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Mexico City’s Best Cocktail Bars

From left: Fifty Mils; the La Aurora cocktail at Hanky-Panky.

“We used to drink mezcal and beer, but now we’re really into cocktails,” says Mafer Tejada, a bartender at Mexico City’s Licorería Limantour, of the trend sweeping her hometown. Following in the footsteps of boundary-pushing chefs like Enrique Olvera of Pujol, the Mexican haute cuisine restaurant that currently occupies the 16th position on the list of the world’s 50 best, mixologists across Mexico City are also making their mark through artful presentations, unusual ingredients and unique bar design. Here, a shortlist of the city’s most exceptional places to imbibe.

Many credit the acclaimed Licorería, which opened in the stylish neighborhood of Roma in 2011, with leading the local craft cocktail movement. (A second location in Polanco opened in 2013.) The current menu — it changes twice a year — spotlights the flavors of Latin America, and fittingly, sources ingredients from the region. Tejada, the first female to win the title of Mexico’s World Class Bartender of the Year, in 2015, recommends the Margarita Al Pastor, which mixes silver tequila with bright cilantro, sweet pineapple and smoky chile — flavors found in the beloved taco.

A quick jaunt through Lenox — a lively spot in the trendy neighborhood of La Juárez specializing in American comforts (think meatloaf, onion rings and grilled cheese) — reveals Parker, a cozy, dimly lit cocktail den that also offers live jazz on most nights. While the drinks menu is comprised of nearly 30 cocktails, the bartenders are renowned for their faultless execution of the classics, including frosty mint juleps and silky smooth negronis.

Classic gone contemporary is the specialty of the head bartender Mica Rousseau at this lounge in the Four Seasons Hotel. In the refined yet approachable space — filled with custom wood furniture, a long marble bar and distressed leather chairs — guests flip for Rousseau’s photogenic house specialty, the Inside Manhattan. After balancing a specially made ice sphere of bourbon, vermouth and Angostura bitters on top of a glass, the bartender cracks the sphere, releasing the liquid and broken ice into the vessel below.

Inspired by the Hanky Panky cocktail created by the celebrated bartender Ada Coleman for London’s Savoy Hotel in the 1930s, this speakeasy opened in La Juárez late last year. Cryptically, the bar doesn’t list an address, and the only way to visit is by securing a reservation over the phone using the number listed on its Facebook page. But once inside the sleek space, the drinks and conversation flow freely, thanks to a lineup of guest bartenders that changes every night.

Below is the recipe for a white chocolate and rose petal garnished cocktail called La Aurora, named after the baby daughter of one of Hanky-Panky’s guest bartenders, Philippe Zaigue.

La Aurora

1 ounce Beefeater 24 Gin infused with pink peppercorn (recipe below)
1 ounce Campari
1 ounce Cinzano
5 dashes rose water
1 small piece of white chocolate with pistachio and pink pepper (recipe below)
1 fresh red rose petal, to garnish

1. Place two large cubes of ice in a rocks glass.

2. In another glass, combine the gin, Campari, Cinzano and rose water.

3. Stir until chilled.

4. Strain into a rocks glass. Place the white chocolate on the rim, then a rose petal on top of the chocolate.

5. Enjoy by alternating sips of the cocktail and nibbles of the chocolate.

Beefeater 24 Gin infused with pink peppercorn

2 tablespoons ground pink peppercorn
1 tablespoon whole pink peppercorn
1 (25-ounce) bottle Beefeater 24 Gin

1. Pour the ground pink peppercorn and whole pink peppercorn into the bottle of gin. Let sit three days before straining out the peppercorn.

White Chocolate with pistachio and pink pepper

2 ½ ounces whole pistachios
5 ¼ ounces white chocolate
1 teaspoon ground pink peppercorn

1. Remove the shells from the whole pistachios and chop the nuts into small pieces. Set aside.

2. Melt the white chocolate in a double boiler, then pour it into a 9-inchx9-inch pan.

3. Before the chocolate cools, evenly sprinkle it with the ground pink peppercorn and reserved chopped pistachios.

4. Cool the chocolate in the fridge, then cut the chocolate into small pieces with a knife.

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