Step

I’d never been one to drink at home and that didn’t change much even when I stopped going out three or four nights a week. It’s not the drinking that I missed so much as the act of going to a bar, of rallying friends to celebrate (or complain), of hashing out a problem over glasses of chilled red, of sitting alone with a book at a bar and asking the server too many questions about wine.

Now, though, with two vaccine doses behind me, the weather turning, and the spring produce coming in, I’ve been stalking cocktail menus kind of aggressively and have started to order more drinks to go. Basil, snap peas, cucumbers, and strawberries all play well with gin, my spirit of choice, and it’s been fun to see those show up on website menus and in people’s Instagram feeds, featured in drinks dotted with violet petals or little sprigs of herbs. Last weekend when we ordered takeout from Atlanta’s Talat Market (Bon Appetit’s October 2020 cover star!), I ordered a to-go cocktail made with green mango (!); at nearby Little Bear there’s a strawberry rum Negroni I have yet to try but cannot stop thinking about.

I’m so ready to be back in bars, to banter, to debate glassware and sweetness and bubbles, to maybe—one day—even sneak sips again from my friends’ drinks. But until then I’m so grateful for this change in seasons and for the bartenders who are really taking advantage of it in their cocktail menus.

NEW LOOK BLOODY MARY

BY THE BON APPÉTIT TEST KIT

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRISTOPHER BAKER CHEN