Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Want to feel old? The Cosmopolitan cocktail—that blush-pink symbol of sybaritic urban sophistication, thanks to many appearances on the series “Sex and the City"—is almost 40. The drink was invented in the late 1980s at Manhattan’s Odeon by a young bartender named Toby Cecchini.
(He’s now a veteran bar owner who runs Long Island Bar in Brooklyn.) It has remained relevant over the decades, even enjoying a comeback in recent years as bartenders have created riffs on it—liquid tributes that use the drink as a jumping-off point. Despite the Cosmopolitan’s decadeslong celebrity, not until now has its birthplace, Manhattan, boasted a club named after the cocktail. Cosmo opened in a basement space beneath the restaurant Ainslie Bowery in December.
The decor is appropriately rosy in hue. The bar menu, created by Jessica Duré and Naeem Lama, begins, as it should, with the house Cosmopolitan, known here as “The Cosmo." When asked about the cocktail’s durability, Duré said, “I think, bare bones, it’s very well-balanced. When made correctly, it’s very dry and ‘poundable,’ for lack of a better term.
And it’s just stylish." Duré and Lama wanted to make the drink their own but also honor its classical design. The original recipe calls for lemon-flavored vodka, Cointreau, lime juice and cranberry juice. But the formula, like Carrie Bradshaw, has cycled through many outfit changes.
“I feel like everyone has had a version of a Cosmo, or their parents had their version of a Cosmo," said Lama. “I wanted to respect that, because a Cosmo has a very definitive look. How do we alter something just a little bit, just to make it stand out?" To execute that delicate trick of simultaneous homage and invention,
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