe House serving French-influenced food.
Who: Laura Belluci, Hayley Vanvleet
Where: French Quarter
When: TBD
Why It’s Important: Two NOLA heavyweights, Laura Belluci (formerly of SoBou) and chef Hayley Vanvleet (formerly of Curio, Pêche and Cochon Butcher), are teaming up to open a small restaurant and absinthe-focused bar connected to the iconic Old Absinthe House. Expect everything from classic absinthe drinks to those that channel tiki in unexpected ways.

Jewel of the South | Photos: Randy P. Schmidt

Jewel of the South

What: A restaurant and bar situated in an old Creole home that pays homage to a 19th-century bar of the same name.
Who: Chris Hannah, Nick Detrich
Where: French Quarter
When: March
Why It’s Important: Two of the city’s most important bartenders take on one of its most important classic drinks, the Brandy Crusta, while channeling the era in which is was born. Consider it their homage to 19th-century New Orleans. Hannah (formerly French 75 Bar) and Detrich (formerly Cane & Table) also own a Cuban-inspired bar called Manolito, also in the French Quarter.

The Franklin

What: A revamp of a Marigny neighborhood bistro focusing on natural wine and Martinis, courtesy of Cure and Barrel Proof alums.  
Who: Ken Jackson, Dane Harris, Evan Wolf, Matt LoFink, Jason Sorbet
Where: Marigny
When: April
Why It’s Important: An all-star team of bartenders and a menu focused on the Martini and its variants, plus an extensive list of natural wines—what more do you need to know?

Houston

Squable

What: A restaurant with a focus on local Texas ingredients and a beverage program highlighting natural wines and Martinis.
Who: Bobby Heugel, Justin Yu, Steve Flippo, Terry Williams, Anna Wilkins, Justin Vann, Mark Clayton, Drew Gimma
Where: Houston Heights
When: TBD
Why It’s Important: It’s a dream team of Houston’s top food and drink minds, all in one spot. Justin Vann, one of the country’s top sommeliers, is on wine, and the bar teams behind Anvil, Better Luck Tomorrow, Tongue-Cut Sparrow and more will be in charge of the hard stuff. If they can’t turn this into a hit, no one can.

Squable | Photo: Jenn Duncan

Rosie Cannonball

What: A casual Mediterranean eatery serving pizzas and breads alongside an affordable wine list.
Who: David Keck, Felipe Riccio, Peter McCarthy
Where: Montrose
When: TBD
Why It’s Important: Goodnight Hospitality (Goodnight Charlie’s) has welcomed master sommelier June Rodil from Austin who will help open several concepts including Rosie, and the forthcoming March and Montrose Cheese and Wine. A bright space with a long bar, Rosie Cannonball’s wine concept is expected to focus on the Loire and New World, while food will be geared toward pizza and carbs.

Atlanta

Hazel Jane’s Wine Bar & Coffee

What: An all-day cafe and wine shop with an emphasis on natural and biodynamic wines.
Who: Melissa Davis, Brad Morris
Where: Old Fourth Ward
When: May/June
Why It’s Important: Melissa Davis, the sommelier behind Atlanta’s beloved Staplehouse, is bringing her global POV to a more casual, no-reservations-required concept that will also feature a strong selection of vermouth and amari. The fact that you can grab a bottle to-go is icing on the cake.

The Deer and the Dove and Side Bar

What: A new American restaurant and a wine and coffee bar next door.
Who: Chef Terry Koval and Jenn Koval
Where: Decatur
When: TBD
Why It’s Important: From the chef of Wrecking Bar Brewpub comes The Deer and the Dove, a neighborhood restaurant focused on seasonal food, and a sister venue, Side Bar. By day, Side Bar will be a fast-casual café serving a small, low-key menu, and will transform into an overflow space for The Deer and the Dove and wine bar with small plates by evening.

Detroit

The Brakeman

What: Beer hall at the Shinola Hotel.
Who: Andrew Carmellini’s NoHo Hospitality Group
Where: Downtown
When: March
Why It’s Important: For $7 a piece, this casual drinking venue at the Shinola hotel hands patrons a token that can be exchanged for a draft craft beer, while a second bar is dedicated to serving frozen and classic cocktails. There are also serve-your-own beer tables that can be reserved ahead of time, where guests can pour their own drinks (there’s a limit per person) for an hourly rate. Next door, fried chicken can be ordered from Penny Red’s—whose recipe hails from chef Carmellini’s The Dutch in New York) and brought in.

The Brakeman | Photos: Noah Fecks Photography

Kansas City, MO

J. Rieger & Co. Distillery

What: A three-floor distillery space that includes a tasting room, two cocktail bars an ice-cutting room, a private room and an event space.
Who: Ryan Maybee, Steve Olsen, Andy Rieger
Where: Electric Park
When: July
Why It’s Important: This massive space will relocate the J. Rieger & Co. operations to Electric Park, where the new distillery will double as public space. An all-day venue called The Monogram Lounge will serve coffee and food and transition into a cocktail bar at night, while the Hey! Hey! Club will be a dedicated 48-seat underground cocktail bar, both of which will feature drink programs by Andrew Olsen.

Denver

Noble Riot

What: A natural wine bar in the former Rebel restaurant space, serving small plates, meats and cheeses
Who: Scott and Nicole Mattson (Nocturne Jazz & Supper Club), Troy Bowen, Joel Kampfe
Where: River North Art District
When: April
Why It’s Important: Focusing on natural wines from small producers—with some offerings exclusive to the bar—Noble Riot offers a mix of affordably priced Old and New World wines. Curated by Troy Bowen, founder of the Colorado Natural Wine Consortium and Joel Kampfe, formerly of the ENO Wine Bar brand, in partnership with Scott and Nicole Mattson, the list showcases a range of top producers including Jolie Laide, Jacques Lassaigne and Peter Lauer, and will soon offer a series of tastings and educational programming dubbed “Fight Club.”

RiNo Yacht Club

What: A new brick-and-mortar outpost of the popular cocktail bar.
Who: Mary Allison Wright, McLain Hedges
Where: TBD
When: Summer
Why It’s Important: Formerly a wrap-around, open-area bar situated within The Source Hotel + Market Hall, RiNo Yacht Club, which first opened in 2014, will re-open in a permanent location this summer.

Run for the Roses

What: An underground cocktail bar at Dairy Block food hall.
Who: Steven Waters
Where: Downtown
When: April
Why It’s Important: Having been in the works since late 2017, the latest project from barman Steven Waters (formerly of the since-shuttered White Lies) is finally slated to open following a series of construction delays. Expect classic cocktails, vintage spirits and elevated bar food served in an intimate, lounge-like setting.

Portland, OR

Scotch Lodge

What: A cocktail bar showcasing Tommy Klus’ personal collection of spirits in the former Biwa space.
Who: Tommy Klus, Aaron Barnett
Where: Southeast Portland
When: April
Why It’s Important: When it opened in 2013, Multnomah Whiskey Library quickly established itself as one of the country’s most buzzed about whiskey destinations, with the lines down the block to prove it. With Scotch Lodge, Multnomah’s bar manager, Tommy Klus, who built the bar’s 1,800-bottle collection, is taking his knowledge and his personal collection, which goes well beyond whiskey, to a more intimate space. Expect craft cocktails, vintage spirits and, yes, Scotch.

5 & Dime | Photos: Elizabeth Ledra

5 & Dime

What: A casual neighborhood cocktail bar from two Trifecta Tavern alums.
Who: Colin Carroll, Alex Gesler
Where: Foster-Powell District
When: March
Why It’s Important: From two bartenders, formerly of Ken Forkish’s Trifecta, comes an airy 60-seat cocktail bar that places its attention on warm vibes reflective of the neighborhood and dive bars Carroll and Gesler admire. The launch menu includes a cocktail list inspired by Neil Gaiman’s American Gods plus a hefty list of classics, small plates by Zach Ragghianti (Biwa, Noraneko) and a handful of wines and beers.

Seattle

Hannyatou

What: A 20-seat sake bar and retail store with Japanese bar snacks.
Who: Mutsuko Soma (Kamonegi), Russell King
Where: Fremont
When: March
Why It’s Important: The chef behind one of the city’s best new restaurants is opening a sister sake bar and retail shop, located two doors down. Along with co-owner and fellow sake expert, Russell King, Soma aims to highlight a range of sakes—from classic junmai daiginjo to those made with new rice strains—alongside a list of Japanese craft beers and traditional fermented bar snacks.

Bar Hitchcock

What: An all-day cafe featuring classic and low-proof cocktails from the mini Hitchcock restaurant empire.
Who: Brendan McGill, Erik Hakkinen
Where: Bainbridge Island
When: March
Why It’s Important: The third property from chef Brendan McGill, Bar Hitchcock delivers an all-day concept to Bainbridge Island complete with a classic line-up of sandwiches (OG roast beef, Philly cheese steak) and the requisite avocado toast and grain bowls. Beverages include a handful of thoughtful cocktails, beers, wines and a full coffee program.

Las Vegas

Majordōmo Meat & Fish

What: A Las Vegas-based sister restaurant to Momofuku’s Majordōmo
Who: David Chang and Richard Hargreave
Where: The Palazzo at The Venetian Resort
When: Summer
Why It’s Important: While the menu is currently in development, the Las Vegas outpost of David Chang’s Majordōmo, which currently boasts one of the country’s most exciting wine lists, assembled by wine director Richard Hargreave, will be decidedly larger in scale. For Hargreave, this offers an opportunity to build a more sizeable wine program with a deeper cellar stocked with rare back vintages, along with the chance to champion small producers not commonly seen in Sin City.

Los Angeles

Formosa Café

What: The reopening of iconic West Hollywood lounge.
Who: 1933 Group (Harlowe, Highland Park Bowl, Bigfoot Lodge. Sassafras Saloon)
Where: West Hollywood
When: April/May
Why It’s Important: First opened in 1925, the Formosa Café was located across from the United Artists lot, which eventually became the Warner Brothers lot. The bar hosted everyone from Marilyn Monroe and Ava Gardner to John Wayne and Brad Pitt. After its sudden closure in 2017, the 1933 Group is reopening the landmark bar aimed to transport patrons back to Old Hollywood with close attention to preserving original details. The cocktail menu will be a collaboration with L.A. historians and will link new traditions with beloved classics.

Sake at Ototo | Photo: Wyatt Conlon

Ototo

What: A sake and Japanese beer bar in Echo Park from the team behind Tsubaki.
Who: Courtney Kaplan and Charles Namba
Where: Echo Park
When: April/May
Why It’s Important: From the owners of tiny izakaya Tsubaki, this casual neighborhood bar will focus on craft Japanese beer and obscure sake and shochu made from biodynamic and heirloom grains, plus small plates from its sister restaurant.

Damian

What: A nouveau Mexican restaurant.
Who: Chefs Enrique Olvera and Daniela Soto-Innes (Cosme, Atla) and Santiago Perez
Where: Arts District
When: August/September
Why It’s Important: Lauded Mexican City chefs bring nouveau Mexican to L.A., including a modern, mezcal-focused cocktail program that will be driven by sustainability and a no-waste ethos. The restaurant will be next to a second, more casual venture called Ditroit.

Other Notable Openings:

Abraco (New York): The East Village espresso bar has extended its hours and now offers a tight list of aperitivo-style cocktails and bites.

Lost Hours (New York): A 30-seat lounge from the Death & Co. team, which opened in February, hidden in the lobby of Midtown’s Hotel 3232.

No Bar (New York): Angela Dimayuga (Mission Chinese) is behind this queer bar that took over the Narc Bar space in the Standard East Village in February. Head bartender Simone Goldberg overseas the cocktails.

Rouge (Philadelphia): The reopening of a 21-year old bistro with drinks by Lê of Hop Sing Laundromat.

Pizzeria Beddia (Philadelphia): The beloved pizzeria is moving into a bigger location with a liquor license and will offer a selection of natural wine.

Lunar Inn (Philadelphia): A team of industry veterans have combined forces to open this neighborhood bar and bottle shop in Port Richmond.

Oculto 477 (San Diego): A forthcoming bar-within-a-bar tucked behind the agave-focused Tahona.

Bar Shiru (Oakland): The first Japanese-inspired vinyl bar of it’s kind in the Bay Area opened it’s doors in February.

Death & Co. (Los Angeles): Alex Day, David Kaplan and Ravi DeRossi will bring a Los Angeles outpost of their East Village bar to LA’s Arts District.

The post The Most Notable New Bars in America, Spring/Summer 2019 appeared first on PUNCH.

During past blind tastings, in which the PUNCH staff has tried to find the ultimate interpretation of this or that cocktail, the office bar was always crowded with bottles.

During the most recent tasting, however, it was almost empty. That’s because you don’t need much to make a Ti’ Punch. The national drink of Martinique is simplicity itself, a DIY cocktail consisting of rhum agricole, a little cane syrup and limes, that anyone can make. (The “Ti’” is short for “petit.”) But, as with other seemingly simple drinks, such as the Old-Fashioned and Martini, that doesn’t mean that excellence is easily achieved—at least in the eyes of Ti’ Punch devotees. 

The Top Three

Jen Akin’s Ti' Punch

A textbook example of the classic Caribbean cocktail.

Pablo Moix’s Ti' Punch

Pablo Moix's version calls for a base of La Favorite rhum and Petite Canne Sugar Cane Syrup.

Austin Hartman's Ti' Punch

A base of 55 percent ABV rhum makes for a stronger rendition.

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For a good, long time, almost all of those advocates resided on the French Caribbean isles the drink calls home, Martinique and Guadeloupe, where rhum agricole, the distinctly grassy rum distilled from cane juice rather than molasses, is made. But with the cocktail revival has come cocktail globalism. Soon after new-juice-seeking, globe-trotting American bartenders discovered rhum agricole, they discovered Ti’ Punch and brought it back to the States. A few of those converts joined PUNCH during a recent tasting of eleven different Ti’ Punches, including Kate Perry, formerly of the Seattle rum bar Rumba and now the US market manager for La Maison & Velier; Austin Hartman, owner of Paradise Lounge in Ridgewood, Queens; and St. John Frizell, owner of Fort Defiance in Brooklyn.

Perry first encountered the drink in Martinique in 2011 while doing research prior to opening Rumba. “I knew that was the thing to drink there,” she recalled. “It was strange. My palate was unaccustomed to it in 2011, but it grew on me quickly to the point where that’s all I drank for years.”

Like all new believers, the panelists’ views on right and wrong, where the drink was concerned, were narrow and strongly held. For the spirit, they wanted a blanc—no aged rhum allowed—and the liquid had to be at least 50 percent alcohol by volume. “They make 40 percent only for the American market,” said Perry. “It has to be 50 to be authentic.”

Perry pointed out that people in Martinque often used plain sugar as a sweetener. But the bartender judges all preferred cane syrup, if only for expediency and consistency’s sake. “Crystalized sugar has no place behind my bar,” said Frizell.

As for that curious lime disk or coin, which is described as being the size of a silver dollar or half dollar, they insisted the shape and size and cut of the fruit were paramount. They didn’t want to see any lime twists or wedges; those had no place in a Ti’ Punch. The coin, which should ideally be cut from thin-skinned limes, should have a little bit of pith and flesh on its underside, enough to extract a drop or two of juice—but not too much, or you might stumble disastrously into Daiquiri territory.

The very idea that a Ti’ Punch might end up tasting like a Daiquiri or a Caipirinha, or any other of the time-honored cocktails in the rum-sugar-lime family, gave the panelists horrors. One submission, which boasted too much lime and ice for the judges’ tastes, was dismissed as an “airport Daiquiri.” Another, with multiple limes in the glass, was deemed a decent drink, but more closely resembling a Caipirinha.

The panelist also bridled at the suggestion that Ti’ Punch had any association with the rum-soaked tiki world. “It’s the opposite of tiki,” insisted Hartman. “It’s not about layering. It’s about the power of simplicity. There’s tiki and then there’s island classics.” (That said, a few of the competing drinks hailed from tiki bars. Where there’s rum, there’s rum.)

More than any other issue, the matter of temperature came up most frequently. Hartman and Perry preferred the drink at room temperature, not only because such a preparation was historically authentic, but it showcased the often pungent, vegetal flavors of the spirit. “There’s something about no ice,” said Hartman. “You get the rhum, you get the lime. It’s such a beautiful drink.”

But not everyone agrees. Even rum importer Ed Hamilton, a strict Ti’ Punch purist, said, via email, that ice “is not considered sacrilege.” Frizell was initially not opposed to the competing drinks that had ice, but admitted, by the end of the tasting, that he had come around to Perry and Hartman’s way of thinking.

Frizell’s conversion was borne out in the results. All three cocktails that placed were ice-free. The winning drink came from Jen Akin of Rumba (a bartender Perry trained). Her version consisted of half a barspoon of Sirop J.M (a brand of bottled cane syrup from Martinique), a small lime coin and two ounces of Rhum J.M Blanc 100-proof. Unlike many of the other recipes, the instructions were simple: “Add lime, then syrup, then rhum into the glass. Swizzle and serve.” The judges loved the body and strong flavors of the drink. “This tastes correct,” said Perry.

Pablo Moix of Dama in Los Angeles came in second. His recipe called for a lime disk covered with a scant barspoon of Petite Canne Sugar Cane Syrup (another cane syrup brand from Martinique) to be pressed a bit with the spoon before two-and-a-quarter ounces of La Favorite rhum agricole is added. Coming in third was Hartman himself, with his mix of one-and-a-half ounces of Rhum J.M 110-proof, a half-ounce of Sirop J.M and a lime disk. His method read as follows: “With the lime disk skin side facing down, place your swizzle stick atop… and swizzle the punch until the oils, rhum and sirop have blended (about 6 to 8 seconds).”

Hartman departed for another appointment shortly after the tasting was complete, leaving the remains of his victorious drink behind. His exit brought to Perry’s mind yet another Ti’ Punch criterion. “I think that’s important—when you walk away and you still taste it,” she said. “That’s the signature of a good Ti’ Punch.”

The post In Search of the Ultimate Ti’ Punch appeared first on PUNCH.

The prawns would have been enough, honestly. Massive and meaty, they’d been marinated in shrimp paste overnight and then seared on a hot griddle. But shortly after they hit the bar, Masahiro Urushido, the owner of Katana Kitten, the nine-month old, Japanese-influenced cocktail bar in Greenwich Village, leaned over and asked if I’d be interested in an “umami situation.”

I wasn’t altogether sure what he meant, but it’s difficult to mistrust Urushido’s mile-wide grin. He proceeded to remove the heads from the prawns and placed them in a vise of sorts, extracting the savory juice. He then mixed it with sake and salted lemon and presented it as a shot, which was soon joined by an additional glass of shochu. A couple minutes later, the emptied prawn skulls arrived in crispy, salted, deep-fried form, as a third course.

Offered at another cocktail bar, this exhibition might have been framed with all possible pomp. But at Katana Kitten, it felt like a gesture between friends. That feeling of fun-loving, but never self-serious, service suffuses every iota of what Katana does, and can almost certainly be attributed to Urushido. Known throughout the drinks industry simply as “Masa,” his is the very face of hospitality, one adorned with a thick, un-ironic mustache and pronounced smile lines.

It is no surprise then that after leaving his long-time post as head bartender at Saxon & Parole, Urushido—who was born in a small town in the Nagano prefecture in Japan, and has been working in restaurants and bars since he was a teenager—opened one of the most welcoming cocktail bars in the city. (His co-owners are Greg Boehm and James Tune, both of Boilermaker in the East Village.) The name of the bar itself telegraphs Urushido’s earnest/casual intentions—“katana” being a name for a samurai sword and “kitten” a reference to a very different Japanese tradition: Hello Kitty. It’s a silly name that immediately disarms any nervous patron new to the Japanese bar aesthetic. “Katana Kitten is everyone’s everyday bar,” explains Urushido.

The bar’s menu is a model of straightforward simplicity, divided between highballs, cocktails and boilermakers—five of each. (There are also wines by the glass, sake and beer.) Upon each drink are lavished personal touches that take them beyond the ordinary. The Shiso Gin & Tonic, for instance, is made with intensely lime-bright homemade “shiso-quinine syrup,” which is on draft. When in season, from June to October, the drink rests in the cooling shade of an enormous shiso leaf from Urushido’s Brooklyn garden. A different plucking from that same garden, red shiso, goes into the Amaretto Sour, alongside a slightly saline Japanese plum shrub. Like Portland bartender Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s famous version of the drink, the amaretto here is bumped up in power and flavor by the addition of rye whiskey. This Japanese-inflected version, sprinkled with yukari—salted and sundried red shiso leaves, generally used as seasoning for rice—is a further improvement on the once-lowly cocktail.

That sour is a good example of what Katana does well, proffering flavorful and charmingly inventive eastern spins on western drinks without undue ostentation. Cool Runnings, Urushido’s Japanese spin on a Mai Tai, is another. It reads like adult breakfast cereal: potato shochu, arrack, coconut orgeat, puffed rice, banana, cocoa nibs and lemon. Those ingredients deliver delicate notes of fruit, nuts, sweet and funk, a complex but yet somehow quiet riot of flavor. The rosy dust sitting on the surface is dehydrated Okinawan purple sweet potato.

These drinks, paired with Urushido’s buoyant approach to hospitality, illustrate the importance of Katana in the still-young Japanese bar movement in the U.S. Just as many of the early craft cocktail bars sometimes over-emphasized the formal aspects of mixology, Japanese-style bars have taken some time extracting themselves from their model, with early examples feeling a bit textbook and chilly in their adherence to tradition. But, like Kenta Goto of Bar Goto before him, Urushido spent enough years working New York bars to absorb the best parts of each country’s school of bartending, forging a hybrid style that is only now becoming recognizable.

Inside Katana Kitten

With Katana Kitten, a new Japanese-style bar in Greenwich Village, owner Masahiro Urushido has opened was of the warmest and most welcoming bars in New York.

Urushido is that rare craft cocktail bar owner who is frequently seen behind his own bar.

Japanese posters of American films decorate the walls of Katana Kitten, which offers careful cocktails without being self-serious.

The drinks on the Katana menu—including the Cool Runnings, a Japanese riff on the Mai Tai, seen here—are marked by meticulous care and personal touches.

The outside of the soft, milky Panda Fizz is smeared with a slash of striking black lava salt.

The Melon-Lime Soda, one of the better Midori-revival drinks that have popped up in cocktail bars over the last few years, is one of the early breakout hits.

The cheerful hospitality of owner Urushido, who is always smiling, permeates every part of what Katana Kitten does.

The Hinoki Martini, served in a glass cone inside an ice-filled masu box, has one of the most elegant presentations of any cocktail in New York.

If, upon ordering the prawns, you are asked if you’re interested in an “Umami Situation,” say yes and watch your food be transformed into drink.

With the “Umami Situation,” Katana takes the juice squeezed from prawn heads and combines it with sake for an impromptu savory shot.

Two of the breakout hits from Katana’s opening menu—one more Kitten, the other more Katana—also showcase an east-west amalgam. The more playful of the two is the Melon-Lime Soda, one of the better Midori-revival drinks that have popped up in cocktail bars over the last few years. It combines Absolut Lime vodka, Midori, the Japanese sudachi lime, matcha and lime leaf. Piquant, tangy and refreshing, it drinks like a kicky, complex Mountain Dew. More formal is the Hinoki Martini, whose harmonious mix of vodka, gin, sherry and sake can smooth the edges off anyone’s day. The cocktail enjoys one of the most visually elegant packagings in the city: a glass cone resting in a masu box filled with crushed ice. A misting of Colorado cypress essence (subbing for the hinoki cypress tree, native to Japan) completes the experience.

The sneaky and subtle care that Katana brings to everything extends to the food. The lush, silky-smooth deviled eggs are fortified by Japanese mustard, Kewpie mayonnaise and miso, and topped with salmon roe. The nori fries are sprinkled with aonori and sea salt; get them with Japanese curry sauce for a delicious eastern version of “wets.” The egg salad “sando,” made again with Kewpie mayo and thick, soft, crustless slices of daiichi bread, is the sandwich equivalent of a deeply comfortable sofa. Finally, the teriyaki burger, topped with much-depended-upon Kewpie, pickled pineapple, shiso and “Masa special sauce” served on a potato bun, is a stand-out bar burger in a city that already has an embarrassment of stand-out bar burgers.

Everything you might need to eat and drink these things—chopsticks, napkin-wrapped silver, small trays made of compressed palm leaf, ice-cold mugs—is seen to at Katana, another aspect of its quiet attentiveness. Every time I looked down at the bar, it seemed some new helpful or needed item had been slipped in. I was lucky enough a couple times to have Masa do the attending; sincere graciousness and joy of service are hard to come by, and there’s nothing quite like being served by him. Thankfully, he’s one of those rare cocktail bar owners who is actually behind his bar fairly often. But his good cheer seems to have been adopted by the rest of the staff, who have successfully disseminated it to the clientele. The crowd bubbled with contentment under a canopy of small white lights during my recent visits.

There’s been a lot of talk in recent years in the bartending community about a return to hospitality after years of hard-line patron schooling on the art of the cocktail. Sometimes, this conversation has felt like a false either-or proposition, as if careful cocktails and generous service couldn’t exist in the same space. Katana and Urushido show how both can be done well simultaneously, and in two cultural languages to boot. The wonder lies in how effortless it all seems.

The post Bar Review: A New Kind of Japanese-Style Bar appeared first on PUNCH.

For most Americans, the Mint Julep only makes an appearance once a year during the Kentucky Derby. In New Orleans, it’s a year-round affair.

At Revel Cafe & Bar, bartender Chris McMillian is famous for serving his Mint Julep with a side of performance art, reciting by memory an ode to the drink penned in the 1890s by J. Soule Smith, which opens with, “Then comes the zenith of man’s pleasure. Then comes the julep—the Mint Julep.” This act of hospitality remains spontaneous and unsolicited. “It can be requested, but not always guaranteed,” says McMillian.

His version of the drink, with or without the barside recitation, is the product of many years of dedication. “The beauty of this drink is its simplicity,” says McMillian. “It’s about making each element the best that you can, and understanding that your idea of the best may change over time.”

Related Recipe

Chris McMillian's Mint Julep

Chris McMillian has been perfecting his recipe for over two decades.

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The first thing to consider is the drinking vessel itself. McMillian keeps 18 silver-plated julep cups in circulation at Revel, both for their classic looks but also for their ability to keep the drink properly chilled. The second thing to consider, of course, is mint. McMillian uses about 10 sprigs (“leaves and stems—the whole buster”) per drink, which amounts to about a pound or more a day at Revel, depending on the occasion. He cautions against aggressively muddling the delicate herb, which might release more bitter flavors from the chlorophyll. “You just want to reduce the volume in the glass to make room for the ice and other ingredients,” he says, “and gently volatilize the oils so you can smell the aroma like fresh-cut grass.”

Despite the high volume of of Mint Juleps he makes on a daily basis, McMillian hand-crushes ice per order using an oversized wooden mallet and a canvas Lewis bag, which he believes results in a much drier ice as the bag wicks away most of the extraneous water. There’s also no denying the element of theater involved in wielding a giant wooden mallet. “We could argue that my single greatest contribution to the global cocktail movement, whether people believe it or not, is the revival of the Lewis bag and mallet, which I’ve been doing for 20 years now,” says McMillian.

Chris McMillian crushes ice to order with an oversize mallet and a Lewis bag.

McMillian gently muddles the mint to reduce the volume and express the oils.

He fills the tin until there is a small mound of crushed ice on top.

Maker's Mark is McMillian's whiskey of choice.

The finishing touch is an extra topping of crushed ice, mint and a straw.

After packing the cup with enough crushed ice to form a little mound rising above the top of the tin, he then pours in two to four ounces (depending on the tin in question), of Maker’s Mark bourbon, which he favors for its caramel and vanilla notes, which complement the mint rather than overpower it. He then tops off the drink with a half-ounce to three quarters of an ounce of simple syrup. While McMillian has experimented with building layers of powdered sugar and ice throughout the drink as well as using the syrup during the muddling phase, but finds that this method allows the syrup to trickle slowly through the ice for more even distribution.

He then adds a small cap of crushed ice to account for the loss caused by the room temperature bourbon and simple syrup, and garnishes the whole thing with one or two fresh mint sprigs before serving the final drink with a straw. The Mint Julep comes on strong at first, but it’s meant to reveal itself over the course of drinking it.

“The beauty and charm of the Mint Julep is that it’s an evolutionary experience,” says McMillian. “While often, when you start the drink, you may wonder if you’ve gotten yourself in over your head, but if you enjoy it at a leisurely pace you will find that every sip is different than the one that precedes it. That’s a wonderful quality in a drink.”

The post Mastering the Mint Julep With Chris McMillian appeared first on PUNCH.

When the first-ever Pearl Diver Punch emerged from a discreet bar at Los Angeles’ Don the Beachcomber in the 1930s it signaled a dramatic shift. The drink, festooned with a geranium leaf and edible flowers and served in a bespoke glass, was the antithesis of the spartan three-ingredients formulas—Manhattan, Martini, Old-Fashioned—that had defined the bar world’s status quo for the last half-century. It belonged to an entirely new category of cocktail.

Today we call it tiki, but it wasn’t always so. “Back in the day, during the Golden Age of what we now call tiki drinks, they were never called that,” explains Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, the genre’s leading historiographer. (It was only after the drinks had faded from mainstream phenomenon to cultural artifact that the name emerged, borrowing from the central motif of the genre: tiki totems.) During their midcentury heyday, what we now refer to as tiki drinks were known interchangeably as exotic cocktails, tropical cocktails, Polynesian drinks or, in Don the Beachcomber’s parlance, “rhum rhapsodies.”

It was, in part, the very drama of these eye-catching drinks—the Shark’s Tooth, Missionary’s Downfall, the Zombie—that allowed the specifics of the genre to evade codification for so long. The formulas themselves, with their complex blends of rums and unusual modifiers like falernum and orgeat, were ruled by a certain behind-the-scenes rigorousness. But from the outside, the imprecise notion that “you know it when you see it” has long dictated the limits (or lack thereof) of tiki. “When you start calling something a tiki drink, now you have to define that,” says Berry, “but nobody did define that right when the drinks were being created.”

Tiki began as a contrived fantasy borne from the mind of a single individual: Don the Beachcomber. It didn’t take long for imitators to crop up, broadening the fantasy world to include an even wider array of drinks and décor in cities across the country. Not unlike today’s Star Wars or Marvel franchises, the rich source material of Don the Beachcomber’s original vision has allowed the genre to continue evolving, bound together less by hard-and-fast rules than by a broader core identity. To try and retroactively apply constrictions to the genre proves challenging because, as Berry puts it, “you’re creating parameters that never were for a category that never was.”

But there’s a reason—beyond the human need to label, sort and categorize—that we continue to quibble over the meaning and parameters of tiki; it’s the same reason that the library of volumes dedicated to the topic grows larger by the day, and new bars devoted to its legacy are on the rise: There’s something singular about tiki drinks—something that gets lost when tossed under the umbrella term “tropical” or the notion that “you know it when you see it.”

So what is a tiki drink, exactly?

“It all comes down to the punch formula,” says Berry, referencing the classic Planter’s Punch, a West Indies staple since the colonial era, the components of which are immortalized in a well-trod-out rhyme: one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong and four of weak. Tiki takes this baseline recipe and fractures each requisite component into multiples of each. It is, as Berry concludes, “a Caribbean drink squared, or cubed.”

Where a typical punch recipe might call for lime as the sole sour element, tiki will call for lime and grapefruit, or even lime, grapefruit and passionfruit. For the sweet element, in place of just simple syrup, honey or maple syrup might also make an appearance. But perhaps most significant is the amplification of the “strong” component. Never before in the history of the cocktail had a mixed drink doubled down on the base spirit by splitting it into multiple rums, or even multiple spirits, like rum, Cognac and gin in the case of Trader Vic’s Fog Cutter. Doing so would become a hallmark of the style.

“It’s a baroque Planter’s Punch,” says Martin Cate, owner of San Francisco tiki mecca, Smuggler’s Cove. “Tiki has a clear definition of what it’s supposed to be,” he continues, “it has to have sour, sweet, spirit working in equal and interesting ways, complex ways, and it has to have—in my take—some kind of spice component to it.”

Indeed, spice is a key component of many tiki recipes, particularly those drawn from Don the Beachcomber’s library of work. (His proprietary syrup, known as Donn’s Mix, was a central component to many of his recipes and consisted of grapefruit juice and cinnamon syrup.) But can tiki’s entire identity rest on such a minute detail as a dusting of nutmeg or cinnamon atop a multi-rum base?

Yes and no. But a more concrete answer begins with explaining why, for instance, a Piña Colada is categorically not a tiki drink. With its pineapple wedge and umbrella it certainly looks the part. At its core, however, its rum-pineapple-coconut construction lacks the requisite sour element of a Planters Punch (and, in fact, many Caribbean classics like the Daiquiri and the Mojito). Created in the 1950s at a resort in San Juan, the Piña Colada slots better into a category known as “resort drinks” or “boat drinks,” which, by the 1970s, had subsumed the title “tropical.”

This conflation of terms undermined another key point of differentiation between tropical and tiki—namely, that the latter sparked a robust culture that went well beyond a genre of cocktails, to span architecture, decor, sculpture, glassware, cuisine and apparel. At one point the difference between a tropical drink and a tiki drink was defined by where it was served.

Today, however, the two find themselves once again intertwined, this time under the elevated umbrella of “craft cocktails.” The same forces that rescued both the stalwarts of the Golden Age of cocktails and the maligned disco drinks of the 1970s have worked their magic on their tropical brethren. What happens, then, when the Piña Colada borrows from the tiki textbook and adopts a multi-rum base as it has in so many modern variations? Served at a tiki bar—as it often is—it starts to look a lot like a tiki drink.

Tiki’s very adaptability has allowed it to not only imprint on tropical drinks, but other non-tiki drinks as well. Which is why, at bars like Chicago’s Lost Lake or New Orleans’ Latitude 29 you’ll find a Painkiller—essentially a Piña Colada with orange juice—or a Daiquiri comfortably alongside updated versions of the Mai Tai or Fog Cutter. It’s made the line between tiki and non-tiki ever harder to distinguish, prompting the question of whether there’s even really a need for one.

We can agree to some of tiki’s essential ingredients, formulas and techniques, but the patterns that repeat are just as important to tiki as those that don’t. Perhaps the most critical facet of tiki, like any great fantasy genre, is its adherence only to the limits of our own imagination.

The post Does Anyone Really Know What Tiki Is? appeared first on PUNCH.

The change in seasons always brings with it a host of noteworthy openings across the country—and with new bars come new cocktails. This season, the formality that has long been a hallmark of “serious” cocktail dens only continues to loosen, making way for the growing crop of neighborhood bars where a relaxed atmosphere prevails, but not at the expense of crave-able cocktails. As in seasons past, the axis tilts back towards the classics, with subtle twists that make a big impact. To take a look at what’s forecasted for this season, here’s 5 & Dime’s Low Key, a Chartreuse Daisy from Squable, Lazy Bird’s Hemingway Daiquiri, a Basil Spritz from Bar Hitchcock, and the Rosita riff from The Franklin.

Basil Spritz: Basil leaves give this spritz a fresh, herbal kick. [Recipe]

Lazy Bird's Hemingway Daiquiri: Lee Zaremba's variation opts for a domestic maraschino and extra grapefruit. [Recipe]

Low Key: Herbal lemon syrup perks up a bonded bourbon base. [Recipe]

Rosita: This softer riff on the Rosita subs smoky tequila for mezcal and Aperol for Campari. [Recipe]

Chartreuse Daisy: A new school riff on the daisy. [Recipe]

The post Five Cocktails From Spring’s Hottest New Bars appeared first on PUNCH.

Christine Wiseman has never produced a menu that didn’t call on edible glitter. “Literally every menu, without fail,” she says.

As the Bar Manager at the Broken Shaker’s Los Angeles outpost, Wiseman has made a name for herself with her penchant for drinks that are as over-the-top as she is. Designed for the tropical-leaning rooftop bar, they are, at their core, lighthearted and easy-drinking, but that doesn’t mean they lack complexity. “I think that first you drink with your eyes,” says Wiseman of her tendency to playfully adorn every drink she sends out. But beneath the crowns of flowers, glitter and neon swizzle sticks are layered compositions that evolve as they’re enjoyed.

Consider her O-Fish-Ally Open. Calling on the citrus-rich bounty of Southern California, Wiseman pairs a cordial comprised of blood orange, Meyer lemon and oroblanco with a miso tincture, alongside a mix of gin, bianco vermouth and absinthe, all topped with shredded nori. As the crushed ice melts, the nori integrates into the mixture, highlighting the drink’s subtle umami profile. 

Taken together, her cocktails represent a seamless marriage of disparate influences—California produce, Thai cuisine, wellness—and an unselfconscious attention to appearances. It’s a combination that is the perfect reflection of the city she’s called home for the last seven years. “I’ve only ever made drinks in LA,” says Wiseman. “I don’t know what my style would look like anywhere else.”

A West Virginia native, Wiseman began her career in hospitality in nearby Washington, D.C. Shortly after it opened in 2011, she talked her way into a job at Virtue Feed & Grain, then under the purview of Todd Thrasher, now the proprietor of Potomac Distilling Company and Tiki TNT. “People were making Old-Fashioneds and Sazeracs—I’d never even heard of those,” remembers Wiseman. Not long after, she moved to Los Angeles where she worked as a server at chef Michael Voltaggio’s now-shuttered Ink, filling in behind the bar alongside Gaby Mlynarczyk, who went on to become the beverage director of Accomplice and the author of Clean & Dirty Drinking.  

Wiseman has carried a taste for bold flavor pairings through to her original creations at the irreverent, ’80s-themed Break Room 86 (where she ran the cocktail program for two years) and into her current role at Broken Shaker. Ingredients like “papaya salad” cordial, aloe liqueur and nopales come together in a single drink, while curry, turmeric and coconut harmonize in another. “There are certain things that may not work together in a cocktail,” she says. “I kind of find ways around that to make funky flavors happen.”

Here, get to know Christine Wiseman in four cocktails. 

Papaya Salad Daiquiri

Inspired by the papaya salads regularly served in her Thai Town neighborhood, Wiseman brings the brightness of the dish into a classic Daiquiri formula by way of a cordial comprised of Thai chilies, fish sauce, tomato water, sugar, lime juice, papaya and more. “This one took awhile for me to get right,” she admits, “but I needed to get the fish sauce just right because it is such a bold flavor, I didn’t want it to dominate the drink.”

There Is No Eastside

Created for the first Broken Shaker menu in Los Angeles, in 2017, There is No Eastside nods to the Chicago-born cocktail, the Southside, both in concept and in name (there is, she notes, no Eastside in Chicago). Swapping the expected gin for mezcal and bolstering the mint—presented here in syrup form—with cucumber juice and zhoug (an herbal Yemeni hot sauce), is Wiseman’s subtle nod to “LA’s obsession with fresh-pressed juices,” she says.

O-Fish-Ally Open

“This cocktail was inspired by the beautiful citrus we have in California,” says Wiseman, who incorporates blood orange, Meyer lemon and oroblanco into this recipe. “I really wanted to showcase these items that I had fallen in love with at the market from one of my favorite farms.” Originally a straightforward mixture of gin, bianco vermouth, absinthe and citrus, Wiseman added miso tincture after a visit to Little Tokyo, “to give it some funk.”

Electro Lit

“This is a cocktail where I get to poke a bit of fun at my most amazing city and its juice and wellness craze,” says Wiseman of the coconut water and curry-turmeric-infused cocktail. Tequila forms the base of the crushed-ice drink, complemented by passion fruit liqueur and lime juice. “People go crazy over it.” 

Papaya Salad Daiquiri: Christine Wiseman brings the brightness of papaya salad into the Daiquiri format by way of a cordial. [Recipe]

Electro Lit: In this tequila cocktail, coconut water and curry-turmeric cordial nod to the wellness craze that permeates Los Angeles. [Recipe]

There Is No Eastside: A play on the Southside, built on a mezcal base with cucumber juice and zhoug. [Recipe]

O-Fish-Ally Open: Wiseman showcases the citrus bounty of California in cordial form, paired with miso atop a gin base. [Recipe]

The post Christine Wiseman Wants You to Drink More Glitter appeared first on PUNCH.

Nineteen years ago, Budweiser debuted its “Whassup” ad campaign, featuring a spot in Super Bowl XXXIV that flooded the screens of 130 million viewers. The nonchalance of the concept—bored guys slurring greetings into phones—seemed a casual assurance of mainstream beer’s dominance in America.

The commercials from 2019’s Big Game told a different story, one that hinted at the seismic shifts beverage companies are navigating as beer sales, mired in a five-year downward slump, continue to sag. Of the eight ads Anheuser-Busch InBev purchased, one eschewed beer altogether. Featuring two entrepreneurial mermaids, the commercial pushed Bon & Viv’s Spiked Seltzer, a rebranding of SpikedSeltzer, created by beer industry alum Nick Shields in 2012 and purchased by AB InBev in 2016.

One of the biggest public platforms yet for the burgeoning hard seltzer market, the commercial was a nationally televised peek at the snowballing phenomenon of the ready-to-drink (RTD) market. Comprising a variety of premixed boozy beverages, the RTD category, largely dormant since the 1980s, has sparked an arms race as beverage corporations rush to acquire hard seltzers or launch canned or bottled cocktails. At least 40 new RTD products have launched in the last three years.

Distinct from commercial flavored malt beverages like Mike’s Hard Lemonade, these new RTDs seem poised to attract a younger generation of drinkers that grew up with Whole Foods and craft beer, and have helped drive demand for low- and no-alcohol drinks. Less inclined to categorize themselves conventionally as “wine drinkers” or “beer drinkers,” this type of consumer is open to products with crossover appeal. “More people are choosing their beverage repertoire on occasion or emotional headspace,” says Chelsea Phillips, vice president of AB InBev’s Beyond Beer portfolio. It helps that price points aren’t much higher than what you’d pay for a craft beer, let alone a craft cocktail.

When you factor in the category’s cool-casual appeal with investment from corporate conglomerates, RTDs begin to look a lot like the athleisure of the drinks world. Blending the colorful, effervescent charm of La Croix with the cachet of craft cocktails and the portability of beer, these on-trend products have the potential to cement their position on retail shelves and menus—or fizzle out like the hard sodas of yore. But so far, the numbers are hopeful.

In February, AB InBev purchased Cutwater Spirits, a company whose line of 14 canned cocktails saw 356 percent growth in sales over the previous year. That month the beer giant also rolled out new ads for its canned Ritas Spritz line (descended from the Lime-a-Rita, though technically these new products have no concrete relation to a Margarita), which includes flavors like white peach rosé. This spring MillerCoors is launching its Cape Line Sparkling Cocktails, advertised as gluten-free and low-calorie. Gordon’s Gin (owned by Diageo) made waves in the U.K. with its RTD Pink Gin and Tonic, while Reed’s Ginger Beer recently unveiled a canned mule cocktail. Southern Tier Distilling parlayed its craft spirits into three canned cocktails, including a Bourbon Smash. According to global drinks analyst IWSR, sales of ready-to-drinks rose 6.1 percent in the past year. Some products are seeing triple-digit growth.

Preceding these commercial brands was a wave of entrepreneurs acting independently, unaware that their collective efforts amounted to a movement that would shake the industry firmament. Jordan Salcito, the director of wine special projects at Momofuku, wanted something cold and refreshing that was not beer at warm-weather events like a baseball game. She had nostalgic memories of the neon-colored wine coolers of the 1980s but knew that any rebirth of the category would require emphasis on high-quality ingredients and sustainability.

The explosion of popularity around the Aperol Spritz, and Salcito’s success creating a modern-day wine cooler from Finger Lakes riesling at Booker and Dax, led to Ramona, an organic wine spritz dosed with ruby red grapefruit juice. “This was for those more traditional beer moments that for me were also spritz moments,” says Salcito. Sales were up 618 percent last year, and Citi Field recently announced that Ramona would be available at every bar in the stadium, neatly rounding the circle of Salcito’s original intention. The company has launched a second lemon flavor, with a third to follow.

“Its not stuffy, it’s fun,” says Josh Rosenstein, the creator of LA-based Hoxie, one of the first spritzers to land on the market. A chef by trade, Rosenstein used to concoct wine spritzers while working on the line, splashing together fruit scraps, cooking wine and soda water in a deli cup for an à la minute pick-me-up. When composed versions of these spritzers went like hotcakes at a private dinner party, Rosenstein realized tastes were changing, and with an investor’s help he started the company, which debuted 800 cases in 2015; this year, he projects numbers could get up to 6,000 or 7,000 cases—minuscule compared with conglomerates, but growing year over year.

Rosenstein has maintained a focus on fresh, non-artificial ingredients, with a base made from the catawba grape. “There’s variation from can to can,” he says. “Every batch is a little different. I blend each tank by hand.” It’s another example of how craft RTDs often sit between conventional categories, marrying the organic variation of wine with the unpretentious chuggability of beer. Similarly, Brooklyn-based amaro company St. Agrestis launched a bottled Negroni on the coattails of the bitter cocktail’s ascent.

Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that the concept appealed to Empirical Spirits, the experimental Copenhagen-based distillery that produces “freeform spirits” that liberally intermix flavors and fermentation techniques. Its first canned RTD, Minor Threat, was created on a whim at the suggestion of R&D team member Chris Stewart, a former bartender who devised the recipe. Three weeks later, they blended the juice of 600 pomelos with Szechuan pepper and their Helena base spirit, which is made from barley koji, pilsner malt and Belgian saison yeast. They used a neighboring brewpub’s facilities for carbonation and brought down a mobile canning unit from Sweden. Within a month of conception, Empirical’s 1,500 cans of Minor Threat RTD had sold out.

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For Empirical Spirits chief operations officer Ian Moore, the can itself signifies a looser attitude toward what is fundamentally the same approach the company takes with its high-end spirits. “Bottles convey this idea of sitting down, stroking your chin,” says Moore. “A can is a bit more like having a barbecue.” Empirical has already released a second Minor Threat that sells for $11, blending milk oolong tea, toasted birch and green gooseberry. All 2,800 cans sold out.

Innovative RTDs have flared up only to burn out before. In the late 1980s, sales of wine coolers plummeted by double digits, felled by excise taxes and associations with juvenile culture. More recently, hard soda had big industry buy-in but failed to galvanize a broad consumer base. However, the strong growth of alcohol-based RTDs in Great Britain and especially in Japan seems to point to a trend with wide relevancy, one that plays nicely with wellness and a market’s growing tolerance for elastic categories. Companies appear to be inclined to play the waiting game and see what sticks. Chelsea Phillips of AB InBev’s Beyond Beer group points out that the company hung onto its low-carb Michelob Ultra, launched in 2002, for well over a decade before it began picking up speed, recently becoming the fastest-growing domestic beer.

For now, RTDs are still a comparatively small segment of the overall market. “Beer, wine and spirits dominate alcohol consumption, leaving RTDs to take their place as an ‘also drink,’” concluded a Mintel report from December 2018. The analysts noted that, categorically, RTDs lack a strong governing identity; they advised “[owning] occasions” (as Aperol has with spritzes) would be a smart move going forward.

It seems likely this is the direction RTD will move in, impinging on spaces and moments typically occupied by beer and wine. Like athleisure, which successfully imported workout clothes into previously unaccommodating spaces, RTDs blur the lines in an arguably populist fashion. “In general it’s just challenging the norm of what people thought was possible,” says Phillips.

For the independent companies, fast initial growth has gone hand in hand with consumers starting to wrap their minds around these products. “So many people used to ask me, what’s a spritz? What’s a spritzer?” says Rosenstein. “As of late I haven’t had to define that as much.” Competition for market domination looms, but for now the abundance of products seems a boon. “I think it’s a rising tide,” says Salcito, expressing surprise that it’s taken so long for the market to open up. “Our consumers are smart and curious,” she continues. “They want to learn the rules for themselves instead of having someone tell them that this is what they need to be drinking right now.”

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