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July’s Best Reads on Drinks and Drinking
In Prohibition-era America, Roy Olmstead was a household name. Known as “the good bootlegger” for his eschewal of the more sordid aspects of his profession, Olmstead was nonetheless convicted by the...
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Three-Drink Minimum: Bartending With Chantal Tseng
Formerly the bar manager at the sherry-centric Mockingbird Hill, located in Washington, D.C., Chantal Tseng has spent nearly 17 years in the drinks business, working various roles that include...
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What We’re Into Right Now
Each month, we pull together a selection of drinking-related items that have, for one reason or another, grabbed the attention of PUNCH’s editors, who spend pretty much all day, every day surrounded by...
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Mastering the Zombie With Martin Cate
Notorious as Don the Beachcomber’s “lethal libation,” the Zombie cocktail is now part of the classic tiki drink canon, and a mainstay at most modern tiki bars. But the recipe, which is made with myriad...
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Bringing It Back Bar: How to Use Allspice Dram
Once an elusive ingredient known for its mention in historic recipes, allspice dram has been revived in recent years. Built on the flavor of the allspice berry—which takes its modern name from its...
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Inside One of the Midwest’s Oldest Tiki Bars
When Rose and Stanley Sacharski opened The Lucky Start, a modest bar in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood, in 1952, they made a somewhat slapdash decision to decorate with bamboo poles, and to cover the...
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The World’s 15 Most Important Tiki Bars
To use the terminology “most important” when it comes to tiki bars seems like a paradox. Tiki bars were never meant to be important. Born in America’s post-Prohibition era, these bars became wildly...
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Inside One of America’s Most Elaborate Home Tiki Bars
Entrance to Ron Farrell’s 20- by-15-foot backyard bar requires passage across a 30-foot Koi pond complete with a five-foot waterfall. Inside is a tiki collection decades in the making. “I grew up with...
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A Tour of the Iconic Mai-Kai Tiki Bar
The early history of tiki is remarkably straightforward. Simply put, all roads lead to Donn Beach. That’s in part because tiki, even during the Golden Age of Polynesian pop, experienced a...
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How to Use Overproof Rum in Cocktails
Early on, rum exporters figured out a pretty brilliant way to save cargo space: simply make their bottles more alcoholic, then dilute it down once it got to its destination. Eventually drinkers...
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Three-Drink Minimum: Bartending With Paul McGee
Paul McGee is one of few bartenders to maintain equal footing in both a classical and tiki approach to drink-making. As the beverage director for Land and Sea Dept., McGee helms the cocktail programs...
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Step Inside LA’s Ultimate Tiki Time Warp
Before opening the doors to Tiki-Ti in 1961, Ray Buhen spent nearly three decades working in almost every venerable faux-Polynesian restaurant in Los Angeles, beginning with Don the Beachcomber, in...
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Stir It Up: Three Reggae-Inspired Cocktails
As far back as the 1930s, when the Seapea Fizz was named for composer Cole Porter, music has been a source of inspiration in both the creation and naming of new drinks. Ask most bartenders—many of whom...
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Can the Martini-on-the-Rocks Make a Comeback?
Last May, I attended the reopening of the former Campbell Apartment, the secreted watering hole tucked inside Grand Central Terminal. To toast the newly refurbished rococo interior, I ordered a...
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A Bar Crawl Through the Aperitivo Capital of South America
“To understand aperitivo culture, I need to tell you about the Argentina of yesteryear,” says Guillermo Blumenkamp, owner of Doppelgänger, a beloved bitters and vermouth bar in Buenos Aires’ historic...
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Five Easy Upgrades on the Gin & Tonic
For much of its history, the Gin & Tonic hovered above the realm of recreation. Today, however, it’s not uncommon for a simple G&T to boast a laundry list of ingredients meant to elevate the...
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London’s Latest Closed-Loop Cocktail Bar Takes on Fermentation
In France they’re known as les fruits et légumes moches, literally “ugly fruits and vegetables,” and supermarket chain Intermarché has made a fortune off selling them. In the UK, where I am based, we...
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A Drinking Tour of Coney Island
America needs Coney Island right now. While Washington, D.C., belches out an unceasing roar of corruption, scandal and partisan noise, this narrow strip of Brooklyn shoreline serves as a reminder of...
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The Essential Vermouth Brands by Style
Like aromatic cocktail bitters and amaro, vermouth has undergone a transformation in recent years, climbing from the recesses of the back bar to being anointed as an obsessed-over ingredient. Vermouth...
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Five New Wave Margaritas
The Margarita’s minimal formula—simply tequila, orange liqueur, lime and sweetener—makes it one of the most adaptable recipes in the cocktail canon. As such, it’s given birth to a whole cottage...
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