Happy Hour
The day’s work is done! These celebratory or, in some cases, relaxing drinks are an occasion in and of themselves, helping you wind down and connect with friends.
King Palm
Tyson Buhler — Death & Co, Denver, Colorado
This drink is slick. If you clarify the whey just right, it almost glows. Here’s how: Buy a quart bottle of plain kefir, a lightly fermented milk, at the grocery store and strain it overnight through a fine-mesh strainer lined with eight layers of cheesecloth. You should end up with two cups of liquid—maybe less if some sediment settles at the bottom of the bowl and you need to pour the whey off of the top—which is more than enough for ten drinks. This liquid is what gives the drink some heft, but it’s still light enough and has just enough acidity to wake up the palate before a meal. Be sure to buy clear, not pink, coconut water if you want your version to look like this one.
Commitment LEVEL 
Serves 1
1½ ounces kefir whey
1½ ounces coconut water
1 teaspoon Pineapple Syrup (recipe follows)
1 teaspoon Cinnamon Syrup (recipe follows)
1 grapefruit twist
Combine the whey, coconut water, and syrups in a mixing glass. Fill with ice and stir for 15 seconds, until well chilled. Strain into a chilled Nick & Nora glass. Squeeze the grapefruit twist over the top of the drink to express its oils, and discard.
Pineapple Syrup
Makes ¾ cup, enough for 36 drinks
½ cup fresh pineapple juice
½ cup sugar
In a blender, combine the pineapple juice and sugar and blend on high until the sugar has dissolved, about 2 minutes. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Cinnamon Syrup
Makes 1½ cups, enough for 72 drinks
4 cinnamon sticks
1 cup sugar
In a small saucepan, bring the cinnamon, sugar, and 1 cup water just to a boil and remove from the heat. Let stand for 15 minutes, then strain. Discard the solids. Store the syrup in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Batch for 6 Combine 9 ounces kefir whey, 9 ounces coconut water, 2 tablespoons pineapple syrup, 2 tablespoons cinnamon syrup, and 2 ounces cold water in a pitcher. Stir to combine.
Buckwheat Champagne
Michael Kudra — Quince, San Francisco, California
Save this for a special-occasion gathering; it’s a sophisticated, celebratory drink that takes some prep work. (And you’ll also have to source soy lecithin powder. Find it at modernistpantry.com or on Amazon.) The buckwheat tea tastes roasty-toasty and the oleo saccharum—a fancy word for the oil that’s extracted when you mix citrus peels and sugar and let them sit around for a while—brightens it up. If you’re using a SodaStream to carbonate, please do it in two batches. You want to be well below the fill line so that you get the optimum carbonation without overflow, which might damage your machine. (See “Carbonator,” this page, for more.)
Commitment LEVEL
Serves 6
3 tablespoons buckwheat tea
3 cups just-boiled water
Small pinch of flaky sea salt
6 drops of Lemon Oleo Saccharum (recipe follows)
1½ ounces Simple Syrup (this page)
6 teaspoons Lemon Air (recipe follows)
In a medium heatproof bowl, combine the tea and the water and let it sit for 2 to 3 minutes. Fine-strain the tea into another vessel and discard the solids. Add the salt and oleo saccharum to the tea and stir to combine. Let cool to room temperature, then refrigerate until chilled, about 2 hours or up to 4 days.
Just before serving, carbonate the tea mixture, then gently stir in the simple syrup. Pour into 6 champagne flutes and top each with about 1 teaspoon of Lemon Air.
Note Roasted buckwheat tea might be labeled as soba-cha (Japanese), memil-cha (Korean), or ku qiao cha (Chinese), and note that there are subtle flavor differences country to country. If you can’t find it at your local Asian grocer, buy it online at Harney & Sons (harney.com).
Lemon Oleo Saccharum
Makes ½ cup, enough for more drinks than people you know
8 lemons
½ cup sugar
Remove the zests of the lemons in wide strips. (Y-shaped peeler only! See this page.) Combine them with the sugar in a medium bowl and toss to coat, working the mixture with your fingers to press and bruise the peels. (Alternatively, you could use a muddler, if you have one, to bang them up a bit.) Cover and let sit at room temperature for at least 3 hours and up to 1 day. Fine-strain, pressing on the solids to extract as much oil as possible—this is liquid gold!—and discard the solids. Transfer the oil to a squeeze bottle with a small opening (you’ll need this to measure in “drops” above). It will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Lemon Air
5 ounces freshly squeezed lemon juice
Scant ½ teaspoon soy lecithin powder
In a large, deep bowl combine the lemon juice, soy lecithin powder, and 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons room-temperature water. Using an immersion blender, blend the mixture with the blade at a 45-degree angle until most of the liquid has turned into foam, 20 to 30 seconds. (If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can use a blender, hand mixer, a whisk, or even a cocktail shaker if you shake it vigorously. You’re just trying to incorporate air in there!) Let the foam sit for a minute before using; this will ensure that it keeps its shape and is easily spoonable. Use immediately after that.
Salted Rosemary Paloma
Naren Young — Dante, New York, New York
For a fairly simple drink, this tequila-less Paloma has real depth of flavor. Pungent rosemary pairs well with grapefruit, and I like that the salt gets mixed into the syrup instead of stuck on the glass’s rim, so it disperses throughout the drink. This is the kind of bitter, punchy, refreshing cocktail I want in my hand while the sun goes down.
Commitment LEVEL 
Serves 1
½ ounce Salted Rosemary Syrup (recipe follows)
2–3 ounces freshly squeezed grapefruit juice
½ ounce freshly squeezed lime juice
3 ounces soda water
1 grapefruit slice, for garnish
Fill a collins glass with ice. Add the syrup and juice, then top with soda water and gently stir. Garnish with a grapefruit slice.
Salted Rosemary Syrup
Makes about ½ cup, enough for 8 drinks
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon Maldon sea salt
1 sprig of rosemary, cut crosswise into 3 pieces
In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, salt, rosemary, and 3 ounces water and warm over medium heat, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature, then fine-strain and discard the solids. Store the syrup in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
I’ve Been Drinking
Brine and Soda
Mel Guse, co-owner of Gyst fermentation center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, loves wine and beer, but she loves brine with soda.
Sauerkraut brine, to be specific. Our sauerkraut at Gyst is super simple: It’s just salt and cabbage, and we let that ferment for three weeks.
The way I make the drink, it’s almost like a nonalcoholic margarita: I salt the glass, fill it with ice, then add one and a half ounces of brine, top it with soda water, and squeeze half a lime on top. For me, it’s almost like a savory aperitif. It gets the palate going, with the acidity and salt and bubbles, so I drink it before eating a fuller meal.
At home, you could use the brine from whatever pickles are in your fridge, just know that you’ll get different outcomes. Kimchi is a little funkier and spicier. Fermented beets are earthier and will give the drink a more viscous quality. Bread-and-butter pickles work if you like sweetness. Whatever you choose, I recommend lacto-fermented brines, which have the good bacteria in them that our body craves. There’s something in there that makes us feel alive!
Shimeji Mushroom Elixir
Katie Rue — Reception Bar, New York, New York
Reception Bar owner Katie Rue serves cocktails and Korean snacks such as dukbokki and japchae mandu in a bright lounge (not an oxymoron in this case!) on New York’s Lower East Side. The combination of quince honey and mushrooms in this drink is meant to improve blood sugar and boost the metabolism, but I’m all in for the savory shrub and the toasty flavor of the buckwheat tea. (Find quince honey in the tea aisle of most Asian, especially Korean, grocers.) Katie garnishes her version with tart yumberry powder, but freeze-dried strawberries are more readily available. I got mine at Trader Joe’s. If it’s humid out, use the powder immediately.
Commitment LEVEL 
Serves 1
1 ounce Shimeji Mushroom Shrub (recipe follows)
½ teaspoon quince honey (optional)
5 ounces chilled carbonated Buckwheat Tea (this page)
Freeze-dried strawberries, pulverized in a spice grinder, for garnish (optional)
Combine the shrub and honey, if using, in a collins glass and stir. Fill with ice, then top with the tea. Gently stir once more, then dust the top of the ice with strawberry powder, if using.
Shimeji Mushroom Shrub
Makes about 1¼ cups, enough for 10 drinks
1 pound white or brown Shimeji (also known as Beech) mushrooms, washed and trimmed
1 cup distilled white vinegar
1 cup sugar
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
In a medium saucepan, combine the mushrooms, vinegar, sugar, and salt over medium-high heat. The mushrooms may not be covered by the liquid, but this will change as the mixture cooks. Bring to a boil, stirring here and there to coat all of the mushrooms and to help them cook down, and then decrease the heat to low. Gently simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat, let cool, then strain. Discard the solids. Let the shrub “marinate” for at least 24 hours in an airtight container in the refrigerator before using. Store in the refrigerator for up to 1 month.
Batch for 6 Combine ¾ cup shrub and 1 tablespoon honey, if using, in a pitcher and stir well to combine. Fill the pitcher with ice and top with 3¾ cups carbonated tea. (The ratio for this amount of tea: Pour 4½ cups boiling water over ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons buckwheat tea. Steep, uncovered, for 5 minutes, and you should have 4 cups of tea. Be sure to carbonate in batches, as this is a large volume.) Gently stir, then divide among 6 collins glasses. Garnish each with a dusting of strawberry powder, if using.
Note Shimeji mushrooms, which are sold at Asian markets, farmers’ markets, or specialty grocers, come connected to a kind of “pad” of roots. To free them, just cut close to their bottoms. And yes, they do naturally have a funky odor, so if you’re in your kitchen right now, inspecting and sniffing, rest assured. Everything is as it should be!
Pear Cider
SingleThread — Healdsburg, California
When you walk into SingleThread, you’ll find yourself in a small vestibule, facing a window into the kitchen. One of the restaurant’s chefs will slide open that window and hand you a drink—always nonalcoholic—made from seasonal ingredients grown on SingleThread’s farm just seven miles away. This pear cider is one of those “welcome drinks,” as head chef and co-owner Kyle Connaughton calls them. I’ve taken liberties with the recipe to make it as home-cook friendly as possible, but the surprise element is still intact: By the watery look of the clarified juice, you simply can’t anticipate the intensity of flavor.
Commitment LEVEL
Serves 6
5 very ripe Bosc pears
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
½ vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise
1½ teaspoons agar
Fill a large (really large!) bowl with ice and set aside.
Peel, core, and cube the pears, tossing the pieces in a bowl with the lime juice as you go to preserve their color. (They will, inevitably, turn at least beige but the acid will help slow the process.) Transfer to a blender and blend on high until smooth.
Meanwhile, scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean. In a medium saucepan, combine them with the vanilla bean pod and 3 cups water and bring to a boil. Add the agar and whisk constantly, to activate it, for 4 minutes. Remove from the heat.
Working quickly, transfer the pear puree to a medium bowl and set it inside the larger bowl with ice. Add the hot vanilla-water mixture in a slow stream, whisking as you go. Continue to whisk the mixture until it has come down to room temperature or just below, about 4 more minutes.
Leave the mixture in the ice bath, being careful that no melted ice flows in, until it sets up and is almost the consistency of Jell-O, 1 to 2 hours. Transfer the mixture to a fine-meshed sieve lined with four layers of cheesecloth and strain the juice into a large bowl. This will take a couple of hours, if not more. The liquid should be clarified, meaning that it’s see-through if not colorless (mine was the color of chamomile tea). If at first some cloudiness comes through, let it drip until the liquid runs transparent, then pour the cloudy liquid back into the strainer so that it all ultimately runs clean. Discard the solids. Store the cider in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 day.
Divide among 6 chilled coupe glasses and serve.
Don’t Call Me Shirley
Will Stewart — Coltivare, Houston, Texas
This drink asks not to be called Shirley. It is far from a Shirley Temple—respect it! Three ingredients help usher it into adulthood: Saba, a cousin of balsamic vinegar (actually the first step in the balsamic-making process) brings a raisiny quality; sherry vinegar wakes up the mix with its punchy acidity; and a little bit of syrup from a jar of Luxardo cherries adds sweetness but also depth. Speaking of a little bit: At just over 2 ounces, this is a short drink, but, given the multiple syrups and sharp acids, a little goes a long way.
Commitment LEVEL 
Serves 1
½ ounce Luxardo cherry syrup
¼ ounce saba
½ teaspoon sherry vinegar
½ ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice
¾ ounce freshly squeezed orange juice
1 Luxardo cherry, for garnish
1 orange slice, for garnish
1 sprig of mint, for garnish
Combine the syrup, saba, vinegar, juices, and ¾ teaspoon water in a cocktail shaker. Fill with ice, seal the shaker, and shake for 30 seconds, until well chilled and a foam has formed. Double-strain into a tulip glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with the cherry, orange, and mint sprig.
Note Find saba at gustiamo.com and Luxardo cherries at specialty stores or at snukfoods.com.
Fizzy Hop Tea
Charles Babinski — Go Get Em Tiger, Los Angeles, California
When you crack an end-of-workday beer, what are you really after? For some, it’s the alcohol, but for me—and for Go Get Em Tiger co-owner Charles Babinski—it’s the bitter bite of hops. Make sure to use whole cone hops instead of the pellet version, which would be too strong and would also produce sediment. Find the dried Citra leaf hops at Northern Brewer (northernbrewer.com). As for the tea, I used Song Tea’s Old Tree Yunnan Red (songtea.com).
Commitment LEVEL
Serves 3
2 tablespoons Yunnan red tea leaves
1 heaping tablespoon whole cone Citra hops
5 teaspoons Simple Syrup (this page)
In a glass or plastic container with a lid, combine the tea and hops with 3 cups cold water. Cover and let sit in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours, or up to 2 days. Strain, discarding the hops and tea. Carbonate, then gently stir in the simple syrup.
Note Remember! It’s important to wait until your drinks are carbonated before sweetening them. The more sugar in your liquid, the less space there is for gas, and that surface tension will create foam. See “Carbonator,” this page, for more.
Apple & Miso
Sean Umstead — Kingfisher, Durham, North Carolina
Dark, complex, and savory, this drinks almost like a scotch on the rocks. Sean Umstead juices Pink Lady or Honeycrisp apples at his bar, but he says that store-bought apple juice is a fine substitute. (I urge you to go fresh! Sorry to complicate things!) He bumps up the acidity without overpowering the apple by mixing in some citric acid. “Once you start to add lemon juice, it tastes like a traditional sour,” says Umstead. “You lose that apple-y nuance.” Find citric acid at nowfoods.com or modernistpantry.com.
Commitment LEVEL
Serves 1
½ cup apple juice
2 tablespoons Miso Syrup (recipe follows)
⅛ teaspoon citric acid
1 fresh shiso leaf, for garnish
Combine the apple juice, syrup, and citric acid in a cocktail shaker. Fill with ice, seal the shaker, and shake for 10 to 15 seconds, until well chilled. Double-strain into an old-fashioned glass filled with ice. Garnish with the shiso leaf.
Makes about ¾ cup, enough for 6 drinks
1 vanilla bean
¼ cup packed fresh shiso leaves
½ cup sugar
½ cup just-boiled water
¼ cup red miso
Scrape the seeds from inside the vanilla bean and put them in a blender. Add the shiso leaves, sugar, and water to the blender and blend for 1 minute. Add the miso and blend for another 30 seconds. Strain through a cheesecloth-lined strainer, discard the solids, and let the syrup cool. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
Batch for 6 Combine 3 cups fresh apple juice, ¾ cup syrup, ¾ teaspoon citric acid, and 2 cups of ice in a blender and pulse once or twice, just to combine. Fine-strain among 6 rocks glasses filled with fresh ice. Garnish each with 1 shiso leaf.
Note Any extra miso syrup would work with pork or drizzled over a bowl of vanilla ice cream. Just saying.
I’ve Been Drinking
Sanbitter
Josh Harris, co-owner of Trick Dog and Bon Voyage in San Francisco, California, doesn’t think of San Pellegrino’s Sanbitter as a soda. (He wouldn’t hide soda from his friends.)
It drinks more like Campari than anything else—it’s aperitif-like in viscosity and it hits all the parts of your tongue that I’m chasing when I put together a cocktail—which means that I either drink it on the rocks or I add something effervescent to it.
Fever-Tree’s bitter lemon tonic is dry, so it plays nicely with the sweetness in Sanbitter. You could put San Pellegrino’s Limonata with it, but then it’s going to drink more like a soda. With tonic, it drinks more like a cocktail. Sometimes I just mix it with sparkling mineral water, but it has to have a big bubble, like Topo Chico.
Because Sanbitter isn’t readily available in the United States, I savor it. I’ll drink one after I’ve had a hard day of work or when my wife is having a glass of wine and, to be honest, I put them away when I have friends over. It’s like when you have a really nice bottle of whiskey: When company calls, you put the Pappy Van Winkle in the cabinet and offer Wild Turkey!
Like My Father
Hunter Douglas — Hank’s Cocktail Bar, Washington, D.C.
Hunter Douglas’s original title for this drink was Like My Father, an Old-Fashioned Teetotaler, which is…a lot to say. I’ve shortened it, but I want to point out that this is Hunter’s riff on an old-fashioned, which contains bourbon or rye, sugar, water, and bitters (and that’s why it was in the name). Soda made with chinotto, a bitter orange that’s found all over Italy, is good on its own, but combined with the DIY tea bitters in this drink it really leans into its bitter side. In my opinion (and Hunter’s) that makes it even better.
Commitment LEVEL
Serves 1
5 ounces chinotto soda, such as San Pellegrino
1 teaspoon Tea Bitters (recipe follows)
1 orange twist, for garnish
In a rocks glass filled with one large ice cube, combine the chinotto and bitters. Squeeze the orange twist over the drink to express its oils, and drop it into the glass.
Tea Bitters
Makes about ⅓ cup, enough for 16 drinks
2 teaspoons loose-leaf black tea
1 cup just-boiled water
Combine the tea with the water in a small heatproof bowl and cover. Let steep for 4 hours (no, that is not a typo!), then fine-strain the tea into a small saucepan and discard the solids.
Bring the brewed tea to a boil over high heat. Decrease the heat to low and simmer until the liquid is reduced to 3 ounces, about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool completely. Tea bitters can be made ahead and kept chilled for up to 1 month. (Chilled tea bitters will turn a little cloudy; this is okay.)
Batch for 6 Combine 3¾ cups chinotto and 1½ tablespoons bitters in a pitcher and gently stir. Divide the liquid among 6 rocks glasses, each filled with one large ice cube, and garnish each with an orange twist. Serve immediately.
Padova Spritz
Tobin Shea — Redbird, Los Angeles, California
It’s five o’clock on a summer Friday. This is the drink for that. Serve it with a bowl of potato chips (Utz, please) and another little bowl of extra olives and sit outside with a friend. That’s all I have to say about that!
Commitment LEVEL
Serves 1
2 ounces chinotto soda
1½ ounces red verjus
1 ounce soda water
1 orange twist, for garnish
1 green pitted olive, for garnish
Fill a spritz or wine glass with 2 or 3 ice cubes. Add the chinotto, red verjus, and soda water. Garnish with the orange twist and olive.
Batch for 6 Fill a pitcher with ice. Add 1½ cups chinotto, 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons verjus, and ¾ cup soda water. Gently stir, then divide among 6 wine glasses. Garnish each with an orange slice and an olive.
Sunomono
Sean Umstead — Kingfisher, Durham, North Carolina
For Sean Umstead, cocktails and food are no different: “This drink is composed, like a dish,” he says. The elements here are light, refreshing cucumber juice balanced by rice vinegar infused with sesame, which gives it depth. Salt brings everything together. To make a cucumber ribbon garnish, use a Y-shaped vegetable peeler and slice the cucumber lengthwise. It should stick to the glass if you gently press the ribbon into it.
Commitment LEVEL
Serves 1
1 cucumber ribbon, for garnish
3 ounces fresh cucumber juice
1 ounce Sesame and Salted Rice Vinegar Shrub (recipe follows)
4–5 ounces soda water
Line a collins glass with the cucumber ribbon. Add the juice and shrub, fill the glass with ice, and stir to combine. Top with soda water.
Sesame and Salted Rice Vinegar Shrub
Makes 1½ cups, enough for 12 drinks
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
1¼ cups rice vinegar
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
¾ cup sugar
Toast the sesame seeds in a small sauté pan over medium heat, stirring frequently, until fragrant, about 1 minute. In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the toasted sesame seeds and the vinegar, then add the salt and sugar. Stir constantly, until the sugar is dissolved, about 1 minute. Remove from the heat.
Transfer the mixture to a blender and blend on high until smooth, about 30 seconds. Let sit for 30 minutes so that the flavors mingle, then fine-strain and discard the solids. Store the shrub in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 month. (It will separate; this is okay. Just shake well before using.)
Batch for 6 Line 6 collins glasses each with one cucumber ribbon and set aside. Combine 2¼ cups cucumber juice, ¾ cup shrub, and 3 cups soda water in a pitcher filled with ice and give the mixture a gentle stir. Divide among the collins glasses, adding more soda water if you wish.