Golden Ratio

Golden Ratio, a Bar With Lots of Spirit-Free Options, Opens

"Tucked into a former bodega a couple storefronts down from Place des Fêtes, I visited a corner bar that aims to seat 50 to 60 people and is aiming to open during the first week of November. The 32-drink menu is deliberately split down the middle between traditional cocktails and spirit-free counterparts, with every alcoholic option paired with a nonalcoholic “kissing cousin” rather than a one-to-one replica; each drink is built around a singular ingredient such as purple shiso. The nonalcoholic shiso drink pairs a lemon-verbena distillate with a tea made from the shiso stems and is fizzy and served in a wine glass, smelling and tasting a little like toasted bread, while the alcoholic counterpart is a tart, light sour spiked with a green-fennel-seed spirit made by the house distiller known as Acid Joe (Joe McDowell). Acid Joe macerates and infuses ingredients into a neutral grain spirit from New York Distilling using “corny kegs” with CO2 pressure, presses the mash through a cider press, and then re-distills it, sometimes yielding imperfect experiments (like leftover finger-lime shells). The team favors singular flavors over cocktails built from many botanicals: apples are a fixation here, producing dueling appletinis—one infused with apple skins in Cyril Zang’s eau de vie and the nonalcoholic version built from Ashmead’s Kernel apple juice with Concord-grape tannins to evoke the experience of eating an apple at the market. Another pairing showcases a wild cousin of Sichuan peppercorn called the toothache tree: a leaf syrup gives a citrusy, vegetal refreshment, while the nonalcoholic counterpart uses a wood syrup, lime hydrosol, and a tea of goldenrod flowers to conjure “the end of summer, beginning of fall.” The space also features an all-electric kitchen with a vegetable-forward food menu to complement the drinks." - Chris Crowley