Ladies and gentleman, it’s officially here. The months you’ve been waiting for. Summer. An iced beverage could never be more refreshing, more welcome than it will be over these next dozen weeks. So, skip the hard lemonade — heck, skip the regular lemonade while you’re at it — and get…

First, let’s look at the build of Nobuo at Teeter House’s elevated take on a simple whiskey sour, called the Smokey Thompson. For starters, Mo Neuharth, who manages front-of-house and the bar at the restaurant, uses local mesquite honey and egg whites from Dave Johnson’s Two Wash Ranch. Then there…

You could say Bitter & Twisted does something pretty rare when it comes to craft cocktail spots these days. While most change their menus with the seasons, the downtown Phoenix bar swaps out its cocktail offerings just once per year. But that’s because the menu — the drinks, the theme,…

At an event on Monday night at Okra, the Valley’s cocktail community caught a first glimpse at what’s in store at one of metro Phoenix’s most highly-anticipated bars. Set to open at The Colony in June, Honor Amongst Thieves will be located above Stock and Stable, a new restaurant concept from two…

There’s a new cocktail at the Clever Koi that’s so pretty, so ornamental, and so aromatic, you’d have to second-guess the statement that we live in “sour times,” even if the drink takes its name from the 1994 Portishead song of the same title.  The Sour Times cocktail is a vibrant…

We’ve got big news for Valley cocktail fans: Counter Intuitive, the Old Town Scottsdale bar with a rotating menu, will soon be changing its notoriously short and late hours of operation. Starting next month, you’ll be able to belly up to the bar from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. every Friday and…

Keeping with the theme of bartenders turning childhood drinks into adult beverages, The Brickyard in Chandler has not a root-beer float on its menu but, rather, a Root Beer Flip. “I really love root-beer floats,” says Bar Manager Bobby Kramer, formerly of Scottsdale’s Virtú and Downtown Phoenix’s Blue Hound Kitchen and Cocktails…

Top billing on Okra’s winter cocktail menu goes not to something dark and boozy, but to a frozen, blended cocktail called the Julius Freezer. Creamy, boozy, and a touch spicy, this Vitamin C-centric cocktail ($11) is an Orange Julius re-imagined by adults with an arsenal of artisanal booze at their…

In a city that’s perhaps best-known for its abundance of sunshine, it’s not surprising that many restaurants throw a margarita on the cocktail list and keep it there year-round.  But the best bartenders making this summertime cocktail put a memorable twist on the classic concoction and keep the ingredient list…

Since it appeared on the menu at Pizzeria Bianco Town and Country earlier this spring, bartender Blaise Faber’s Jack Knife cocktail has already become a hit with restaurant patrons. The star of the drink is a tropically-tart, house made persimmon liqueur, which Faber was inspired to make in an unexpected way.  “When Peter…

For the first time in more than five years, Michael Allmandinger will not be tending bar at The Parlor.  Allmandinger, who has been running the show at the well-respected cocktail spot since late 2013, has taken a sales job as a Spirit Specialist for Pacific Edge, a wine and craft…

Not long ago, the Phoenix outpost of the Ritz-Carlton became a thing of the past. One summer later, The Camby was born. It has opened its doors to the public, and directly through those doors lies a modern cocktail bar with a catchy name: The Bee’s Knees. In one word, the…

It’s been a long time since 2010, when famed cocktail personality Jeffrey Morganthaler won big with his Barrel-Aged Negroni and kicked off a trend that would lead to barrel-aging anything and everything — not just whiskey, but also beer and coffee beans and even maple syrup. And after a few years…

Here are 10 Winter Cocktails — some new, some time-honored, all worth seeking out, even during the most frigid Phoenix winter night.  The Spot: Bitter & Twisted Cocktail Parlor, Downtown Phoenix The Drink: The B&T Martini, pimped with Old Raj Gin The martini may come across as the serious, or…

There’s a reason that, in the young restaurant’s history, Okra is known best not for Southern Comfort, the divisive fruit and whiskey-flavored liqueur from New Orleans, but rather their own brand of southern comfort: a warm and hospitable staff turning out cold craft cocktails and cult staples of bible-belt cooking…

Punch is upping its game, and just in time for the holidays.  The communal offering can incorporate just about any combination of liquids and spices fit for human consumption, and today most Americans identify it with the holidays and family gatherings — big, decorative glass bowls, clove-spiked orange slices, cinnamon…

“It was dirt floors six months ago. As abandoned as it gets,” says Brandon Casey, heading to the corner seat of what’s being billed as the first craft cocktail bar in Chandler, where he’d rest his elbow for a photograph. This is the best vantage point to see the new…

Something huge has landed in the Phoenix cocktail scene. In fact, it may be the biggest cocktail around. Part of it sat in the Beefeater Gin distillery in London for close to two months simply due to shipping complications. “I don’t think anyone else in America has these bathtubs,” says…

On November 7th Counter Intuitive, the Old Town Scottsdale cocktail bar with a revolving theme, will say goodbye to sultry Havana nights and set their thematic sails to stir up “Big Trouble in Little China Towns.” The cocktail gang will be channeling the historic underground social drinking clubs of Chinese…