Pouring Ribbons, NYC

From The Alchemy Consulting guys: Toby Maloney, Jason Cott, and Troy Sidle of the Violet Hour and Jaoquin Simo formerly of Death & Co.

Bright, airy space, with high ceilings. 2nd floor space with huge windows. Beautiful woodwork. Tons of cabinets, with lots of space for storage, freezers at eye level, step stools built into the wall, and a huge list of chartreuses of various vintages (going back to c. 1940s) as well as a nice list of non-alcoholic drinks. Cocktails are $14 each, tax inclusive. It's clear that a lot of time has been spent on the design of the space.

The front of the menu contains a matrix, classifying drinks within four quadrants. The axes run from "refreshing" to "spiritous" and "comforting" to "adventurous." Each drink on the menu also contains a small infographic with its characteristics. The check comes with a postcard, where there's spaces for the bartender to fill in the blanks regarding a recipe (pre-printed with glassware choices, etc). Toby said he thought this would be especially helpful if a customer really liked a bartender's choice drink.

The menu consists of 14 originals and 14 classics. Everything I tried was excellent. The Bonita Applebum tasted like a riff on a tiki drink but with apple brandy and Campari. The Dueling Banjos was a Mai Tai but with two bourbons instead of two rums, lemon instead of lime, and corn milk (from freshly shucked corn) instead of orgeat. Delicious. We also loved the Lust for Life, mezcal, pineapple, sherry, and orgeat, served with a little bit of high quality cocoa powder on top. Sounded out there on paper, but the ingredients really meshed. We tried a few other drinks but my memory is rather blurry. They have snacks but no hot food. Salami, cheese, beef jerky, nuts, that sort of thing.

They opened a few days ago and are already very strong right out off the gate. It doesn't hurt that the owners are also behind the bar at the moment.