The
Menu.

There's a bar in Seattle called Cannon that used to make this without ceremony or explanation. You ordered it, you drank it, you ordered another. Some drinks are too good to leave in someone else's bar. We took it. We're not sorry.

Spirit-forward, no apologies. The bitter finish arrives exactly when you stop expecting it.

Invented at the Kuala Lumpur Hilton in the 1970s and then quietly forgotten for thirty years, until cocktail archaeologists started digging through old bar manuals and rediscovered it. We found our version in a vintage book at a market and haven't stopped making it since. The tropics in a glass, bitter and sweet at the same time, like most good things.

Sweet and bitter at once. Tropical but not silly. One of those drinks that makes you want to sit outside.

Found on a bar crawl in Brooklyn that started with good intentions and ended with four bars and a long subway ride. A bartender made this without telling us what was in it. We reverse-engineered it on the train home. Cynar is made from artichokes, which is either disgusting or brilliant depending on who you ask. We land firmly on brilliant.

Bittersweet, herbal, with a slow burn that announces itself after you've already committed.

We were in Chicago, missing the bitter aperitivo bars we'd grown up with, the ones where the whole point of a drink was the beautiful, aggressive, grown-up bitterness of it. Someone at The Violet Hour made us this. It was like being given exactly what we'd been reaching for without knowing the words. It's named for nobody named Giuseppe. It just feels like someone should be.

Bold, funky, more bitter than sweet. Not for the faint-hearted. Very much for us.

Love at first sight at the Fairmont Empress in Victoria, on a trip we almost didn't take. The White Negroni is the original in a linen suit: same DNA, softer edges, somehow more elegant without being less interesting. Lillet and Suze, where the classic would use sweet vermouth and Campari. Everything shifts. Nothing is lost.

Floral, pale, botanical. Soothing in the way that a very good idea is soothing.

This one happened by accident on a hot summer evening with too many bottles open and not enough glasses. We named it for the street. It stayed on the menu because sometimes the best drinks are the ones you weren't trying to make, the ones that arrive when you stop overthinking and just pour. Aperol softens the gin. The sauce sharpens everything back up. It's the youngest drink on this list and already one of our favorites.

Floral, refreshing, with a gin kick that reminds you where you are.

The Last Word's moody older sibling. Built for a rainy New York afternoon, after someone at a bar in the East Village swapped the lime for Amaro and handed it across without explanation. The Amaro takes the brightness and folds it into something darker, more autumnal, more like a long conversation that goes somewhere unexpected. We kept the name close to honor the original. The original would understand.

Herbal and zesty like its parent, but with a bitter undercurrent that lingers. Best in October.