I have spent several minutes perusing the drink menu at the Washington, D.C. outpost of Death & Co., and I’ve got to say I’m a beaten man. It includes 24 drinks presented in five categories. First, I can’t figure out if I’m feeling “Light & Playful” or “Boozy & Honest.” (Can’t I be all four?) Or do I want to be “Elegant & Timeless” instead?
And then there are the drinks themselves, which include, among many other ingredients, pandan, charando finocchieto, umeboshi vinegar, and miso barley shochu. Yeah, me neither.
Death & Co. is the legendary New York City bar widely seen as the standard-bearer of the craft cocktail movement that shook and stirred the nation’s drinking establishments starting in the mid-2000s. Cocktail geek pilgrims from all over have been going to Death’s East Village location to touch the face of mixology’s one true god for nearly a generation now. (Confession: I am among them.) Copies of the thick black Death & Co. Modern Classic Cocktails recipe book are prominently displayed worldwide on the shelves of aspirational bars.
And now the owners of Death are expanding nationally, reportedly raising over $2 million. The third spinoff opened in D.C. in July 2023, joining new bars in Denver and L.A.
Death in New York and D.C.
During my visit to the NYC mothership years ago, I remember feeling intimidated by the bartender’s fierce eye contact and aloof precision. He approached his work like a corporate chemist with sleeve tattoos. The drinks — I ordered both the Naked & Famous and the Oaxacan Old Fashioned, contemporary classics created in that very room — were beautiful.
But the feeling in D.C. is very different. The bartenders seem happy, laughing among themselves and with the guests. They probe to figure out what a customer might like, responding with knowledge and intuition but no snobbery. (One bartender cheerfully served a group several rounds of espresso martinis — trendy piffles not on the menu — without judgment.)
Help Me Please
This is why, once I found myself overmatched by the menu, I felt comfortable asking Josh White, the D.C. outpost’s bar manager, to choose a drink for me. Something that characterized the D.C. Death & Co. style, I said, or maybe his own.
“You like martini riffs?” Sure, I told him. Bring it.
He then shifted into his drink-making zen zone, his gaze remote, his movements smooth and efficient. He displayed some of that precision I observed in New York.
Loving Death
He presented the drink, Amor Qaxaqueno, in a Nick & Nora glass with a twisted ribbon of lemon. The beverage mixes Siete Misterios Tepeztate Mezcal with a distillate of sorghum cane, a French peach liqueur, and Svol Swedish aquavit.
In the hands of others, this might be a dumpster fire in a stylish retro glass.
But here, the drink was smooth and rich, with a depth drawn from tepeztate, a rare varietal of agave that can mature up to 35 years before harvesting. The caraway and dill touches of the aquavit added tiny grace notes. There were tones of something floral or fruity, but they were as subtle as the sounds made by individual fibers of a cellist’s bow.
“I think that’s the best drink I’ve ever had,” my friend Michael said.
Too proud of my hard-earned cocktail cred to agree to such a reckless, over-the-top statement, I sipped again, took a moment to reflect on the many great drinks I’ve sampled around the world … and then, damn. I had to agree.
Best drink ever.
A Drink with a Backstory
But the Amor Qaxaqueno (“Oaxacan love”) only got better when White told the story of how his creation came together.
He said the agave plant of the mezcal is harvested from hills so steep and rocky that workers can’t use mechanical equipment or even mules; the decades-old plants with their enormous pinas must be harvested and hauled by hand.
“It reflects the kind of hard manual labor Mexican farmers have been doing for generations,” White said.
The sorghum, he said, “gives it a kind of funky rhum agricole vibe,” and recalls the enslaved Blacks who grew and harvested it along with sugar cane. “It reminds me of my ancestors, of where I come from,” he said.
What about that Francophile creme de peche? It brings stone fruit notes, and the peaches remind White of “family picnics when I was a kid in South Carolina,” he said.
And then the Nordic spirit aquavit? “Vikings also had to endure harsh conditions to survive,” he said, and they had to pickle their foods to survive the punishing, lifeless winters. Some of the same spices were used in pickling in the Southern kitchens of his youth, White said.
And finally, a measure of Dolin dry vermouth pays tribute to the martini and stitches the whole thing together.
So there you have it: a drink that improbably tells a story of Mexican farm laborers, enslaved Africans, Nordic explorers, Southern cooks, and American swells of the early 20th century. History, anthropology, political history, and autobiography, all in a balanced and delicious three-ounce pour.
And the best drink ever.
The History of Death in D.C.
Like its New York progenitor, the D.C. Death & Co. is dark and elegant, even masculine. It exudes a seriousness of purpose. A long black marble bar stands front and center, facing two riser levels of tables that suggest the bar is a kind of floor show (it is). There’s a generous three-season patio. The simple black entrance door on Blagden Alley, marked only by a black sign no bigger than a license plate, suggests a speakeasy without any gimmicky nonsense.
Inside, tucked along a wall leading to the restrooms, you’ll find an elaborate mosaic that tells the story of D.C.’s cocktail history. It was commissioned by drinks impresario Derek Brown, who in this space built the late Columbia Room, renowned winner of best-bar-in-the-nation awards. Back then the artwork was the centerpiece behind the reservations-only back room bar, where elaborate tasting menus of adult beverages were famously served. (Another confession: I went twice.)
When Brown decided to leave the business — he quit drinking and shifted to positive psychology and booze-free mixology — he sold it to his friends at Death & Co. The new owners preserved the mural tribute to the location’s roots, and to Brown’s contributions to D.C. drinking culture.
D.C. Death’s Evolving Drink Menu
When the D.C. Death launched, the menu was largely the work of the folks in New York. But it’s slowly evolving to comprise more drinks created by the local talent. Michael and I tried six beverages together (hey, we Ubered). We had the Cherry Bomb Gimlet (a Hemingway daiquiri riff), the Samurai Story (a Japanese whiskey and a French — ! — single malt), and the Monument Valley (bourbon and smoked apple). All were excellent: culinary, balanced, and original.
I’m not sure what else we tried — after all, we had been drinking — but they were all good. We sampled the excellent bar food. (Don’t miss the lamb meatballs or the boozy cookies you dip in milk.)
A Contagious Joy
White came to Death & Co. from a distinguished if eccentric Mediterranean bar in the Adams Morgan neighborhood called Green Zone. I asked him what he learned when he was sent to the East Village for corporate training. He paused.
“Contagious joy,” he said. “That’s what we were taught, and that’s what we’re doing here.
“We want to have joy in everything we do, and to have our guests share in that joy.”
With more drinks like Amor Oaxaqueno, I’d say that’s inevitable.
You might also enjoy:
- A visit to Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen in D.C.
- An Italian maestro shifts to Modernist Spanish cuisine in D.C.
Craig Stoltz writes the Substack newsletter Eat the World.
-
by
-
