Silver Lyan in Washington, D.C. Reveals New Cocktail Menu This Summer | Eater DC

"Inside the depths of the Riggs hotel, this essential Penn Quarter cocktail bar from London-based master mixologist Ryan Chetiyawardana unveils the two-week-old Butterfly Effect menu, its most elaborate refresh yet and the fifth major iteration since its 2020 debut, arriving soon after being named No. 48 on North America’s 50 Best Bars for 2025. The 12-cocktail collection riffs on happenstance and coincidence through a writer’s-room process that leads to flavor mapping, finalized copy, and then months of recipe development, marking style, texture, and flavor of each story detail. Highlights include the spritzy Chilean-kiwi Pikachu Pop; Operation Mind Fuck, built around smoked carrot vermouth and spring pea cordial and tailored to either end of a long day; the It’s Alive! 75, powered by a “reanimated berry madeira” created by electrocuting berry-infused dry madeira to promote oxidation; the Dynamite Old Fashioned; and the Hokusai Snap, which evolved from a shelved blue-cheese-adjacent experiment into a milk punch–style Curaçao topped with a berry garnish. To execute the menu, the team fabricated 30–40 new components—including an acorn tincture—and consulted with Mr. Lyan’s veteran crews at Super Lyan in Amsterdam and Lyaness in London; it’s the same boundary-pushing spirit that, in 2023, yielded ingredients like distilled emu neck and smoked bee larvae. For guests who prefer simpler pleasures, a steady Classics section remains, plus a playful Jack and Coke Service that riffs on the bar’s famed martini service—underscoring that for all the conceptual storytelling, the drinks still have to be downright delicious." - Brian Oh