Bars With Creative Drinks: Make Mine a Mas Manhattan

Actually, time was that a martini menu ripe with peach, litchi and apple liqueurs could qualify as innovative in New York City, but that era is so far gone that it is no longer even fashionable to complain how unfashionable it is.

Yet if you’re traveling from a place where Budweiser Select is considered avant garde, and the idea of spending your weekend testing the cutting edge of the cocktail appeals to you, there are plenty of places to do that here: from a refined French restaurant in the Village to a pound-’em-down neighborhood bar in Hell’s Kitchen, where you’ll find drinks to nominate for the Cocktail Hall of Fame.

Which doesn’t exist, by the way. Yet.

Barcelona Bar This is that Hell’s Kitchen spot, where the 100 shots listed on the wall have names so ingenious that you really have no idea what’s in them. (Or what comes with them — a soundtrack, a costume or one hellacious hangover.)

The menu describes a handful, dividing them into categories like “Para Chicos” and “Para Chicas” for men afraid of anything pink or neon. Otherwise ask, or guess. Some (if not most) are simple, like the Evil Buzzard: Fireball cinnamon schnapps with a dash of Tabasco, which gives it a double kick. Prefer your Tabasco with Kahlúa and tequila? That’s the Hell’s Kitchen. And so on, from the Darth Vader to the Full Metal Jacket to the Monica Lewinsky.

Pegu Club The Pegu is like the Barcelona Bar’s sophisticated (and distant) cousin, and the menu is also dominated by concoctions equally creative but infinitely more classy. You’re also unlikely to see N.F.L. games on plasma screens. This dark upstairs lounge — (sort of) hidden on Houston Street — is named for the British Colonial Officers’ Club near the Gulf of Martaban in 19th-century Burma.

The menu lists the ingredients, but little good that will do you unless you know the difference between yellow and green Chartreuse — the green was the original liqueur made by Chartreuse monks; it’s stronger and less sweet than the yellow — or you think Punt e Mes is a fourth-down option in the New York Giants playbook (it’s a vermouth). The Black Jack has bonded applejack, blackberries, Benedictine lemon juice, simple syrup and egg whites; the Jamaican Firefly uses house-made ginger beer, dark rum, simple syrup and lime juice. The drinks are never overly sweet, but if you’re worried, try something like the 19th Century: bourbon, Lillet Rouge, crème de cacao and lemon juice.

Employees Only A restaurant by day and raucous bar by night, EO (as its sign reads) is in the West Village. You might have to ask for the drinks menu, and you might be discouraged by the amount of beer being passed around, but the seasonal cocktail menu is full of creative stuff. The Ginger Smash mixes gin and apple liqueur with muddled ginger root and cranberries in quantities that challenge, if not defy, most straws. On the other hand, some cocktails may be better left alone: the Mediterra is puréed fig and honey in vodka, sort of an Israeli picnic gone awry.

Gin Lane This is another restaurant with plenty of bar space that takes its drinks seriously, much as its atmosphere, redolent of an old-school Fortune 500 boardroom, might lead you to expect. The Strawberry Nirvana does have litchi, which is forgivable when you add the Velvet Falernum and ginger root along with the Grey Goose le Citron. Gin Lane, in the meatpacking district, also serves a Tea Time Martini between 3 and 6 p.m., which is good for those who like their Hendrick’s gin with yuzu, maraschino liqueur, lime and grapefruit.

Mas A French restaurant in the West Village that Frank Bruni, the restaurant critic for The Times, said in 2004 was “an earnest, tasteful restaurant” that “nicely splits the difference between fussy and unfussy,” has a seasonal cocktail menu that, for this winter at least, tends toward traditional drinks with quality though somewhat nontraditional ingredients. The Mas Manhattan uses rye with pricey Vya vermouth, house-made orange bitters and cherries steeped in brandy. An Old-Fashioned pops in some vanilla and orange zest; again, the bitters are house-made. Those who can stomach the stiff drinks, but not entrees that cost more than $30, can sit at one of the tables near the small bar.

Counter Is the first thing that crosses your mind when you do a shot of vodka, “My, this doesn’t taste organic”? If so, or even if not, then the drinks made from entirely organic liquor (though tequila stops at “sustainable”) at this vegetarian East Village restaurant are still intriguing. The Up All Night, made with cocoa, vanilla-infused (organic) vodka and espresso beans might seem only moderately indulgent if it were not for the stripe of fudge rimming the glass. Married in a Fever has red wine, poached pear and (organic) vodka, this time infused with pear.

O.K., so the names might sound cutesy enough to come from a once-hep martini menu, but it’s what’s in the glass that counts.

VISITOR INFORMATION

Barcelona Bar, 923 Eighth Avenue between 54th and 55th Streets, (212) 245-3212; www.barcelonabarnyc.com.

Pegu Club, 77 West Houston Street (up the stairs) between West Broadway and Wooster Street, (212) 473-7348; www.peguclub.com.

Employees Only, 510 Hudson Street between Christopher and West 10th Streets,(212) 242-3021; www.employeesonlynyc.com.

Gin Lane, 355 West 14th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, (212) 691-0555; www.ginlanenyc.com.

Mas, 39 Downing Street between Bedford and Varick Streets, (212) 255-1790; www.masfarmhouse.com.

Counter, 105 First Avenue between Sixth and Seventh Streets, (212) 982-5870; www.counternyc.com.