Scope out Brooklyn's Best Spring Cocktails

Scope out Brooklyn’s Best Spring Cocktails

By Sarah Zorn

When it comes to blink-and-you’ll miss it spring, you’ll want to consume its endowment of transcendent produce as often as you can, and in as many permutations as possible. So be sure to visit bars and restaurants intent on funneling the garden to your glass, from Olmsted and its sweet pea and sake tipple, to Motel Morris and their strawberry-balsamic drink.

Olmsted
With an edible garden in the backyard (now double its size, featuring an insulated greenhouse), it’s easy for Olmsted to vary its cocktail selection according to the whims of the season—leading to options like “Rhubarb” (made with tequila, salt foam and tonic), “Tarragon” (featuring gin, sherry and yuzu), and even “Snap Pea,” flavored with pickling liquid, escubac and sake.

659 Vanderbilt Ave, (718) 552-2610

Miss Ada
Modern Middle Eastern cuisine is definitely having a moment, as further evidenced by the Brooklyn opening of Miss Ada, a pseudo Israeli stunner from a Lupa and Bar Bolonat vet, offering Masabaha Hummus with charred ramps, Kebab Burgers moistened with bone marrow, and a slew of exciting cocktails. Dig the “Once Upon a Thyme” comprised of herbs, gin and lime, and a perfumed Lavender Old Fashioned, finished with bourbon and orange peel.

184 Dekalb Ave, (917) 909-1023

Sweet Polly
While Atlantic-adjacent establishments are increasingly designed to appeal to the Barclays center crowds, the intimate and elegant Sweet Polly is an oasis for locals, offering thoughtfully composed, gorgeously garnished drinks such as the “Lucha Muchacha” with mezcal, green pepper and chartreuse, or the bracing “Golden Eye” derived from vodka, cynar, Stumptown cold brew coffee and sherry.

71 6th Ave, (718) 484-9600

Little Mountain
The so-called “Smallest Bar in Brooklyn (all of 270 square feet), packs a ton of ‘tude in a tiny space, utilizing two taps to turn out weather appropriate beverages, such as a Hibiscus Spritzer spiked with vodka or gin, and housemade alcoholic ginger beer, which can either be enjoyed straight or supplemented with rum, for an extra boozy Dark & Stormy.

359 Sackett St, (718) 797-3431

Sally Roots
Come spring, what could be better than platters of jerk chicken, a backyard flanked with palm trees, and tropical cocktails featuring “all the rums?” Sure, you can enjoy the mélange of distilled sugarcane as a simple shot, but it goes down even easier when mixed with passionfruit punch and pineapple (“Catch a Fire”), or in the frozen Casa Loco, flavored with fresh strawberries and lime.

195 Wyckoff Ave, (347) 425-0888

1 Bedford
The Latin-styled Nights & Weekends recently transformed into this elegant European aperitivi bar, meaning you can drink your weight in low ABV Spritzes, Pisco Passions with passionfruit and St. Germain, and the “Lillet 1872,” made with lillet rose and tonic.