Miami’s 5 Essential Cocktail Bars
Sunshine State Sips: Miami’s 5 Essential Cocktail Bars
While London might be considered by many to be the home of the best cocktail scene in the world, across the pond, Miami has been shaking up the bar scene with its own inspired cocktail scene.
In recent years, craft cocktails have emerged throughout Miami’s bar scene, making the Sunshine State an undeniable destination for casual drinkers and alcohol enthusiasts alike. Craft cocktails’ stratospheric rise has made Miami a city of drinking inspiration and celebration.
From over-the-top presentations to the use of farm-fresh fruit ingredients, craft cocktails in Miami are gorgeous displays that delight your palate. With skilled bartenders and highly rated distilleries calling Florida home, the drink scene in Miami is one worth experiencing.
Ready to make the journey across the pond? Here are some of Miami’s most forward-thinking cocktail bars that are shaking up something tasty.
The Broken Shaker
Given top honors on the Daily Meal’s list of Top 150 Bars in America in 2018, The Broken Shaker embodies the true spirit of Florida’s cocktail scene. Cocktails are handcrafted and each is composed of the perfect blend of ingredients and international flavors.
Its carefully curated cocktail menu includes exotic mescals and seasonal drinks all handcrafted from fresh-pressed produce, exotic ingredients, and garden herbs and spice infusions.
The Broken Shaker’s backyard oasis wonderfully complements each thoughtful composition. For booze hounds looking to escape Miami’s frenetic pace, the Broken Shaker provides the perfect hideaway.
The Regent Cocktail Club
When your head mixologist graces the cover of GQ Magazine, you know you’re doing cocktails right. It should come as no surprise that cocktails crafted at The Regent Cocktail Club tell a wonderfully delicious story.
The passionate team at The Regent Cocktail Club illustrates the art of craft cocktails through a daily rotating specialty cocktail menu. Each handcrafted cocktail creation pays homage to the classics refreshed with a modern twist.
A Prohibition-style cocktail bar, The Regent Cocktail Club’s cozy atmosphere evokes the simplicity and elegance of a 1940s classic cocktail bar.
Located on the rooftop of EAST hotel, patrons will pass 40 floors before reaching the ultra-trendy rooftop lounge Sugar. Sugar’s lush garden setting is a high in the sky escape that features unobstructed views of Miami’s skyline and waterways.
The cocktail menu at Sugar is inspired by the restaurant-bar’s Chinese and Hong Kong roots, but with a Miami twist. Asian-influenced cocktails make the most of exotic ingredients like lychee, yuzu, and Thai chili.
Further distinguishing itself in Miami’s crowded cocktail scene, Sugar features a weekly Sake Sunday tasting with inspired sake-infused cocktails that go down perfectly with Miami’s summer vibes.
In Miami’s perpetually sweltering heat, few things are as welcome as air conditioning, beer, and cocktails. And the sign out front of Gramps Bar advertises just that. Named after the owner’s maternal grandfather, Gramps Bar is an institution in Wynwood.
But don’t let the bar name fool you. Gramps is far from a haven for retirees. It’s the go-to place for counterculture entertainment. Hip and trendy, this dimly lit laid-back watering hole features potent cocktail concoctions that simply can’t be ignored.
A rotating cocktail menu keeps things interesting and definitely does not disappoint.
A recent entry to Miami’s cocktail scene, the Dirty Rabbit boasts a lewd persona embodied by its innuendo-filled drink names. Its salacious name aside, the Dirty Rabbit offers well-crafted cocktails that are thoughtful.
Its unmissable neon-lit motto “Are you dirty enough?” may beckon you in, but once inside, the bar’s clever drinks will keep you drinking until the wee hours of the night.
Despite the bar’s obvious tongue-in-cheek theme, each cleverly named drink on the menu is considered and sophisticated. Unique touches such as vintage postcards and sprigs of lavender neatly finish off your libation of choice, adding to the bar’s already impressive eclectic vibe.
Sun, sand, and spirits
In a city long typecast as a college crowd’s spring break destination, Miami is shaking things up. Long gone are the teenage wild nights and in its place has risen an upscale and refined cocktail scene ready to rival some of the best in the world.
While London may currently hold the crown for the best cocktail scene in the world, Miami has never been a city to play second fiddle. From updated takes to perennial favorites to newfangled twists, the city’s new generation of bartenders has the craft cocktail game under control.
AUTHOR BIO?: Richard Bantock is the President of Liquor License Consultants, Inc. (formerly known as The Liquor License Guy) which specializes in the purchasing and selling of Florida liquor licenses. For 20 years, he successfully operated liquor store, nightclub, bar and restaurant companies, gaining first-hand knowledge of business planning, financial negotiations and the liquor licensing process. Liquor License Consultants, Inc. reflects his insight and expertise.
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