Bar Culture
The Dream Cocktail: Nightcaps, Late Hours and What Happens After the Last Glass
The Dream Cocktail from Harry McElhone and the Savoy Cocktail Book, how to make it well, and what sleep research says about the last drink of the night.
Est. 2026 · New York
The Art of the Classic Cocktail
Recipes, histories and technique from the golden age of the hotel bar to the cocktail revival, told with care and tested in the glass.
Read the JournalPhoto: Mediha Ekici / Pexels
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From the Journal
New histories, recipes and guides every week.
Classics
The New York Sour: A Whiskey Sour with a Red Wine Float
The New York Sour: rye or bourbon, lemon, sugar, egg white and a float of red wine. Its surprising Chicago history and how to get the float right.
Technique
Home Bar Essentials: Tools, Bottles and Glassware
A practical guide to setting up a home bar: the tools you need, the bottles that cover most classic cocktails, glassware, ice and fresh ingredients.
Classics
The Hemingway Daiquiri: Havana, Maraschino and Grapefruit
The Hemingway Daiquiri, created at El Floridita in Havana by Constantino Ribalaigua: rum, lime, grapefruit and maraschino. History, recipe and tips.
Bar Culture
What Makes a Great Hotel Bar? Notes from a Former Bar Manager
A former hotel food and beverage manager on what separates a great hotel bar from an ordinary one: light, seating, service, music, menus and memory.
Classics
The Singapore Sling: Raffles, the Long Bar and a Tangled Recipe
The story of the Singapore Sling, credited to Ngiam Tong Boon at the Raffles Hotel Long Bar, why its original recipe is disputed and a balanced recipe.
The Menu
A Cocktail List in Four Chapters
Borrowed from one of the most thoughtful bar menus New York has seen, our recipes are arranged as classics, seasons, the garden and the voyage.
Photo: Fran Zaina / Pexels. Illustrative image.
Bar Culture
Bar Pleiades at The Surrey
Black lacquer, quilted leather, a menu that credited its classics and bar bites from the Café Boulud kitchen. The story of a small Upper East Side cocktail lounge that people still talk about, and what it taught us about hotel bars.
At the table
Bar Food and Late Nights
Oysters and a dry martini, charcuterie and a Negroni, warm madeleines with a digestif. Our guides to the food that belongs beside a good drink, the nightcaps that end an evening and how to host a cocktail party of your own.
Photo: Valeria Boltneva / Pexels
Writers
Who Writes Pleiades
Cocktail historian and writer
Margot Ellery
Margot writes about classic cocktails and the bars that made them, from Manhattan hotel lounges to the old bar manuals she collects.
Former hotel food and beverage manager
Martin Hale
Martin spent two decades running hotel bars and restaurants and now writes about technique, food pairing and what makes a bar work.