This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to New York
And just like that, the Cosmopolitan is back in fashion.
I’ll admit that, until recently, I believed the cocktail to be a myth. I had never seen one ordered, and thought it was a neon fuchsia drink that existed exclusively in Sex and the City.
The Cosmo has long since been banished from trendy menus, stigmatised as a girly pink drink — an unserious cocktail in an era of smoked ice cubes and fig leaf infusions and tinctures.
But then Taylor Swift was reportedly seen drinking multiple Cosmos with friends at a hip Lower East Side restaurant. The sighting was shared by DeuxMoi, the celebrity gossip Instagram account with 2mn followers, run by a New York-based woman who remains anonymous. Suddenly the Cosmo was on the lips and in the glasses of the zeitgeist again, with bartenders reporting a renaissance in nostalgia cocktails.
Since sharing the Swift sighting, DeuxMoi has been inundated with pictures from her followers ordering Cosmos, often with the hashtag #deuxmoimademedoit, which she then shares on her account, amplifying the comeback. (She says she finds Cosmos “just delightful” and can’t remember why she ever stopped drinking them.)
The cocktail as we know it — two parts citrus-infused vodka, one part each of cranberry juice, fresh lime juice, and triple sec, served in a chilled martini glass — was born in Tribeca at The Odeon bar in the late 1980s. The bartender at the time, and the recognised inventor of the modern Cosmopolitan, Toby Cecchini, started to make the drink for the restaurant’s staff at the end of their shifts. It was something to do with finding ways to use infused vodka, Cecchini says, which was an exciting novelty back then but ill suited for most classic cocktails.
Word of the drink travelled from The Odeon’s staff to its regulars and bartenders at other downtown bars, who began to order and make it. “Then it became the drink that ate us alive,” Cecchini says. As the Eighties morphed into the Nineties, New Yorkers could hardly move without knocking into someone holding a precarious Cosmo.
And then one day, as trends do, it simply disappeared. “It died a very natural New York death,” Cecchini says.
Cut to the summer of 1998, and Cosmopolitans were suddenly everywhere again — and this time, not only in New York. Confused bartenders were told there was a new TV show that featured the cocktail. Sex and the City became a smash hit, and changed everything.
At the risk of dating herself (a risk worth taking, we decided), DeuxMoi says: “If you lived in New York at the time, you were drinking Cosmopolitans. We totally cosplayed Carrie Bradshaw, I’ll admit it.”
Just ordering a Cosmo felt like acting out a scene from a movie. When I ordered my first, I was transported to childhood lemonade stands and my adolescence sipping the alco-pop Mike’s Hard Lemonade. That’s because a Cosmo is “lemonade for adults”, Cecchini says. “People assume the Cosmo is this horrid, cloying sticky pink drink, but it’s actually a very straightforward vodka sour. It should just be the palest pink.”
The perfect Cosmopolitan should also “greet you”, says Cecchini, the strong, the sour and the sweet in perfect balance. Lime is the souring agent, to counter the heavy dose of vodka, while cranberry is a side player, adding a bit of juiciness, a bit of tannin. The sweetness comes from the triple sec, often Cointreau. “The most common mistake is not enough lime,” he says. The mixture should be shaken until there is thick condensation on the outside of the shaker, evidence that it is cold enough and that vital dilution from the ice cubes has occurred. Finally, a true Cosmo is served “1980s style with a twist of lemon,” Cecchini says. It’s one of the few classic cocktails born of that era.
When I was asked to investigate the recent return of the Cosmo in New York bars, I suspected it was just a flash-in-the-pan, viral moment from the year of Taylor Swift. But I found the resurrection to have deeper roots.
The Cosmopolitan revival has been largely led by millennial and Gen Z women, bartenders say: generations who were still drinking apple juice when Carrie Bradshaw was sipping Cosmos at hot Manhattan bars. I couldn’t help but wonder: was their newfound enthusiasm for the drink just playing dress-up, or something more?
Bartenders report that other “nostalgia cocktails” have been spiking in demand, notably espresso martinis. Trends are cyclical, and today, comfort is in vogue. “We are at a point of time where people are really craving nostalgia,” DeuxMoi says. “It makes them feel a certain way at a time when the world is confusing and there are horrible things happening.”
Bartenders add that another element of the classic cocktail reboot is simply that people forgot how good they are. The Noughties rise of craft cocktail culture meant bars and restaurants were under pressure to feature original, innovative, and often overcomplicated drinks on their menus, at the expense of the classics.
“We used to put 17 ingredients into a drink and have fireworks coming out,” says Jason Duffy, bar manager of Salon de Ning at The Peninsula hotel. “But today people are looking for simplicity.”
The hype around the Cosmo in particular is spreading. Cointreau just launched a holiday ad campaign with Cecchini and actress Aubrey Plaza, pushing the cocktail as a Christmas drink. Someone sent DeuxMoi a DM the other week that said: “Whoever the publicist for the Cosmo is should get a freaking raise.”
So, after much intrepid investigation, here are some of the best places to relive a bit of NY history and sip a Cosmopolitan right now, according to DeuxMoi, Taylor Swift and me.
The Long Island Bar
110 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11201
-
Good for: Date night, catching up with friends. Incredible martinis goes perfectly with the burger, which is not to be missed
-
Not so good for: Being obnoxious. This is a neighbourhood place
-
FYI: The menu is simple, short and to the point
-
Opening times: Tuesday–Friday, 5pm–midnight; Saturday–Sunday, 2pm–midnight
-
Website; Directions
This is my local spot, which also happens to be, in my extremely biased but still valid opinion, the best bar in all of New York. Co-owned by Toby Cecchini — the aforementioned inventor of the Cosmopolitan — it’s also inarguably the best place to try his original Cosmo recipe. He says it’s more tart than most, but I found it to be perfect: the most balanced I tasted, and the hazy pale pink of a sunrise. The bar here strains its house-made lime juice, while the tiniest chips of ice add a bit of texture to the top of the drink and keep it crisp.
While The Long Island Bar is known for its martinis, its other cocktails such as the White Negroni Spagliato are pitch perfect and the short wine list is great value. In the summer, Cecchini’s frozen piña colada is so transportative it brought a tear to my eye. He’s making a frozen eggnog this holiday season, and honestly, it’s risky. Cecchini let me try it after my Cosmo, and it will ruin other eggnog for you forever.
Long Island Bar is a trendy corner bar built into the bones of a venue that speaks to a previous era. The drinks are as good as the finest NY bars, but the metal-edged café tables and original red-leather booths keep the vibe local, turning customers into regulars. In the summer, folding tables stream down the long sidewalk outside. Don’t be surprised if you see some celebrity faces on a Saturday night — it is about as sceney as it gets in its quiet Brooklyn neighbourhood. But it’s also the real deal.
Casino
171 East Broadway, New York, NY 10002
-
Good for: Dinner before a night out, a swanky cocktail catch-up with a friend, downtown celeb spotting
-
Not so good for: Walking in and hoping for the best
-
FYI: You come to Casino for the scene, not the cuisine
-
Opening times: Tuesday–Saturday, 5pm–midnight; Sunday–Monday, 5pm–11pm
-
Website; Directions
Casino is the location where Taylor Swift allegedly drank multiple Cosmopolitans and sparked a revolution. The house Cosmopolitan — the first drink on the sceney downtown spot’s menu — takes the classic cocktail off-piste with a house-made raspberry syrup instead of cranberry, leading to a juicier, fruitier drink. I enjoyed the slightly more robust cocktail, which was sweet without being cloying, and noted it was smaller than its uptown counterparts. The drink was also more textured from the pulp in the lime juice.
Casino’s main-staging of the Cosmo is part of its pointedly, trendily nostalgic menu, which feels a bit like finding out that your favourite band is now considered classic rock. It is in on the joke, even if its youngest clientele (and, for the most part, they all were young) are not. Old-timey lounge singers croon from the speakers. It offers beef tartare, and unnecessarily expensive, OK pastas. To be more like Swift, I ordered a second Cosmo, but then the bar got busy and it never came.
Where Casino really excels is the vibe: a curved, stucco interior suggests Santorini, while metal French Art Deco-style chairs make it more like a modern brasserie. “There’s some White Lotus energy,” my friend said as we watched crowds of people we felt almost certain were models filter into the bar, waiting to get tables. As Casino quickly becomes a centre of gravity for the downtown set, you have to assume that everyone around you is a minor celebrity or at least works in fashion. Casino is located right next to 169, a legendary dive bar that holds tight to the grungy personality of the neighbourhood.
The Waverly Inn
16 Bank Street, New York, NY 10014
-
Good for: People-watching, cosy post-shopping cocktail and meal, a work dinner, private parties
-
Not so good for: Tables are hard to get, so plan ahead, be somebody or know somebody
-
FYI: No photos in the restaurant after 5pm due to its celebrity clientele
-
Opening times: Monday—Friday, 5pm–10pm; Saturday—Sunday, 11am–10pm
-
Website; Directions
The hype and exclusive reputation of this West Village spot mean you feel a little bit special even going into The Waverly Inn. Set down from street level in the basement of a brownstone, a little pub room in the front of the restaurant feels like it could be in London, with stools pulled up to a snug bar. The Cosmopolitan here was tidy and good — it gave me instant flashbacks to childhood and Minute Maid lemonade mix — and was served in a classic, triangular martini glass. And it was the palest pink Cosmo I had on this quest. You don’t come to The Waverly for a Cosmopolitan, however. You drink a Cosmopolitan at The Waverly — where Taylor Swift recently went on a date with Travis Kelce — to be as zeitgeist as humanly possible.
Co-owned by the former editor of Vanity Fair magazine and longtime New York tastemaker Graydon Carter, The Waverly Inn is one of those NYC places that feels as if it shouldn’t still exist, as if the city overlooked this quiet corner on its relentless march to the next hip thing. Low wooden beams give an air of half colonial Williamsburg, half the private members’ club it used to be.
Beside the bar, dining areas roll out over several luxurious rooms. The main dining room is muralled with culturally notable people throughout history who lived within a few blocks of the restaurant. The season for the Waverly Inn is winter, when it is at its cosiest and most charming.
Salon de Ning at The Peninsula
Floor 23, The Peninsula New York, 700 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10019
-
Good for: Old-school NY vibes, expense-account cocktails, business meetings, summertime rooftop views
-
Not so good for: All-evening dining
-
FYI: A few minutes before opening, a line begins to form at the elevator that leads directly to the bar. Book for a few minutes after 5pm to swerve the queue
-
Opening times: Tuesday–Saturday, 5pm–midnight
-
Website; Directions
Like any truly great hotel bar, the prices here will astound you and opulence will surround you. The real selling point of Salon de Ning is its terrace, which has views up and down Fifth Avenue where The Peninsula hotel sits, just south of Central Park. From the terrace you can also see the Rainbow Room — another landmark of New York cocktail culture.
Where you order a Cosmo is key, DeuxMoi says, and swanky hotel bars are her personal favourite. “I wouldn’t go to a dive bar and order a Cosmo. I would go to a dive bar and order a vodka soda,” she says. The Cosmos at The Peninsula will probably be served by a waiter who remembers serving them the first time round, and they were by far the largest cocktails I encountered. They were also the strongest, teetering right on the edge of max-vodka.
In the words of bar manager Jason Duffy, there is just something about the vibe here that makes a Cosmo feel right. “We have an old-school New York bar,” he says, “and the Cosmopolitan has become the champion of the classic cocktails.”
Do you have five minutes to provide feedback on FT Globetrotter? We’d love to hear your thoughts via this survey, which will be used to help improve our future content
Read the full article here