Playboy's Best Bars 2013

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Best Place to Relive the Harlem Renaissance

GINNY'S SUPPER CLUB, NEW YORK oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

As if Red Rooster Harlem weren't swinging enough, owner-chef Marcus Samuelsson (pictured) has upped the ante with the downstairs Ginny's Supper Club. It's modern, yet it identifies, as beverage director Lonn Coupel-Coward puts it, "with a time when men wore suits and bow ties just to walk to the corner store, and the ladies loved it." The drinks are dandy too: Scotch whiskey, fresh basil, ginger, Chivas and ginger beer make a modern take on the Moscow mule.

G£est (fifting Qfince 3&i(K Sf Sffaney

ATTABOY, NEW YORK

• Two bartenders

from pioneering speakeasy Milk & Honey, Sam Ross and Michael Mcllroy, have taken over, changed its name to Attaboy

and loosened the joint's proverbial tie (no more house rules, no more reser­vations). Drinks are crafted with surgical precision and served

without stuffiness. Order a Tommy's No. 2 (which uses both tequila and mezcal) or a well-balanced, whiskey-based Penicillin.

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ESSEX, SEATTLE

• Owners Molly Wiz-enberg and husband Brandon Pettit are self-made culinar-ians. (Wizenberg writes the food blog Orangette and

with Pettit opened Delancey restaurant.) Their new bar em­phasizes handmade liqueurs, tinctures, bitters and digestifs. Cheers to DIY.

Best Excuse to Share a Quad Room

THE BROKEN SHAKER, MIAMI

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A bar at a youth hostel in Miami: Must be sketchy, right? Not when the hostel is haute and its bar was created by the cocktail consul­tancy Bar Lab. The drinks have playful names (Bath Salt Zombie, Nobody F*#ks With Jesus) and are concocted using herbs from the on-site garden. The interior brims with old-timey touches, but the clientele prefers to swig by the swimming pool or over a game of Ping-Pong.

THE "IT" COCKTAIL

| You can thank Mad Men and the bourbon boom for the resurgence of the old fashioned, which is showing up in many guises on cocktail menus across the coun­try. Here's how to make a new and improved version at home.

Ingredients

2 Luxardo mar­

aschino cherries

2-inch strip

orange peel

'A tsp. sugar

2 dashes

orange bitters

2 oz. bourbon

Directions

% Muddle the cherries, orange peel, sugar and bitters in a low-ball glass. Pill glass with ice, add bourbon and stir. If it's too strong for your taste, tame it with a splash of soda water.

COLOR CODE

TRICK DOG,

SAN

FRANCISCO

? In a vintage warehouse in the Mission Dis­trict, bartenders mix a virtual rainbow of con­coctions inspired by the Pantone color wheel. You order off a fanned stack of cards designed to look like paint samples. The sage-colored Baby Turtle (Tequila Ocho reposado, Cam­pari, grapefruit, lime, egg white, cinnamon) is a favorite, but be prepared to drink standing up—Trick Dog is always packed.

0est Season to^ive

THE ORIGINAL OKRA CHARITY SALOON, HOUSTON

• Run by restaurant-and-bar charity OKRA (Organized Kollaboration on Restaurant Affairs), this joint gives all its proceeds to an evolving list of local

organizations and social causes. Each drink buys a vote that can be cast in favor of one of four nominated charities. Drinking has never felt so virtuous.

Best Place to Get Philosophical About Potables

ME LOUNGE AT ATERA, NEW YORK

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It's reservations only at this bar below the two-Michelin-starred Atera. The chef, forager Matthew Lightner, offers will­fully unusual locavore dishes and a drinks menu to match. You may not recognize a martini of gin, beet, white cardamom and a hardy shrub called rue. But you will have a mind-blowing woodsy adventure from the comfort of your leather chair.

Best Bar for Oddball Ingredients

CURE, NEW ORLEANS

Esoteric liquors, rare beers and niche wines pro­vide the punch at this experi­mental bar on a funky Uptown block. Owner Neal Boden-heimer loves to push the limits while delivering

delicious drinks. He's currently into Stoupakis Homericon Mastiha, a Greek liqueur made from mastic resin. It appears in a cocktail called Magic Tree, which has become a house favorite.

THE WHEY BAR, PORTLAND

• This offshoot of the perennially thronged Argentine-inspired restaurant Ox was conceived as a spot for patrons to

have a drink while waiting for their tables. The space has since become a destination in its own right, with a

rustic-chic decor and carefully crafted cocktails such as La Yapa, made with rye, lemon juice and Fernet Branca.

Best Science Project

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• The only piece of equipment Booker and Dax seems to be missing is a flux capacitor. Liquid nitrogen chills glasses. A rotary evaporator distills ingredients into essential oils. Bartenders plunge a 1,500-degree red-hot poker into cocktails to caramelize sugars just before serving. There's a science to taking old standbys back to the future. Take the hood-famous gin and juice: Grapefruit juice is spun through a centrifuge for clarification, mixed with gin and carbonated to perfection.

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NEAT, GLENDALE, CALIFORNIA

• If ever there were a time and place to do a foam-topped, sphericalized, gently misted interpretive cocktail dance, it is not nor will it ever be during operat­ing hours at Neat. At this streamlined

midcentury throw­back bar there are no menus, just skilled bartenders who know the 250 bottles of top-shelf booze on the wall well. A sidecar of fresh ginger and lemon will balance out a deep rye. A

dash of rosemary syrup brings out the botanicals in a gin on ice. With all spirits served (take a wild guess) neat or paired with fresh juice or house-made syrups, it's easy to see what the fuss is about.

&Best Skeason to dleacf

SUGAR HOUSE, DETROIT

• We tend to keep our drinking and think­ing separate. But the 21-page menu at this Corktown bar is a masterpiece, with 100-plus cocktails, punches, spirits, beers and wines. This beast is

supplemented season­ally with an additional 20 or so original drinks, such as the Knackery, a bourbon-Benedictine-peach number, and the gingery, cin-namony Forager's old fashioned.

Best Reason to Use a Phone Booth

PDT, NEW YORK oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

• Before countless pseudo-speakeasies opened across the country, there was PDT (which stands for "please don't tell"). Step inside the phone booth at Crif Dogs on St. Marks Place, pick up the receiver and ask to be let in. If there's an open seat in this civilized subterranean speakeasy-style bar, prepare to be blown away by the highest level of vintage and modern craft cocktails.

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OF THE WEST

THE VARNISH, LOS ANGELES

? Civilized patrons, con­

templative barkeeps

and intimate tables and

booths make this bar

hidden behind a door at

Cole's restaurant an L.A.

gem. Order a summery

Bramble cocktail, or make

one at home (see below).

The Bramble

? Muddle five fresh black­

berries in a lowball glass.

Add one and a half ounces

gin, three quarters of an

ounce fresh lemon juice

and half an ounce simple

syrup. Stir. Fill glass with

crushed ice. Pour three

quarters of an ounce black­

berry liqueur over ice.

Garnish with a blackberry.

Best Reason to Book a Room in Portland

CLYDE COMMON. PORTLAND oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The bar in Clyde Common restaurant, at the iiber-cool Ace Hotel, is refresh­ingly un-Portland (little flannel, no taxidermy). This is the home of the barrel-aged cocktail (a drink mellowed in an oak cask). It is also where bartender Jeffrey

Morgenthaler does the whole local arti-sanal thing without making it seem precious. The cock­tail menu is smart and satisfying. So is Morgenthaler's response to requests such as "Give me something tart made with gin." Trust him.

FATHER'S OFFICE, LOS ANGELES

• L.A.'s original craft-beer mecca is still the place to beat. We prefer the newer, Culver City location (pictured)

for its spacious patio and long, sleek bar tricked out with an array of taps loaded with some of the best microbrews

in the United States. The house burger is perfect beer food and justly regarded as one of the finest in town.

Best High-Altitude Bar

JUSTICE SNOV.

ASPEN

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Situated in a former bank in the Wheeler Opera House, this bar has a charming historic feel. Drinks are often served from vintage barware collected by "lead libation liaison" Joshua-Peter Smith, who excels at in­venting custom cocktails for guests. The 26-page menu has a section for "group decision" punch bowls and offers more than 70 whiskeys.

BILLY SUNDAY, CHICAGO

• Named after temperance preacher William Ashley "Billy" Sunday, this Logan Square bar is like a church devoted to the heavenly realities of post-Prohibition America: Rare ingredients including wormwood and ambergris make their way into exquisitely balanced cocktails. And the kitchen turns out bar food of the highest order: pickled sardines, steak tartare and rabbit pot pie.

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PARLOUR, MINNEAPOLIS

• Drinking on an empty stomach is never advisable. Which is why we welcome the arrival of the upstairs-downstairs restaurant-bar duo Borough and Parlour. The strategy is this: Dine early at Borough, ordering

one drink from the cocktail cart while eating such hearty fare as lamb loin with chick­peas and fava beans. Finish the night at Parlour with a cocktail—try an old fashioned made with both Jim Beam rye and Old Grand-Dad 114.