Bar Review: Drink

Early this year, I was reading this article in the Atlantic on the resurgence of the classic cocktail bar. It describes a Boston bar in the Fort Point Channel area called Drink:

It has a clean, almost apothecary spareness, with lots of sharp angles and galvanized steel and slate. No bottles are on display. Spirits are measured from stainless-steel jiggers that resemble beakers, and the aromatic bitters are kept in eyedroppers, for precise dispensing. And there’s no cocktail list. The idea is that your bartender is your pharmacist and, after a brief chat, will prescribe something based on your needs and past preferences.

We found seats next to the ice station, where our bartender was doing an admirable imitation of Tony Perkins in Psycho, attacking a massive block of ice with a frightful-looking pick and afflicting those in the vicinity with small, sleety squalls. Other tools were arrayed on a white towel, like an exhibit of Civil War medical instruments: three-pronged ice tongs, dull knives, a wooden mallet. After carving out several fist-sized hunks of ice, she came over to take our order.

Drink’s decision to eschew a cocktail menu is a rarity, but the bar is representative of a welcome new trend: lounges that celebrate classic cocktails and take pains to make them with the best ingredients and according to the canon of the great cocktail books.

Huh... sounds like it could be fun... or utterly pretentious. That also matches the timbre of the reviews on Yelp. So back in January, R. and I tried going there on a Thursday night. Overall, a disappointing experience--the place was packed with the Beautiful People, and after failing to get the bartender's attention for more than five minutes, R. urged that we get out of there. Apparently, we weren't either hip, perfect, or rich-looking enough to catch their eye.

But more recently, we gave it another try... this time, on a Tuesday night, which was nice and quiet. This actually ended up being the experience we were looking for. A few empty spots at the bar, and the bartender was happy to chat, provide information on what he was serving, and give tasting notes. (To wit: when sniffing spirits, you want to bring the glass up and down, far and near from your nose. If you just stick your nose right into the top of the glass, you'll probably get a good whiff of fire/alcohol, but not much else. Think of moving the glass as taking a mass spec of the vapors coming off the booze).


My drink was a variant of the Manhattan. Apparently, rye (not bourbon) is the classic way to mix one up; they used Old Overholt--surprise, not an uber-fancy top-shelf sippin' rye. It included a cherry garnish that was dried like a raisin--an incredibly sweet and concentrated flavor, but not cloying like a day-glo Maraschino cherry (mmmm... FD&C Red #40-licious).

R.'s drink was a, um, I think a variation of the Gimlet (Are you reading this, R? Correct me if I'm wrong!). The story the bartender told was that many drinks were heavily weighted towards strong citrus flavors back in the days of Prohibition, to cover up the delightful notes of bathtub gin.

[Edit: R. wrote back to point out I am pretty sure the bartender made me an Aviation cocktail complete with the violet liqueur. And FYI, the recipe for an Aviation.]

The location is just fantastic--a basement over in the Fort Point section, where you can see shadows of people walking by on the street... great atmosphere. On a quiet night, just the place to be.


Chatting with our bartender later, we asked if he had any favorites. He said he leaned towards making rum drinks--the great varieties of rum made it an interesting palette to paint with. So I think that the place is definitely worth a return trip--although not on a busy night. If you're up for it sometime, let me know!