Cocktail Craze

Anvil Bar & Refuge
Houston, Texas

Since opening in 2009, Anvil has quickly established itself as one of the nation’s most influential cocktail bars. Managing partner Bobby Heugel is now flexing the Houston bar’s considerable muscle on behalf of its home region. This past summer, Heugel served only Southern-inspired drinks. Though the menu changes quarterly, he says the bar has no plans to abandon sorghum, buttermilk, and okra seeds. “We don’t think every cocktail should come from the East Coast or the West Coast. We live in a different area with different flavors and different inspirations.”

The Gin Joint
Charleston, South Carolina

So intense is the Gin Joint’s dedication to pre-Prohibition principles that the bar refuses to stock vodka, currently the nation’s most popular spirit. But owners Joe and MariElena Raya are never snide when a customer orders a cosmopolitan. Instead, they steer would-be vodka drinkers to historically correct concoctions made with smoked honey syrup, ginger beer, or homemade cola. They’ve got whiskey drinkers covered, too: The bar’s now infusing Eagle Rare bourbon with Connecticut shade tobacco leaves, which have been promised to a local cigar roller. “We’re planning for Manhattans and bourbon cigars on the patio,” Joe says.

H. Harper Station
Atlanta, Georgia

Bartender Jerry Slater named his latest project—a renovated railroad station specializing in deft reinterpretations of pre-Prohibition classics—after his maternal grandfather, Harold Harper. Slater describes the railroad engineer as a “hell of a drinker” but admits even he might have blanched at some of the more extravagant cocktails served at this playful watering hole. The Colonel Manhattan, “one of the most expensive cocktails in town” at $20, is made with Pappy Van Winkle fifteen-year bourbon, Barolo Chinato vermouth, and Fee Brothers bourbon-barrel bitters. Drinkers with more modest tastes might consider a bowl of Buford Highway Artillery Punch, a white whiskey, shochu, and lychee salute to Atlanta’s international district.

Holland House Bar & Refuge
Nashville, Tennessee

You’ll find house-made syrups and fresh-squeezed juices at any serious cocktail lounge, but locating a vacant bar stool at these hideaways is often a challenge. That’s not such an issue at Holland House, which bar manager Jeremiah Blake estimates is three times the size of most bars slinging artisan drinks. The downside? Mixing precise mint juleps and pisco sours for a crowd of two hundred requires more than a little planning. “Everyone comes in at three, and we juice,” Blake says. “It’s not the easiest job, but it’s rewarding.”

Tate’s Craft Cocktails
Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Although many craft cocktail bars aim to resurrect the wildness of the Jazz Age, John Tate doubts flappers and sports thrived in a town ruled by tobacco factories and textile mills. “That’s hard to imagine,” says Tate, who finds the lack of antecedents liberating. “We don’t have handlebar mustaches and suspenders,” he says. “We just want people to have great drinks.” At this bustling bar, the Manhattans are mixed with house-made fig syrup and house-made sweet vermouth, but barkeeps don’t flaunt their drinks’ pedigrees (although they’re ready to talk ice shapes and vintage glassware if you so desire). They’re more likely to uphold another spirited tradition—listening to patrons’ troubles and dispensing jokes.