It’s time to raise a glass to the Best New Bars of 2026. For a taste of the most innovative, exciting openings of the past year, make these cocktails from our awardees.
At Peach Crease Club in Denver, co-owners Alex Jump and Stuart Jensen take inspiration from dishes around the world, from borscht to buko salad. Nonalcoholic drinks have been thoughtfully considered here—fitting, given Jump’s advocacy with the organization Focus on Health. Made with The Pathfinder (an N/A amaro) and Three Spirit Nightcap, this fully spirit-free recipe pays homage to the Southern pairing of peanuts and Coca-Cola (sometimes called farmer’s Coke). To carbonate the cocktail, Peach Crease Club uses a NitroPress, but at home, you can top the mix with club soda.
Culebra is an ode to Puerto Rico and the Chicago neighborhood Logan Square, where owner Diego Garcia-Gonzalez was born and raised. Cocktails take inspiration from dishes like quesito, the Puerto Rican pastry, and call on Puerto Rican ingredients like tamarind and culantro. The island’s homegrown drinks also make an appearance: Medalla Light shows up in the Boricua Handshake, a boilermaker, and Malta India, a nonalcoholic drink, is featured in this Japanese highball-style cocktail created by bartender Elias Soto. Here the malt beverage brings grain notes to a whisky milk punch with soba tea,which is force-carbonated.
Malta Highball
The nonalcoholic Caribbean malt beverage is the star in this whisky highball.
The Smoked Tomato is undoubtedly the star at Vandell in Los Angeles. Everyone who has tried it—including local and visiting bartenders and several members of our own staff—has raved about it. And while you can’t really make this drink at home (just look at how much time and effort goes into it), you can make the bar’s take on the Poet’s Dream. The recipe originally appeared in the Café Royal Cocktail Book in 1937, and co-owners Shawn Lickliter and Vay Su have revived the gin-and-Bénédictine drink with a wildcard ingredient: pisco. Traveling to Vandell for the signature smoked drink is a must, but in the meantime, you can indulge in a little time travel with this relatively simple at-home recipe.
Poet’s Dream
Gin, pisco, Bénédictine and quince liqueur come together in this stirred drink.
At Echo Lake in New York City, owners Chloe Frechette (who was formerly executive editor of Punch) and Paul McGee see their guests as “skimmers,” “dippers” and “divers,” based on the depth of their rum knowledge. Those dipping their toes into the spirit can sample their way through the crowdpleasing classics like Mai Tais, Coladas and Daiquiris. Fans of McGee’s now-closed bar Lost Lake can get his signature drink of the same name—a funky, tropical mix of Jamaican rum, passionfruit, pineapple and Campari—at the new bar, alongside completely new originals.
Lost Lake
A funky, tropical cocktail made with Jamaican rum and passionfruit syrup.
Bar Roza in Nashville, Tennessee, has created its own kind of cocktail template: the Astors, which blend some of the most interesting aperitifs and digestifs; they’re ”all modifier,” as beverage director Owen Gibler puts it. The Hex calls on Bësk, which is like a more grapefruit- and wormwood-forward Malört, with a lasting finish. The bitter liqueur’s elderflower notes reminded Gibler of lychee, which is why he pairs it with a Combier Litchi here. “It’s a hex,” said Gibler after tasting this drink for the first time. “Generally adding more than a quarter of an ounce of Bësk into a drink can tilt the entire thing into reckless abandon, so its prominence here while remaining soft is an extension of sorcery.”
Hex
Lychee meets grapefruit- and wormwood-forward Bësk.
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