Beverage

After the long, dark days of Drynuary, we all ask ourselves: What are we drinking this year?

The question is especially poignant after an up-and-down 2021, when many guests celebrated the return to cocktail bars and then found themselves stuck at home again. Here’s a bar’s-eye view of the cocktail trends of 2022.

Hong Kong’s Penicillin, winner of the 2021 Ketel One Sustainable Bar Award, is more than green. It’s a new shade of super-ultra-green.

On the menu, you’ll find vodka infused with scrap bread, rum flavored with used tea leaves, and the One Penicillin, One Tree cocktail, which funds the planting of a Mallotus muticus tree in Borneo. The bar’s tables were built with tropical storm debris, and even the lights were salvaged.

Does it all sound a little… fussy? Here’s the kicker: Penicillin owners Agung Prabowo and Roman Ghale also operate a traditional dive bar, Dead&, that serves cocktails on tap and canned beers. Dead& provides ingredient sourcing for Penicillin, Agung tells 50 Best — for instance, Dead&’s discarded paper cups are recycled to make coasters, menus and labels for Penicillin.

The moral of the story: Whether you run an upscale cocktail bar or a neighborhood watering hole, sustainability is within reach. All it takes is creativity and collaboration.