First, a disclaimer. I can’t single out a definitive “cocktail of the summer” that will dominate bar orders across the country — I’m simply not qualified. I don’t have my fingers on the pulse of bar culture. My mixology resume begins and ends with the few months I spent tending bar at a Red Lobster in Austin. And even though I learned how to make a mean Bahama Mama, I don’t think the experience gives me the street cred needed to make that kind of forecast.

What I do know is that every summer, someone much smarter than me identifies the one cocktail that will receive the crown, and I obsess over it until my dinner party guests are as sick of drinking it as local bartenders are of making it. Last year it was the espresso martini. The year before it was the negroni sbagliato. And while there’s nothing wrong with these choices — they’re delicious — this summer I’ve decided to venture off the beaten path a bit more.

The world of cocktails is a massive one, and I haven’t explored much of it. But leaving your comfort zone without knowing where you’re going is a recipe for disappointment and regression. So I turned to one of my favorite bars here in New York, Bandits Diner + Dive. They’ve designed a few unique craft cocktails that are incredibly flavorful and refreshing and all the adjectives that a great summer cocktail should be. More importantly, they won’t be found at any other local haunt (and certainly not at Red Lobster).

Brown Julep

We’ll kick it off with the only cocktail on this list that you can probably make with ingredients you already have laying around: The Brown Julep. You may have to make your own honey syrup, but that just involves adding 1 part honey to 1 part water and stirring it in a saucepan on low heat until it dissolves. It’s a great ingredient you can use in all sorts of drinks, but it pairs particularly well with the scotch, grapefruit juice, and mint in this cocktail — rounding out a bright, full-bodied drink that’s as easy to make as it is to fall in love with.

Ingredients:

¾ oz honey syrup
1 oz grapefruit juice
2 oz scotch

See the full Brown Julep recipe.

Truth or Pear

Alright, now let’s get into the fancy stuff. The rest of these cocktails are for home mixologists looking to challenge themselves. And that challenge may be best demonstrated by the primary garnish for the Truth or Pear — a dehydrated blueberry salt rim.

The method is simple enough, but it takes patience. Put some blueberries on a parchment-lined baking sheet and pop them in the oven at 135ºF, then wait 10 hours. The result is bone-dry blueberries you can blitz and mix with your favorite course sea salt and use however you wish. (Editor’s note: the next time you make chocolate cake, sprinkle this on top. You’re welcome.)

The heart of the Truth or Pear comes from a pear puree — get them fresh and blend them yourself for the most flavorful results. Pair that with some chili-infused mezcal and a splash of rosemary syrup, and you’ve got yourself a smokey, sweet, aromatic, slightly spicy, all-around refreshing cocktail perfect for summer.

Ingredients:

Dehydrated blueberry salt rim
¾ oz pear puree
½ oz rosemary syrup
2 oz chili-infused Rosaluna mezcal

See the full Truth or Pear recipe.

Bobby Wasabi

Born out of a desire to taste a Japanese-inspired tiki drink, the Bobby Wasabi is pure mixology perfection. Starting with a house-made orgeat crafted from wasabi peas and wasabi paste (and plenty of sugar, of course) and lifting it with lime and pineapple juice, this is a one-two punch that warms you up and cools you down in the same sip.

The green tea shochu really deepens the complexity here. With everything going on in this drink you might think it’d end up as a flavor bomb, but it’s a lot more nuanced than that — you can close your eyes and taste every ingredient and how they all amplify each other. Personally I’d go with a mild sake, it needs to take a backseat to the rest of these flavors. This cocktail may seem a little complicated with the homemade orgeat and all, but man, once you taste that first sip you’re going to want to make big batches of it to keep in your fridge all summer long.

Ingredients:

1 slice of cucumber
1 shiso leaf
1½ oz wasabi orgeat
2½ oz lime juice
½ oz pineapple juice
2 oz Mizu green tea shochu
2 oz sake

See the full Bobby Wasabi recipe.

Jolt Fashioned

The Jolt Fashioned is just what it sounds like — an energy-boosted take on an Old Fashioned. You’ve still got the bourbon and the orange bitters, but the inclusion of cold brew makes this the perfect pick-me-up. A splash of complex and aromatic amaro ties all the flavors together, and garnishing with a twist of lemon helps bring out the citrus notes in the bitters.

This isn’t the summer cocktail you drink at the beach. It’s the cocktail you want to sip on in a dark, air-conditioned hotel bar, after a few hours in the sun and a nice turkey club sandwich, before heading back out to your chair and umbrella. It’s tasty, elegant, and cool. It’s what Don Draper would order instead of an espresso martini.

Ingredients:

2 dashes orange bitters
1 oz cold brew coffee
¼ oz Amaro Montenegro
2 oz bourbon

See the full Jolt Fashioned recipe.

Bradshaw on Bedford

The pros at Bandits like to let their inventive syrups be the stars of the show, and nowhere is that more evident than the Bradshaw on Bedford. From the first sip, the spotlight falls directly on the rhubarb, rose petal, and sun-dried tomato syrup — a ridiculously fresh, flavorful, and downright delicious pairing that must’ve been thought up by someone with pure genius.

When you make it at home, just be careful with the amount of rose you incorporate, in my opinion that flavor can quickly drive a nice cocktail into perfume territory, but here it stays a subtle note in a perfectly balanced drink. With some earthiness from the basil and some brightness from the lemon juice, this is the kind of cocktail that I have to be careful with, because I would keep making this drink until I polished off all the vodka by myself.

Ingredients:

3 fresh basil leaves
1 oz rhubarb, rose petal, and sun-dried tomato syrup
¾ oz lemon juice
2 oz vodka

See the full Bradshaw on Bedford recipe.

I’d bet my right arm you haven’t seen a summer cocktail roundup like this one. But the point of this list isn’t to be overly complicated for the sake of novelty. Real, honest-to-goodness mixologists put their hearts and souls into these drinks because they share my weariness for the “cocktail of the summer” hype. Most of these aren’t easy to whip up on a whim, but the payoff for your effort is high.

So if you’re tired of the same-old same-old, or if you just want to work out your mixology muscles with a real challenge, give one of these cocktails a go. And if your bar cart needs an upgrade, we’ve got plenty of handsome glassware, shakers, strainers, smokers, and even a bitters sampler set for you right here at Bespoke Post.

Cheers, everybody.

5 Refreshingly Unique Summer Cocktails