Best Bars in… Miami

America’s southernmost metropolis is young at heart, but skilled at shaking, finds Jenny Adams.

Miami’s a young town as far as mixology is concerned, not that youth equals naiveté. This seaside metropolis has everything going for it in terms of libations, serious bar talent, access to America’s best citrus, and a love of pushing limits.

The Florida Room – a Latin-styled speakeasy opened in 2008 in the Delano Hotel on South Beach, with a fantastic drinks programme manned by John Lermayer. Though it closed a few years ago, Miami’s cocktail scene has blossomed ever since.

Today Lermayer has teamed up with Joshua Wagner at the Regent Cocktail Club, Miami’s first and only classic cocktail bar. “The idea was to pay homage to the great hotel bars of London,” he explains.

While Gabe Orta, another ex-Florida Room stalwart, and bartender Elad Zvi, opened the Broken Shaker in The Freehand hotel last year.  Though largely based around South Beach, the Miami cocktail scene is international in scope and flavour.

The Setai boasts Asian fusion-styled drinks and the skills of Phillip Khanderhish, while Laura Cullen has amassed a serious spirits collection at Clarke’s Irish Pub.

Yet the bar on everyone’s lips is Blackbird Ordinary with Fraser Hamilton’s boozy slushies and dehydrated spirits. This trend in bars is “something to do with how Miami used to be in the ‘30s and ‘40s, when hotel bars were the thing to do here”, explains Orta.

Yet the style of bartending stems from the abundance of juice. What you taste in Miami is fresh. Unbelievably so.

The power of citrus

That Florida produces almost two-thirds of America’s citrus fruit is one of Miami’s biggest charms for mixologists. While there’s never an excuse to make a Daiquiri with bottled lime juice, here it’s practically a capital offence.

“In Miami, we have direct access to the freshest, most interesting tropical fruits in the country,” explains Aubrey Russel of the Corner Bar. “Any programme not taking advantage of that is not using what their region has to offer.”

And we’re not just talking lemons and limes. At his bar, Russel uses mamey sapot, a Central American fruit that lends a bit of sweet potato and pumpkin to the mix.

“We analyse the menu every quarter and try to switch out three to four drinks from each section,” says Russel, “but we also feature a new cocktail of the week, every week, which is either a totally new creation or a spin on an old classic.”

At The Setai, citrus crops up in Phillip Khanderhish’s homemade shrubs, sodas, sours and fizzes including his most popular cocktail – the Rhubarb Stringer.

The Miami bar scene is abuzz with new drinks, new cocktail programmes and new venues. According to Orta, Swine, PB Steakhouse and Khong are the new openings to watch in 2013.

“Even though downtown and Wynwood are the most up-andcoming neighbourhoods and, in my opinion, are the future of Miami’s drinking scene, South Beach is still the best place to find cocktails for the moment,” he says.

Which are Miami’s best bars? Find out on the next page…

The Regent Cocktail Club
1690 Collins Ave, South Beach
www.galehotel.com
The Regent dates from1941, but reopened at The Gale Hotel last December with Miami cocktail legends John Lermayer and Joshua Wagner at the helm pushing the town’s drinking culture forward. Inviting leather couches and a marble bar give it a boys-club vibe, and the selection of aged rums, New Orleans Jazz and fine cigars round out a space that’s modern in service, but timeless in form.

Blackbird Ordinary
729 SW First Ave, Brickell
www.blackbirdordinary.com
The Blackbird spread its wings in December 2011, with a programme devised by Gabriel Orta, John Lermayer and others. It’s now run by Fraser Hamilton, who believes in combining the highest quality ingredients with straightforward mixology. For something more experimental try Hamilton’s alcoholic slushies and homemade liqueurs.

The Setai Miami Beach
2001 Collins Ave, South Beach
www.thesetaihotel.com
The menu at The Setai hotel is based around seasonal classic drinks with an Asian twist. Inside you’ll find innovative concoctions like rose petal-infused sake and and homemade syrups featuring lemongrass, ginger and Thai chili.. Molecular experiments abound: pineapple caviar in the Singapore sling and a whipped Jack rum and almond syrup foam. Open since 2005, the bar programme is now under the tutelage of mixologist Philip Khanderhish, and it shows.

Broken Shaker
2727 Indian Creek Drive, Miami Beach
www.brokenshaker.com
This former pop-up bar, now a fixture in the Freehand Hotel, is one of South Beach’s best places for a cocktail. The guys behind this programme have great relationships with local farmers and that camaraderie shows up in their cocktails that change by the week. Kaffir lime and bright Florida lemons get blended in with homegrown garden herbs like pineapple, sage and verbena.

Corner Bar
1035 N Miami Ave, Downtown
www.thecornermiami.com
This is the joint where bartenders spend their off hours drinking. Open till 5am on weekdays and 8am on weekends, the décor is warm and cozy with gilded mirrors and ambient lighting, and the cocktail list averages 20 drinks, split into categories of Classiques and Nouveaux.

Dolce Italian
1690 Collins Ave, South Beach
www.galehotel.com
Created under the umbrella of LDV Hospitality – the same company that brought Miami The Regent Cocktail Club – this concept, also at The Gale Hotel focuses on the flavours of Italy in cuisine and cocktails devised by John Lermayer. From a barrel-aged Negroni to a house Limoncello to their signature Bellini, it’s pure Italian with a Miami-style twist.