So what are the cool kids drinking?

Reading 20 of the Top 50 North American bar menus like tea leaves to prognosticate the future

Because I have more time than sense, I visited every website of all 50 Best Bars in North America for 2024. Some bars don't post their menus; some had those high-concept displays that resist easy browsing. But where I could download or cut-and-paste their cocktail lists, I did. In this manner, I foraged 20 bar menus. (See list at the bottom of this post.)

Then I spent far too much time reading through them. (See: more time than sense.) I wanted to survey the contours and topography of the hemisphere's most attention-getting bars. What sort of drinks are customers sipping here? What sort of ingredients are emerging from the shadows?

Hospitality and interior design are a big draw in these top bars. (I've visited 23 of the 50, and can attest to that). But let's focus on the drinks here. Some are sturdy and basic, created with such care they become the platonic ideal of that drink. I'm thinking of the Brandy Crusta at Jewel of the South in New Orleans, or the Toki Highball at Katana Kitten in New York. Others serve up more rococo creations — like the old-fashioned variation made with beef, bacon, vegetable lacto ferment, beer and cilantro at Rayo in Mexico City.

My survey yielded no big surprises when it came to the base liquors: tequila and mezcal were the most popular (appearing in 97 drinks), followed by whiskey in all its variations (83), gin (71), rum (50), and vodka (48). Vodka and tequila may vie for the best selling liquor in America, but in bars it’s no contest. Note: tequila and mezcal may have skewed upward because five out of the 20 bars with downloadable menus happened to be in Mexico.

A few other observations:

Mushrooms Want to Dance

Are mushrooms having a moment? Mushrooms have found their way into cocktails since at least 2018, but they seem to be getting more star treatment. Among them: the Mushroom Margarita at Superbueno in New York City, made with mezcal, Cointreau, huitlacoche, lime, and lava salt. At Rayo they infuse charanda with cordyceps sinensis mushrooms. And at the Botanist in Vancouver they serve a drink called the Beekeeper made with bourbon, honey, lemon, candy cap mushrooms, and yellow chartreuse.

When is a Sazerac not a Sazerac?

Fifteen years ago you probably hadn't heard of a Sazerac unless you lived in New Orleans. Today they're almost everywhere. My sister-in-law reports that she was served an excellent version at a unremarkable bar in a small town in Iowa while on a cross-country road trip. Insert “shrug” emoji here.

Popularity leads to variations as bartenders fulfill their desire to dress up a classic, like it was a Paddington Bear. True Laurel in San Francisco has Freezer Sazerac made with bonded rye, brandy, Peychaud's, and arak. Cafe La Trova in Miami has a Banana Sazerac made with caramelized ripe-banana-infused Hennessy VS, Woodinville rye, and simple syrup. Another, at Kumiko in Chicago, is made in part with Japanese whiskey and Riesling.

One of my favorites is the Jewel Sazarac, made at Jewel of the South in the drink's ancestral home of New Orleans, with Rittenhouse rye, H&H Rainwater Madeira, Matifoc Rancio Sec, demerara, Herbsaint, and Peychaud's Bitters.

Pay no attention to that cocktail behind the curtain

One trend is not just in the top bars but in virtually every craft cocktail bar I've been to lately: a focus on non-reproducible cocktails. That is, drinks that are not easily made at home. Yes, Manhattans or old-fashioneds or Sazeracs can still be had at any of these bars, but most published drink lists skew toward the obscure and elusive, such as drinks made with hard-to-source liquors or with housemade tinctures or syrups. At a time of rising liquor prices and consumer concern over inflation, it makes sense to showcase creativity rather than a pricey backbar. But this also makes it harder for customers to say, hey, that's tasty, I think I'll make that at home and save $18. Among the homemade ingredients featured: chinampa pickles, palo santo soda, fermented carrot cordial, and "toast distillate."

Hard-to-source liquors also keep customers coming back to drink things they can’t find their local liquor store. The drink that seemed to establish the strongest perimeter fence around a relatively straightforward recipe was this Manhattan variation at Kumiko: "Mars Whisky 'Iwai Tradition,' Nadeshiko Mugi Shochu, Fernando de Castilla 'Antique' Palo Cortado Sherry, and Angostura Bitters." You probably have the bitters?

What did you call me?

The overly elaborate, pun-forward names gracing cocktails of a decade ago — back when they were as long and inscrutable as a chapter title in a lost novel by James Joyce — appear to be in eclipse. A few persist, such as the "If I'd Known You Were Comin' I'd've Baked a Cake" (Milady's, NYC). But most seemed to revert back to the brisk and straightforward. Even drinks with a relatively convoluted pedigree had streamlined names. For instance, a cocktail made with Nikka vodka, peach, clarified citrus, Poli Gran Bassano Bianco vermouth, and carbonation was simply dubbed the "Peach Vodka Soda" at Service Bar in D.C.

Other pleasingly simple but memorable names: Fo'Swizzle, Tuk-Tuk Tea, Nobody's Tonic, El Guayabero, and Triptych.

Yesterday's trends today

Some techniques and ingredients that I thought might fade have persisted. Fat-washing, for instance, remains popular. Not just with Benton's bacon, which started the trend, but with beef rind, milk, coconut, and mole. (Sidenote: I wish mole had its accent to distinguish the Mexican sauce from the burrowing animal.)

I also suspected and feared that Chartreuse might be edging toward the exits given the rising difficulties in sourcing. But it's still a bedrock ingredient, and was included in at least nine cocktails.

This way to the exit

What was missing was just as informative as what was present. Lemongrass cropped up in just three cocktails, and pandan in only one, suggesting their time in the limelight might winding down. Smoke was mentioned in only four drinks, although the description of smoke as "The Chanel No. 5 of Oaxaca" in a drink at Selva gets bonus points. And I spotted but one lone Pornstar Martini (at Pacific Cocktail Haven, in San Francisco).

Of course, reading the tea leaves from the drinks on this list may not make sense. They're the equivalent of the designer outfits at Paris Fashion Week: splashy, but you're not likely have something from runway hanging in your wardrobe.

But the vibe? That will no doubt eventually find its way down to Banana Republic. Same applies to bars. Look for a mushroom cocktail coming to a bar near you.

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Bars surveyed:

Arca (Tulum, Mexico)

Botanist (Vancouver, BC)

Cafe Dante (NYC)

Cafe de Nadie (Mexico City)

Cafe LaTrova (Miami)

Double Chicken Please (NYC)

Jewel of the South (New Orleans)

Katana Kitten (NYC)

Kumiko (Chicago)

Library by the Sea (Cayman Islands)

Milady's (NYC)

Mirate (Los Angeles)

Overstory (NYC)

Pacific Cocktail Haven (San Francisco)

Rayo (Mexico City)

Selva (Oaxaca)

Service Bar (DC)

Superbueno (NYC)

True Laurel (San Francisco)

Zapote (Riviera Maya, Mexico)