Invented recently, ordered everywhere
Modern classics
A modern classic is a drink young enough that someone alive invented it and established enough that a good bar will make it without needing the recipe. Very few clear that bar. These did.
7
Recipes here
2
Guides to go with them
What earns the name
Not novelty. Thousands of cocktails are invented every year and almost all of them stay in the bar they were born in. What separates a modern classic is that other bartenders adopted it — that it spread on merit, by word of mouth, until it turned up on menus in cities its creator had never worked in.
The other thing they share is a simple idea. Nearly every drink here can be described in one sentence, and most are built on a template that already worked. That is not a lack of imagination; it is why they travelled.
Why they belong next to the old ones
The revival that started in the nineties went back to the pre-Prohibition books, learned the grammar, and then began writing new sentences in it. The best of these drinks are that grammar used well — a sour rebalanced, a spirit swapped in where nobody had tried it, an ingredient the old books never had access to.
They are also, usually, easier to make than the classics they descend from. Fewer obscure bottles, less technique, more forgiveness. A decent place to start if the older half of the menu looks like hard work.
Pour one
7 modern classic recipes
Modern Classic · 1984Bramble
Modern ClassicEspresso Martini
Modern ClassicFinal Ward
Modern Classic · 2007Juliet and Romeo
Modern Classic · 1941Mexican Mule
Modern Classic · 2008Paper Plane
Modern Classic · 2004Revolver
Asked and answered
Questions, answered
- What counts as a modern classic cocktail?
- Broadly, a drink invented from the 1980s onwards that is now made in bars far from where it started, without the bartender needing to look it up. Age alone does not qualify a drink — adoption does.
- Are modern classics easier to make than older cocktails?
- Usually. They tend to need fewer specialist bottles and less technique than the pre-Prohibition drinks, partly because they were designed in busy working bars where anything fiddly does not survive the second week.
The bartender’s note
One drink, one story, one bottle worth buying.
Thursday evening, so you have time to shop. No more than that.