PourTaste is the most in depth and trusted cocktail house locator. Wether you're looking for prohibition-era classics or modern and innovative, chef driven libations, PourTaste gives you an all inclusive 50 state database of the best drinking establishments in America. The first of it's kind, PourTaste also includes a Drink of the Week program, using recipes from participating venues that you can enjoy while out or at home!
Brought on by real life experience, my wife, Lindsay, and I found in our travels the grueling experience of finding what we considered legitimate cocktail spots. We found ourselves starring at our iPhones, on countless apps and websites, for hours on end, reading others' reviews of what they considered to be a good cocktail. More times than not, though, our endless research brought us to bars and restaurants that had the best bubblegum martini in town. Yikes!
Where the elusive speak-easy style lounge was once only in the big cities such as New York, Chicago and L.A. 15 years ago, we're now seeing the craft of cocktailing, headed and explored by professionals, popping up in the most unassuming places. Over and out are the pre made sour mixes, flavored vodkas, painfully sweet well mixers and drinks made with no attention or love. In are the slings, sours, punches, fizzes, swizzles, grogs, smashes and cocktails of any nature that use only fresh squeezed juice, daily syrups, bitters, consciously tested spirits and are made with measured precision. Like true chefs prep in the kitchen, letting things marinade and stew for hours, so the consummate bartender will use his laborious and sometimes month long infusions and tinctures to pay equal attention to the drink he hands you, You'll love him and yourself for it.
Functioanlly, this app operates off of a 5 star rating system. Things to note about this? By virtue of being included in our database all restaurants and bars here are better than your average watering hole. A clear shot above rest. The 5 stars reflect the intensity, though, at which any establishment focuses on its cocktail program. 1 star will reflect the places that, though it's not their sole identity, offer a few drinks with historical relevance and/or some forward thinking flavor profile behind it. Manhattan? Simple. Manhattan with bourbon macerated, organic cherries and plum bitters? THAT'S PourTaste. Work you're way up the rating system to the 5 star joints. These are the places that are leading the imbibing culture daily, embracing the sole identity as a cocktail aficionados haunt, making everything, besides the liquor (and sometimes that), in house. House cordials, house bitters, house syrups, house tonics, house sodas, house everything. We will feature a Drink of the Week as well, supplied in part by participating venues and their bar staff. Dialogue with us! Lindsay and I love the exploration and the spreading of this gospel.
We live in an amazing age of the cocktail. While having a grand scope of a much respected past, bartenders and chefs alike are pushing the envelope for flavor, quality and detail in everything they serve. This is the new norm. We're just shining a much needed light on it.