Toss Out That Cocktail. It’s Time for a Rebellion at the Bar.

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.

The bartender comes over and tosses a napkin down in front of me. He’s nonchalant, but already I feel the tenor of hospitality settle over the lacquered bar top: Welcome. Have a seat. What would you like to drink? It’s a familiar and comfortable ritual, and I hesitate to break protocol—but I’ve come here to throw him a curveball.

“Dry vermouth on the rocks, please,” I say with the confidence of one of my typical orders.

He doesn’t hesitate like I expected. He’s a professional.

“Is Noilly Prat okay?” he asks.

He unscrews the green bottle and pours my measure into a rocks glass, placing it on the napkin without a word. I’m left to admire the aromatized white wine, never before having tasted it straight. I’ve had my share of martinis, so I’ve consumed plenty of dry vermouth. But in the V-shaped glass, I’ve never been able to triangulate where the gin ends and the vermouth begins. Throw an olive in the mix, and the picture becomes even muddier.

I take a sip. I’m on the seashore biting an underripe green grape with a bit of stem stuck on it. It’s saline and bright but bittered by familiar herbs. As I probe the different flavors, I feel vindicated—I couldn’t have tasted vermouth like this in a martini. And that is the problem, the impetus for my little barstool rebellion: I’ve come to suspect that, in many cases, the dizzying bevy of cocktails we order these days are obscuring the true qualities of their ingredients—many of which ought to be appreciated as excellent drinks on their own.

Over the past several decades, the cocktail has subsumed an increasingly large share of drinks sales, with restaurants and bars leaning into expanded cocktail menus. Since 2000, spirits, buoyed by the craft cocktail movement, have gained 13 percent of share in the beverage alcohol market, just surpassing even beer, at 42 percent, as the largest category share of annual revenue in the U.S. alcohol industry. (Over the same two decades, beer has declined from 55.5 percent market share down to 41.9 percent, while wine has consistently remained around 16 percent.)

Aside from the craft mixology trend, there’s another reason for this ascendance: Mixed drinks, it turns out, have advantages for bars and restaurants, which are, after all, businesses. In the lingo of the industry, spirits have a lower pour cost—the ratio of revenue from drinks sold to cost of inventory used—than either beer or wine. This means that bars and restaurants stand to make up to 20 percent more on spirits than on wine.

But for consumers, the math is reversed: We pay more for spirits and cocktails but, I think, often receive less of an interesting beverage. As mixology has expanded, it has converted singular drinks from around the world into mere ingredients in a given recipe. While a good cocktail is always welcome, the default to mixing robs the drinker of the opportunity to taste each component on its own and to appreciate the craftsmanship that goes into a single bottle. When I order a boulevardier instead of a bourbon neat, I am losing sight of the value of the unmixed drink.

Since I already ordered a glass, let’s stick with vermouth.

“The recent popularity of vermouth—because it is a category that has been rising for the past couple years—is linked to cocktails,” says François Monti, a Madrid-based beverage writer and author of El gran libro del vermut. “It is such a basic ingredient in mixed drinks, but the reality is that initially, vermouth was drunk straight on its own.”

Vermouth—which is wine that has been fortified with spirits and infused with herbs, spices, and other botanicals—is a traditional aperitif (and occasion digestif) in the Mediterranean, particularly Italy, France, and Spain. It is also a workhorse ingredient in popular cocktails like the Negroni, Manhattan, and Vieux Carré.

Monti sees vermouth as a misunderstood ingredient. “Even professionals don’t take the time to have tastings like they would with bourbon or gin,” he says. “If you want to know more about vermouth, obviously you have to drink it straight.” In Madrid, vermouth bars are common haunts, serving up vermouth on the rocks or cut with soda. My lucky experience with the Noilly Prat aside, I’m confident that most American bartenders would hesitate at such an order.

In Europe, vermouth is a product that speaks to tradition and place, incorporating the region’s viticultural heritage, drawing on the local knack for foraging potent herbs, and complementing the signature Mediterranean diet. What happens when we wash that context down with 3 ounces of gin or vodka?

“In all the Mediterranean countries, the concept of drinking without food doesn’t make sense,” explains Monti. “In Spain, for example, aperitivo culture has always been about olives, potatoes, anchovies, and pickled mussels. We are talking about salty and vinegary foods. The great thing about vermouth is that it has both bitterness and sweetness. It’s a great interaction that you lose if you mix it.”

But vermouth is just one of the stand-alone treasures that the cocktail has swallowed up. Mixology has thrust itself upon the modern drinker as the ideal approach to all things potable. We are made to believe that there is no more refined expression of the beverage than the one poured from a silver Boston shaker.

The World’s 50 Best Bars is perhaps the most authoritative ranking of drinking establishments in the world. Since 2009, it has been “a celebration of the diversity and universality of drinks culture and a reflection of new bar scenes developing all over the world,” according to Emma Sleight, head of content for 50 Best Bars and Hotels.

But a look at the list each year reveals that all 50 of the global “Best Bars” are cocktail bars, despite the fact that, according to Sleight, “any style of bar is eligible for inclusion in The World’s 50 Best Bars list. There are no predetermined criteria, voters are simply asked to name the bars where they have had their best experience in the previous 18 months.”

Given these parameters, let’s extrapolate: If all bars are eligible, and all the best bars are cocktail focused, then cocktails must be the best drinks!

But this just isn’t so. What about the beer bars of Belgium? The wine bars of France? The sake bars of Japan? Those vermouth bars in Spain? The pubs of England? The pulquerías of Mexico (serving pulque, or fermented agave sap)? The chicherías of Peru (serving traditional corn beer)? The toddy shops of India (specializing in fermented coconut palm sap)? It is farcical to proclaim that 50 bars, which, of course, all serve riffs on the same 100 classic cocktails, are the 50 best drinking establishments in the world. A good cocktail has balance; this ranking does not.

Monti, who serves as the academy chair for the Iberian Peninsula electing the judges that vote on the list, qualifies the ranking: “If I wanted, next year, I could vote for the bar where I get my coffee when I go to the market. The rules don’t say it has to be a cocktail bar. But from its inception it was simply a bar list. It is now commonly accepted that it is about cocktail bars.” But, he adds, “I could vote for La Venencia, which is a great sherry bar in Madrid, and a lot of bartenders would agree that it is maybe the best bar in the world.”

Now, listen, I’ve been to a handful of these 50 Best Bars. The drinks are good. The bartenders are better. They put on a display of expertise, combining mastery of the mechanics of mixology with seamless hospitality. The ambience is intentional and welcoming, and the menu is invariably intriguing. But I’ve also found myself enamored with the studied expertise of sommeliers who can enhance a meal with a tailored suggestion. Specialty bars that focus their message and selection on products like sake and bourbon offer a more nuanced look at the tradition and technique that go into making a drink. Across the board, I couldn’t say that my best experiences in bars have been at cocktail bars.

That distinction would go to bars where the drinks perfectly complement the context. The 24-hours Bar e Restaurante Bom Gosto in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, sustains midnight mobs of dancers with ice-cold beer as world-class musicians blast fiery samba out onto the streets. The countryside fermentation room of Don Lázaro in San Simón Tlatlahuquitepec, Tlaxcala, Mexico, puts an ancestral mastery of fermenting agave on full display just paces away from the very plants that provided the drink. Bars like these sell drinks that taste great while engaging in the preservation of local heritage.

If you want even more evidence that singular sips are worth seeking out, consider that beverage offerings at critically acclaimed restaurants often entail far more than cocktails. The Inn at Little Washington, a three-Michelin-star restaurant about an hour and half outside Washington, presents an array of beverage pairings, including wine, nonalcoholic wine, cocktails, and even waters from around the globe served in wineglasses to enhance their sustainable fine-dining menus.

On the other side of the country, SingleThread Farm, another of the U.S.’s three-Michelin-star restaurants, sees the ideal beverage pairing as one that matches not only the flavor of a meal but the story that the food tells. Chris McFall, the wine director at SingleThread, says, “By shining the light on the producers that have a like-minded ethos, that are crafting incredible, thoughtful wines, beers, teas, or tinctures, we are bringing their story into the fold of our story.” The restaurant, which calls Sonoma County home, offers three pairings focused on wine and sake, and a zero-proof, nonalcoholic option.

Establishments like these understand that food and beverage can tell engaging stories—but those stories are intimately linked to the provenance of the ingredients. The Inn at Little Washington offers tastes of Virginia in Chesapeake Bay crab entrées and desserts that feature native pawpaw fruits, and Lindsey Fern, director of wine at the Inn, works to complement those dishes with not only wine but indeed any potable that might elevate the overall gastronomical experience.

“The stories behind unmixed drinks add another layer of depth. Each bottle of sake or spirit has its own narrative—how it was crafted, the ingredients used, and the traditions behind it,” Fern says. “This storytelling aspect creates a connection with guests, allowing them to appreciate the quality and craftsmanship beyond just the visuals. Ultimately, while some cocktails may dazzle the eyes, the essence and narrative of unmixed drinks hold their own appeal, proving that true quality can shine through just as strongly in their understated forms.”

Bar menus these days are oversaturated with such bedazzlement. With each new cocktail at the bar, we’re hypnotized once more by the literal smoke and mirrors of the beverage industry: the shifty vapors of dry ice, the swirls of burning oak chips, the sheen of the polished back bar. Instead, I implore you, close your eyes and open your mouth. Order a snifter of sipping rum. Do you taste caramelized banana? Try a glass of sake. Do you wonder how fermented rice can taste of gentle pear? Next time you’re seated at the bar, don’t be afraid to shake things up. Request that the bartender put the cocktail shaker down and pour one straight from the bottle, unmixed.