A beginner bartender’s dream, the Refajo is so simple to assemble that it almost feels too basic to be called a cocktail at all. An ice-cold mixture of light beer and soda, the Refajo is a summertime staple that is far from unique to Colombia. But over the past few decades, the shandy has become so ubiquitous in the drinking culture across the South American country that it has shifted from an object to a verb, à la Google.

“Refajo has been popular in Colombia for at least the past 30 or 40 years,” says Luis R. Vidal, an anthropologist at the Colegio Mayor de Antioquia in Medellín who studies the intersection of food, drinks and culture. It is a clever hangover cure, an ingenious way to extend the beer supply, and a cooling accompaniment for a hot day, all at once. “But more than anything, Refajo is a social drink at its core, one that we associate with large gatherings, celebrations, and spending time together,” says Vidal.

The classic recipe is nothing more than equal parts light beer and Colombiana, an almost cloyingly sweet soda that smacks of citrus and bubblegum and is frequently compared to cream soda, for the North American palate, or Inca Kola, for those who know their way around the South American beverage scene. However, the Refajo isn’t without its regional variations; on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, for example, it is frequently made with a local favorite, Kola Román.

The simplicity of the Refajo gives it legs, and with them the at-home bartender runs. Riffs can involve adding a splash of orange juice, slices of fruit for garnish, a dash of aguardiente for a true kick, or adjusting the beer-to-soda ratio to balance for sweetness.

According to Dale DeGroff, godfather of the modern cocktail revival, the French Martini was “one of the sparks that got the cocktail-as-Martini craze started.” A fruit-forward combination of vodka, pineapple juice and Chambord, the French Martini dates back to 1996 when DeGroff himself debuted the drink at restaurateur Keith McNally’s Pravda, in New York City. It wasn’t until the following year, however, when it hit the menu at McNally’s buzzy Balthazar, that the drink really took off. Though it may be less viral than its siblings, the French Martini, too, is making a comeback.

Guadalajara Punch is a regional favorite in Jalisco, Mexico. The large format drink combines various citrus fruits with soda, tequila and salt. It’s served in a clay vessel and is sometimes called the Cazuela Voladora, or “flying casserole”; its easy-drinking nature can “send you flying.” (See also: Cantarito, another tequila classic served in earthenware.)

Many of the bottles had exploded; others were covered in the melted wax from their caps. Some laid entirely empty, their corks making a break for it in the heat of the flames. The fire remediation team wiped down every remaining bottle and placed them back on their shelves, allowing Bayless-Hall and the rest of the Rolo’s team to investigate the extent of the damage. Quickly, it became clear that none of the wine from their basement storage was salvageable. “We knew right away that we weren’t going to be able to sell these bottles of wine,” Bayless-Hall explains. Upon examination, some of the collection was fine, “but a few of the bottles were really gross, and had clearly been maderized, or cooked.” Rolo’s made the devastating decision to ditch their entire list, rather than risk a bad pour: “If every single bottle is going to be a dice roll, we have to just take it all as an L.” 

It was a tough call for Bayless-Hall in particular. Since he took over as beverage director two years ago, he has doubled the wine list at Rolo’s, focusing on adding American wines, especially from the East Coast, to the menu, as well as diversifying the offerings within broad categories like Riesling and Burgundy. “I had a real attachment to some of this stuff,” he says.

But in a lucky twist of fate, Bayless-Hall’s rapacious hunt for new bottles provided a life raft for Rolo’s after the fire. The collection had become so vast that they acquired an offsite storage location at the beginning of the year. It wasn’t meant to be a contingency for emergencies: “I’d been buying some cooler, older stuff,” he explains. “They were well above the standard price point for what we had been offering. We were slowly figuring out ways to put some of that stuff onto the menu, but a lot of it was waiting in the wings.” After the fire, the Rolo’s team decided to open up their offsite collection as a way to keep serving great wine while they rebuild what they lost. 

By the following weekend, Rolo’s was ready to start offering these pours, with the aim of keeping the price relatively stable from their old list, despite the higher costs of the bottles. “Every wine director will always brag about how good their prices are,” Bayless-Hall says. “But now that we got forced into this position, it’s important to us that people keep thinking about Rolo’s as a place to drink wine that is well-priced and accessible. That means that, for the time being, our markups are the lowest they’ve ever been.” He estimates that the current markup is, on average, a third or even half the restaurant’s typical pricing. For more premium bottles, he adds, they’re selling them almost at cost: “I just want us to break even.” 

So far, he says, the backup plan seems to be a success. Whether it’s because the staff is thinking more about wine than they would otherwise, or because the prices are better than they might have been before the fire, Bayless-Hall has noticed an uptick. “It’s only been a few days, but we’re selling more wine.” 

Since the fire, the team has been opening one special bottle a night, offering pours of rare wines like a 2002 Robert Ampeau & Fils Les Charmes Mersault (“super lactic and intense,” according to Bayless-Hall), a jeroboam of a 2025 Peter Lauer “Kupp No. 8” Riesling Kabinett (with “really tightly wound acidity” and “zesty citrus”) and a 2013 Thomas Perseval Le Village Blanc de Blanc (“low-intervention, zero sulphur added, and zero dosage with 7 years on the lees is a very ambitious undertaking”). Because of the relatively small collection, there’s not enough bottles of each to necessarily add them to their wine list, but these nightly pours allow patrons to sample their cellar while Rolo’s rebuilds.“Maybe it’ll be something we do indefinitely, or at least until we go through all these bottles,” says Bayless-Hall.

Whether it’s a Pierre Paillard Grand Cru Champagne or a Paolo Bea Italian red, Rolo’s loss is, at least temporarily, a wine lover’s gain. “I want people to be drinking wine that they’re excited about, and that I’m excited about, and that seems like something we’re going to be able to do in a way that’s kind of cool,” Bayless-Halls explains. “It’s for a shitty reason, but it’s ultimately exciting.” 

A certain apron caught my eye in the trailer for

I chatted with Pride about the ins and outs, costs, and challenges of having your space act as a film set.

On the menu, under the banners of “Strong & Stiff” and “Shaken & Refreshing” are throwbacks like the Singapore Sling and Tequila Sunrise along with the Rusty Nail and Brandy Alexander. Johns uses the original names and many of the core components of each drink as familiar signposts, but employs unexpected ingredients and techniques that would be foreign to a bartender who pulled shifts at Studio 54 back in the day. 

That many of these oft-dismissed drinks are no longer ordered by cocktail enthusiasts is what makes them so special to Johns. “Keeping the original names helps put guests at ease and not feel intimidated by the modern twists, techniques and ingredients we’re incorporating,” he says. “The best compliments we get are that these drinks remind people of their past but in a new way to experience them.” 

Over several visits I’ve had the chance to sample my way through all of the drinks, but the one I can’t stop thinking about is the White Russian. I wondered whether you could really call a cocktail a White Russian if it wasn’t made with vodka and Kahlúa, but after trying it, it instantly won me over.

The Martini-on-the-rocks bravely breaks the rules (or at least turns some heads). So we thought it was a good time to revisit some other nonconforming cocktails whose creators—all trailblazing bartenders—had to break a rule or two to develop. Here are three ways that you, too, can go off the beaten path:

Traditional bartending wisdom would have you shake, not stir, drinks with juice. But drinks expert Al Sotack wanted to push back on that. For his South Bronx, a riff on the Bronx cocktail, he adds a tiny bit of pineapple and orange juices to make something close to a Martini with just a hint of citrus. His Algonquin, meanwhile, reads like a Manhattan. “A little tiny bit of juice doesn’t change the elegance,” he says.

(No, really!) It sounds like sacrilege, but “sugar is not the enemy,” says bar legend Joaquín Simó. With a light hand, a touch of sugar can add balance to drinks and bolster those that feel too much like “watery booze.” It certainly doesn’t work in every cocktail, and it should be used sparingly, but it’s worth a shot if you’re R&Ding and feel like your drink is too flabby or astringent.

The ingredients list for the Trinidad Sour does not contain a typo; it really does call for 1 1/2 ounces of Angostura bitters. The drink achieved modern classic-status for the shocking, flavor-packed move, and, like the similarly constructed Angostura Colada, has become an industry favorite. In bar settings, these cocktails are often prohibitively expensive, but if you’re looking for a one-of-a-kind at-home drink, put these recipes on your bucket list.

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Then I walked into Kansas City’s Varsity Club, a neighborhood basement bar with a ’70s feel, where I spied the Grilled Martini on the menu. Made with gin, dry vermouth and smoked olive brine, it’s garnished with a grilled olive. It sounded like the perfect summer Martini, something I could envision serving at a backyard cookout. Plus, to keep things cool, it’s served on the rocks.

When Caleb Roye, who owns the bar with his brother, Levi, opened Varsity Club, he “wanted to reconfigure classic cocktails and present them in an approachable way,” he says.

For their dirty Martini variation, the brothers tapped Turkish grilled olives, which they use to infuse a gin blend and garnish the drink. After attempting to grill olives themselves (“you have to borderline dehydrate olives before you grill them or else they just blister, and then you have to rehydrate them through marinating them,” says Roye of the complex process), they discovered grilled Castelvetrano olives from the brand Fora (you can buy them online). Grilled with char marks, the olives had the ideal meaty texture and natural smoky flavor they were seeking.

The base of the cocktail is a 50-50 blend of Citadelle Gin, which adds floral citrus notes to the drink, and Prairie Wolf Dry Gin, which provides structure and balance. To impart that savory grilled flavor, they sous vide the gin blend with olives and smoke olive brine with hickory. At the bar, they batch the gin and brine with dry vermouth and store it in the refrigerator, then shake and pour Martinis over ice for service. 

While true opponents of Martinis on the rocks can request the drink served up in a coupe, for Roye, the presentation is a key component. “I think serving a Martini on rocks makes it more approachable,” he says. The bar shakes the drink just briefly to “minimize dilution before it hits the glass and slowly dilutes in the guest’s hand.” And that makes it just the right drink to linger with over a lazy summer afternoon.