In a skit posted by the bar in March, a customer orders a Manhattan. “You mean a Boy Martini?” the bartender responds, describing it as “like a Martini, but it has whiskey and it’s dark, so it’s for a boy, like you.” The video racked up over 3 million views on TikTok and Instagram, and was imitated by bars like Austin’s Revenge; Nashville’s The Amsterdamian; and Bristol, England’s Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Both the video and the drink are really a matter of savvy marketing, explains Dylan Wells, general manager of Ray’s Brooklyn. After taking stock of the best-selling items at the end of 2025, “it became very apparent to us that we were very much a Martini bar,” he says. Espresso Martinis and classic Martinis performed well; Pornstar Martinis were seeing an uptick. In January, “we started breaking out our best-selling Martini variants and putting them on our menu front and center.” With the Manhattan echoing some Martini qualities—strong, stirred, served up—it made sense to add to the menu, Wells recalls, and when someone suggested the name, “we thought that was kind of funny.”

There’s a level of engagement bait to it all, as proven by the spirited comments on the skit. Namely, the drink in the video is shaken, prompting plenty of horrified responses; the actual Boy Martini is, as it should be, stirred. “It doesn’t totally look like a Manhattan in the video,” Wells admits. 

Of course, the drink’s name also inspires existential debate. Is a Manhattan really a “Boy Martini,” especially when the Martini itself has been synonymous with hypermasculine figures like James Bond and Mad Men’s Roger Sterling for so long? This is the entertaining absurdity of the concept though, as is the case with rebranding assemblages of snacks as “girl dinner” or bowls of slop as “boy kibble.”  To apply gendered qualifiers to anything as generally appealing as meat and rice, or a classic cocktail, is to also underscore the pointlessness of the pursuit. In this way, the trend pokes fun at the concept of “girly drinks” versus “masculine” ones, and at the “lingering trope of the man’s glass,” as The New York Times put it in a 2023 piece about the gendering of glassware among some drinkers. 

If customers find the name silly, there’s little sense of that when they order, Wells says. “People are playing it straight,” he says. “They’re not embarrassed. They’re not really laughing. They’re just ordering a Boy Martini.” Is it even registering that it’s a Manhattan? He’s not sure. The point stands: Everyone wants to drink Martinis now.

Crushing the fruit into a shaker (or directly in the glass) quickly imparts its flavor into the mix. For a stronger strawberry note, let the maceration sit for longer.

Here, 15 easy-to-make recipes that spotlight the versatile spirit, beyond the classic Margarita.

Here are our favorite easy ways to use amaro.

We asked about mentorship, how to extend hospitality to both guests and fellow bartenders, and our panelists’ hopes and dreams for the future. Here are some of the highlights from our conversations.

Start simple. “There are so many resources that weren’t available when I first started out. Now there’s probably a YouTube video or an article about pretty much anything and everything. But with there being so much information out there, I think new bartenders today want to get to the most exciting stuff. They kind of skip over some of the steps with learning the basics… I think learning the building blocks of cocktails before you just jump right in and get started is really important.” —Lily Wang, partner at Nine Bar and Cara Cara Club in Chicago

Put yourself out there. “Show up for stuff. It doesn’t just have to be a competition. It could be an educational [opportunity], it could be a brand thing, it could be a seminar, it could be your friend’s pop-up. But show up, put yourself in the room, give other people the opportunity to meet you and get to know you.” —Izzy Tulloch, founder of A Bar Called Pancakes in New York City

You don’t need to be a mixologist. “Don’t feel like there’s this massive barrier to entry. It’s not like you have to have all the equipment… As great as it is for your craft to learn how to take it to the next level with molecular gastronomy, you don’t need to… Bartending is an art because we all have different styles and that’s really the most beautiful thing about it.” —Jenna “Duckie” Reynolds, bartender at Hermanita in Charlotte, North Carolina

Learn to take feedback. “Developing an ability for critical self-evaluation is really important when you’re starting up. This doesn’t mean you need to put yourself down, but you do need to develop an ability to look at your skill set and look at how you perform, shift to shift, and be honest about the pitfalls. If you struggle with that, you need to become much more open to feedback from your peers and your direct superiors.” —Daniel Villa, beverage director for R+D at Thai Taste in Charlotte, North Carolina

Understand the business. “If you want to progress—or even if you just want to bartend forever—knowing the business, knowing how to make a bar profitable, and how to cost your cocktails is important. [Say] you want to put a new cocktail on, it’ll be much easier to get that cocktail on the menu if you say [to your manager], ‘I got this idea for a cocktail. I costed it out. It’s only going to cost us this amount, and the prep is easy… The farther you go up [in management], it’s honestly less about creativity and more about reading a P&L, making sure your beverage cost is correct, managing a team, and things like that… When you go into beverage director or bar manager interviews, they’re going to be interested in that.” —Devin Kennedy, partner at Press Club in D.C. and Best New Bartender alum

Be thoughtful about who to ask for mentorship. “I’m a big fan of mentorship… When you’re looking for a mentor, it’s important to find somebody who you sync with. It could just be your approach to cocktails, your approach to business, your approach to back-of-house machinations. Whatever it is, it has to be that you share a bit of the same philosophy, and I feel like that’s when it can be most fruitful for everybody.” —Erick Castro, co-owner of Raised by Wolves and Gilly’s House of Cocktails in San Diego

Listed below are this year’s final nominees. We were impressed and inspired by their drinks, their creativity, their passion and their commitment to their communities. We received a record number of submissions and are so grateful to everyone who nominated themselves and their peers.

Please join us in celebrating the final nominees, and check back in June, when we will name the 10 Best New Bartenders of 2026.

Miley Aryucharoen | Tomat, Los Angeles, California
Carley Callis | Paloma Restaurant and Copita Wine Bar, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Kayla Campbell | Courtland Club, Providence, Rhode Island
Christy Cartagena | Sparrow, Chicago, Illinois
Matthew Huntley | Three Dots and a Dash, Chicago, Illinois
Abigail Jennings | Father Forgive Me, Detroit, Michigan
Princess Johnson | Allegory, Washington, D.C.
Chris Kuse | Monstera Mezcaleria & Natural Wines, St. Louis, Missouri
Sid Lewis | Occidental Bar, Denver, Colorado
Laurymar Lopez Melon | Bar Snack, New York, New York
Lena Maio | Beatbox, New York, New York
Nicole Nathan | Viridian, Oakland, California
Jakob McCabe-Johnston | Kimball House, Decatur, Georgia
Dominique Muñoz | Polite Provisions, San Diego, California
Kristine Nguyen | Bludorn, Houston, Texas
Dillon Raaz | Atoma, Seattle, Washington
Samantha Ruth | Darling, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Nicolette Shea Irvine | The Paddock, Eugene, Oregon
Sean Teague | Rada, Charlotte, North Carolina
Lucy Mae Valenti | Residents, Washington, D.C.

Of all the names for mixed drinks—cocktails, slings, daisies, mules—the word “julep” claims the oldest heritage. Etymologically, it derives from the Persian gulab, a medicinal mixture of violets, water and sugar that traces its history back more than a millennium. Even in the 17th century, when spirits (brandy, rum and gin) were added to the base recipe, the julep was still considered remedial. It wasn’t uncommon for juleps to be prescribed by doctors in attempts to heal ailing patients; created in the 19th century, the Prescription Julep, a classic variation of the drink, nods to these medicinal origins. 

In the late 18th century, the julep transformed, perplexingly, into a morning beverage not unlike coffee, designed to help early risers face the day. But it was not until the 1810s, with the advent of the American ice industry, that the julep would become an iconic summertime cocktail. Mint became the drink’s calling card, and several decades later, whiskey would surpass brandy, gin and rum as the base spirit of choice. Still, variations made with other spirits abound, like the Champagne Julep (which calls for Cognac and dry sparkling wine) and the Dabney (which is built on a mix of amari and rum).

Other modern interpretations call for lowering the proof, introducing modifiers like golden pineapple syrup and even mashing up the classic with tropical staples like the swizzle. Its enduring legacy is proof that the 19th-century template continues to be an inspiration, even into the 21st century. Here are some of our favorite takes on the template.