Best New Cocktail: The Songbird, Bar De Ville
Eric Futran
Best New Cocktail
The Reader’s Choice: Bar DeVille
When Bar DeVille opened in the middle of the never-ending winter, managing partner and Violet Hour/Del Toro alum Brad Bolt introduced a particularly springlike drink. He based the Songbird on the classic Prohibition-era Last Word, and says it went through about 20 incarnations before he settled on the right alchemy of Martin Miller’s Westbourne Strength gin, green Chartreuse, fresh lemon juice, and—in place of the original maraschino liqueur—St-Germain, the French elderflower liqueur, which gives the drink a perfume that blooms from the glass like a spring day in the Alps. Bolt says he named the potion for a song by the late Richmond-based emo band Engine Down but also for an ex-girlfriend, whom I can only surmise is a very flattered woman. 
1958 W. Huron, 312-929-2349. —Mike Sula
Our readers’ choice: The Violet Hour
No cocktail specified. 1520 N. Damen, 773-252-1500, theviolethour.com.
