Here at The Daily Pour, we order a lot of cocktails. Some may say too many! But in New York City, that’s rarely a bad thing — at least when it comes to the endless creativity of the Big Apple’s best and brightest mixologists.
Trying our way through a who’s who of World’s 50 Best Bars, underrated speakeasies, recent openings and local dives, we’ve narrowed in on five cocktails that showcase Manhattan’s drinking culture at its most inventive. If that standard margarita is beginning to look a little passé, then these are the drinks worth seeking out.
Lightspeed Drifter – Oddball
(Photo: Oddball)
From Double Chicken Please to Superbueno, it feels like every Manhattan bar worth its salt is specializing in savory cocktails right now. If you ask us, none are tackling the concept quite as tastefully as Oddball. Recently opened in Alphabet City, the venue takes its 1970s retro-futuristic theme to the logical extreme, mishmashing unexpected influences, flavors and colors into its particle collider of a menu.
A standout — and the de facto mascot of the bar — is the Lightspeed Drifter, which riffs on the Daiquiri with heady flavors of blueberry, whey and horseradish. Far from overpowering, the cocktail has a relaxed, creamy quality that reminded us of a blueberry cobbler topped off with a dollop of wasabi. It’s the rare savory cocktail that we’d recommend to just about anybody, doubly so thanks to its oh-so orderable deep purple hue. Other standouts from Oddball include its twist on the White Negroni (tomato vermouth, peanut and Centerbe) and its puzzlingly tasty Rubik (coconut gin, strawberry amaro and mushroom oil).
Marooned – Seirēn
Cocktails
Chelsea’s Seirēn is a celebration of Spain and Portugal’s conserva culture — the age-old (and increasingly trendy) practice of putting seafood inside a tin. The suit-and-tie Midtown crowd piles in after work for platters of chili oil sardines and tuna belly bathed in green curry sauce. It’s a dim lights and caviar sort of vibe, made all the classier by its nautical-themed drinks menu.
Sure, the team may have committed a little too hard to the bit: Cocktail names include the Lighthouse, Captain Nemo, Trident of Poseidon, Spide Trade, Midnight Maelstrom and Marithyme. Surprisingly, though, the only recognizably tiki-influenced drink is the Marooned. Ten to One rum, banana liqueur, coconut and lime join forces with a signature addition of sweet plantains, which adds a slightly smoky, caramelized flavor that hits just right alongside a pineapple garnish and a heaping pile of pebble ice.
Mole Corn Pain Killer – Bedford Stone Street
(Photo: Bedford)
The Bedford Stone Street boasts one of the most extensive cane distillate libraries in the city, with a special focus on Mexican-origin spirits. Though it might feel like a disservice to pour these ultra-rare, ultra-funky sippers into a mixed drink, head bartender José María Dondé doesn’t waste a single drop of potential.
Of the many excellent cocktails on the menu, our personal favorite is the Mole Corn Pain Killer, which makes use of not one but three bottles that you’ll rarely, if ever, spot on an American liquor store shelf. Mole fat-washed Oaxacan rum and Panamanian molasses-derived make unlikely friends with pox, a distillation of corn, wheat and sugarcane consumed as ceremonial liquor by the Tzotzil Mayans of the Chiapas highlands. Its moody flavors of dark chocolate and candied orange zest feel like an early invitation to Halloween. Order it with a slice of lime encrusted in burnt sugar, then head next door to Mexi for an equally impressive selection of niche agave spirits.
Pyramid Scheme – Amor y Amargo
Cocktails
We were inspired to try Amor y Amargo‘s Pyramid Scheme after reading a recent write-up by Punch Drink that described the cocktail as an ode to the forest floor. Little did we know, the same could be said for just about every recipe at the bite-sized East Village hideaway. Home to a single bar counter and no more than a dozen seats, the recently reopened venue is a testament to all things dry, spicy, botanical and bitter. If Fernet Branca isn’t your cup of tea, then Amor y Amargo likely won’t be either.
The Pyramid Scheme — one of seven drinks on the bar’s rotating seasonal menu — is its most approachable offering, but that’s not saying much. Wild plum vermouth, genever and orange chamomile bitters play second fiddle to a backbone of hay liqueur and Akhenaten Amaro, a mummification-inspired liqueur made with cumin, myrrh, cedar and eucalyptus. Though crushable is the last word anyone would use to describe it, I did manage to go through two of these in one sitting. An Australian couple sitting to my right (at Amor y Amargo, that means five inches away) swore it was the best cocktail they’d tried in their lives.
The Bandit’s Creamsicle – Bandit’s Burger + Dive
(Photo: Bandits Burger + Dive)
Bandit’s Burger + Dive is to cocktails what the Kool-Aid Man is to a brick wall. Located a few blocks from Washington Square Park, the restaurant/sort-of dive bar taps into brightly colored, exuberantly flavored nostalgia whenever and wherever possible. Signature serves include its Baja Blast-inspired frozen margarita, a whiskey shot that tastes like Cinnamon Toast Crunch and a Sprite highball topped with coconut fat-washed Hennessy. It’s the kind of place where MTV never went out of style and “extreme” is always spelled with three Xs.
So, of course, they have an orange creamsicle cocktail. Made with marshmallow-infused vodka, vanilla liqueur, tangerine juice, bitters and egg white, the drink is surprisingly understated in execution, betraying its noxiously orange color with none-too-sweet flavors of fresh citrus and gooey custard. If ever there was a drink that tasted like melted ice cream in a glass, the Bandit’s Creamsicle is it.
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