#new-york-cocktail-bars

#new-york-cocktail-bars

"After Eden is about what happens once you leave paradise. There's curiosity, a little temptation and sometimes a bit of chance."

Temple Bar is going full throwback this April with a two-night '90s takeover that leans all the way into downtown nostalgia, transforming into a 'living time capsule' with low lighting and oversized martini glasses.

Sukari Spirits positions itself as an originator and innovator of all-natural, ultra-premium spirits, with a focus on clean formulations and elevated drinking rituals.

But then the playoffs arrive, and you and I are reminded of what makes twilight football-outdoors and on grass-special. You start off in broad daylight as both teams fuck around for a quarter or two. Then the sun slowly begins to bleed away, taking all distractions along with it as it sinks below the horizon. Now we're in primetime, when everyone is watching. Now every player on the field is in the spotlight, and you, the viewer at home, are dialed in.

The project comes from a deep bench of hospitality heavyweights: Jimmy Rizvi, the restaurateur behind Bungalow, and Kanvar Singh, of Midtown's ever-popular Elsie Rooftop, lead the partnership along with beverage director Hirotomo Akutsu, formerly of Tokyo's Bar Trench (ranked 94th on the World's 50 Best Bars 2025) and creative director Rio Azmee of Shinka Ramen. Every detail, from the way a cocktail is built to the way the room feels, is deliberate.

For the past few years, we've been rounding up the best new restaurants in New York City as they open, with the sentiment being that anyone visiting the Big Apple can get a glimpse of our vast and diverse culinary scene by dining at a younger spot or two alongside the old-school institutions.

This spectacle of a drink-which comes in a swiveling glass on a bed of moss under a smoke-filled cloche-is part of a new lineup of "multisensory" cocktails created by Jeremy Le Blanche, known for avant-garde creations at Fantom in New York. But the earthy and bright combination of tequila, amaro, matcha, cardamom, lemongrass, and lime is stunning even without the theatrics.

The latest crop of bars are doing all of the above and then some, putting an emphasis on zero waste, housemade distillates, off beat wines, and immersive vibes. What's also clear is the geography of drinking culture: its clear epicenter is Lower Manhattan, with a few exciting entries in Brooklyn and one in Long Island City, Queens.

One of the oldest recipes for a classic, pre-Prohibition whiskey sour calls for a simple mixture of sugar, lemon juice, and whiskey. While some renditions swap simple syrup in place of sugar or add an egg white to the recipe to give it a frothy body, another variation on this famous favorite, widely known today as the New York sour, includes a float of red wine.

In Regarding Cocktails, Sasha Petraske's posthumous 2016 book, written by Georgette Moger-Petraske, Solomon shares the drink's origins. "I was inspired to create the Bensonhurst as an alternative to the Brooklyn cocktail, partly because of the lack of original-formula Amer Picon," he says in the book. "Vincenzo Errico had already created the Red Hook at Milk & Honey in 2004 as the first of the Brooklyn variations, which set the precedent of choosing other Brooklyn neighborhoods to name the variations it spawned."

Prohibition was the nationwide ban on the sale, manufacturing, and transportation of alcohol in the United States from 1920 to 1933. During this period, gangsters and bootleggers produced illegal booze, smuggled it across state lines, and ran secret bars throughout the country. While some bars were raided by the authorities, others thrived as a result of deals with the police or extensive protective measures.