In April, New York City’s Superbueno earned the No. 2 spot on North America’s 50 Best Bar list. Their top-selling drink is a Vodka Soda. The Vodka Y Soda isn’t just a two-ingredient highball; they add guava and pasilla into the mix, and the result is refreshing and intensely flavorful. Still, it’s a well drink at heart, served by an acclaimed, white-hot bar in the East Village. There’s a lot to unpack.
Ten years ago, Vodka Sodas weren’t the kind of drink you ordered at the bars that made East Village the soul of New York City’s globally influential cocktail scene. That was a drink strictly reserved for one of the neighborhood’s numerous dank, sticky-floored dive bars, where drink expectations beyond a beer and a shot were low and the quality of the Vodka Soda even lower. You went to places like Please Don’t Tell, Amor y Amargo, or Death & Co. to learn about classic cocktails, dig deeper into somewhat esoteric spirits and liqueurs, and to be amazed by the spectacle of a speakeasy inside a hot dog joint or a 17-touch craft drink. They offered fun experiences bracketed by studious reverence, becoming award-winning, neighborhood-defining establishments in the process.
Fast-forward to 2024. These old-school bars have graduated to legacy status, and a new generation of bars are forging their own path. Superbueno’s a celebration of warm, upbeat Mexican-American hospitality. Paradise Lost integrates the retro coolness of a classic Southern California tiki bar with the East Village’s gritty punk rock
