Well, Bar Rêve in Brooklyn has quantified it. At the recently opened bar, the Dirty Martini Chargé, made with “blistered olive brine” (a house-made batch infused with rosemary, garlic, bay leaves, dry white wine, orange and lemon peels), is the most ordered drink. Like at other Martini-focused bars, this cocktail is customizable—think Tigre, where you order by ratio, or Better Luck Tomorrow, where you pick your garnishes. Chargé, says Bar Rêve co-founder Victor Triebel, is French for strength or intensity. To order the cocktail, guests specify how “dirty” they’d like it on a scale from one to five. A “one” is made with just one-eighth ounce of brine; a “three” is the bar’s standard, with a half-ounce; and “five,” the most intense, adds a whole ounce. 

So that’s one codified scale, but how does that compare to other bars? Even when customization isn’t encouraged, guest requests are getting more and more… nebulous. Last year, for example, when we asked New York bars to share how Martinis were ordered, one reported a request for something a “little extra dirty.” How are you meant to make that? I took a not-so-scientific poll of a handful of Martini hot spots to hear how they compare.

At Bar Valentina on New York’s Lower East Side, where Martini drinkers spill into the streets, the dirty Martini is made with a half-ounce of brine by default. “We skew by a quarter ounce of brine only in either direction depending on request,” says Tanya Jamieson from the bar. Cecchi’s, also in New York, offers Martinis as part of a “New York happy meal” and has the same half-ounce default, upped to a whole ounce if guests request a “filthy” one.

In Palm Springs, Bar Cecil, which says it calls on a less-salty batch of olives grown in Northern California, uses slightly more brine: three-quarters of an ounce for a classic dirty Martini, a quarter-ounce for “not-so-dirty” and a full ounce for “filthy.” R&D in Philadelphia also calls on a half-ounce of less-salty brine from Castelvetranos, upped to three-quarters or a full ounce for a “filthy” drink, plus a sidecar of chilled olive brine; “part hospitality, part fear of adding any more sodium in their cocktail,” says partner Aaron Deary.

The new Chicago bar Kitty’s Cosmopolitan Club, meanwhile, calls for 30 milliliters (about one ounce) for its house version. “We also have an olive brine foam on hand from one of our low-ABV cocktails that can be deployed if the guest wants the nuclear option,” says beverage director Kevin Beary.

Supper Club in Portland, Maine, skews brinier, too. (“I’m a massive dirty Martini fan,” admits front-of-house manager Zakk Nix, “and so are the vast majority of the Supper Club staff.”)  Their standard gets “a shy three-quarters of an ounce,” but an “essence of dirt” Martini would get a quarter-ounce, while a “filthy” one would get 1 1/4 ounces. “But I have definitely hit two ounces for the freaks,” says Nix.

Where do you fall on the scale from essence of dirt to olive freak? And how much would you expect in your Martini? (For what it’s worth, the Punch-favorite dirty Martini calls for about a half-ounce of surprisingly oliveless brine, plus some salty sherry.) Let us know and we may include your response in an update next week.

And yet, in this Robespierre moment of public executions and recriminations, I’ve found myself unexpectedly drawn back into the surviving nodes of craft beer culture in America. Some of this is millennial nostalgia, and my own intractable desire to reengage with the things I found cool in my 20s now that I am very much no longer in my 20s. But after the hype has faded, now that the release lines have died down and the hazy bros have moved on to trendier pastures, craft beer culture in America looks more like how it did 20 years ago: rooms full of interesting and eccentric people, drinking stuff because they like it and think it tastes good.

Lychee Martinis were created in 1990s NYC, though their origins are disputed. Depending on who you ask, the creator is either a midtown Korean restaurant, Clay, or the Japanese sake bar, Decibel, on the Lower East Side. The cocktail went on to become the liquid catchall for Asian flavors in Americanized bars and restaurants, the likes of Ruby Foo’s, Tao and Panda Inn. But recently, the drink has become a platform for Asian reclamation, and it’s closer than ever to capturing the real splendor of the fresh fruit and the culinary customs around it.

At 929, a sexy, dimly lit, Chinese pop music-themed speakeasy in midtown Manhattan, beverage director Chaoyi Chen draws on nostalgic memories. Since childhood, Chen, who previously ran Pawn Bar in Taipei, has heard the legend of an imperial eighth-century Tang Dynasty concubine who craved lychee so much that Emperor Xuanzong built a “lychee highway” to bring the perishable fruit from farms in Guangdong to the capital of Chang’an, present-day Xi’an. 

A major global lychee producer itself, Taiwan boasts a bar scene that features the fruit prominently. There, Chen says, lychee cocktails often pair the fruit with clear spirits (white rum, gin, vodka, pisco) and, reflective of local tea culture, a green or lightly roasted oolong tea (black tea would overwhelm lychee’s subtlety). Following in that tradition, the Shanghainese Summer Fling, which Chen serves at 929, calls on clarified lychee puree and jasmine green tea. The drink is an ode to breakfast rituals of savory soy milk and tea. It’s very creamy, built on a base of milk-washed vodka, and topped with salted soy milk foam with bruleed sugar. 

Intervening in everything from overdoses to arson attempts requires balancing compassion and empathy with quick thinking and improvisation, not to mention the safety of everyone involved. But, Hodgkinson adds, “we generally just want people to be okay.”  

For T. Cole Newton, running a bar has required him to balance hospitality with safety. Newton has owned Twelve Mile Limit in New Orleans’ Mid-City, an economically diverse neighborhood, for 15 years. “From early on, we would get people who wandered in who seemed to be in poor mental health and not receiving services,” he says. Some come to drink, others just need to use the bathroom or have a glass of water, which Newton doesn’t mind. Occasionally he’s had to intervene, like when a neighborhood regular’s unpredictable behavior became threatening. “But until you prove yourself a danger, we try our best to treat everyone the same,” says Newton. 

Bartenders are no strangers to social conflict. But as rates of homelessness reach record highs, and mental health and substance use crises remain highly visible, these challenges are showing up literally at the doorsteps of hospitality venues, with workers on the front lines. Simultaneously, conversations about community safety have evolved beyond a reliance — and trust — of the police. Some bars are beginning to rethink their roles in the neighborhoods they serve. 

During the pandemic, former bartender Mara Bethel noticed more of her unhoused Atlanta neighbors in visible distress. She saw the same familiar pattern play out again and again: “The cops keep getting called, and then they’d end up in this endless cycle where their needs still aren’t being met,” she says. “Sometimes people would go to Grady [Hospital] or sometimes they’d spend the night in jail, but then they’re back on the street, over and over and over again.” Her neighborhood is home to a lot of unhoused people, and a lot of bars. She wondered: Could the people behind those bars help break this cycle? 

When we put several recipes head to head in a blind tasting, our favorite was Toby Cecchini’s Gin & Tonic. In his drink, julienned lime skins are muddled with gin until “the aromatic oil has clearly emerged and the whole has taken on a translucent green from the juice.” When the gin-lime mixture is floated atop tonic water, the lime strips eventually act as a garnish. Despite its unconventional look and build, the extra steps are worth it, with the result described by the tasting panel as “crisp, bright and deeply flavorful.” 

For a more traditional, but highly technical, take, consider Dave Arnold’s Way of The G&T, his ultra-refreshing recipe that requires force carbonation, distillation, clarification and more. (If you don’t have all that, don’t worry, he has also made the Best G&T You Can Muster If You Can’t Muster Much.

When Los Angeles’ Sqirl announced that it would be offering dinner service, the restaurant found itself in the national public eye once again. Some took the launch as an opportunity to rehash Sqirl’s scandalous past, including the controversy around unacknowledged staff contributions; at the time, former employees alleged that owner Jessica Koslow was taking credit for recipes they developed.

Recipe crediting is a thorny topic for restaurants. In an interview with Eater senior reporter Bettina Makalintal, Amanda Cohen, owner of Dirt Candy, shared why she chose to attribute dishes to their respective creators by name: “I certainly know there has been a movement to give more credit to staff over the last couple of years and I think it’s great—it takes an army to run a restaurant.”

But four years later, it’s still rare to see names listed on menus. Sqirl, for its part, has not printed credits alongside dishes, though it has been highlighting staff who worked on the food on the restaurant’s social media. At bars, however, crediting has become increasingly common practice. See, for example, menus from Cure in New Orleans, DrinkWell in Austin, or Better Luck Tomorrow in Houston. Should restaurants follow suit?

Cocktail recipes are often meant to be recreated and riffed on; Punch’s archive is a testament to the merits of sharing how signature drinks get made. But ownership is another thing. Who gets to claim a recipe, and who gets recognition for it? I chatted with two bars who’ve found that naming cocktail creators on menus helps the staff, operators, and guests alike to see why they do it and why it matters.