The Drift, a buzzy new literary magazine founded by two recent Harvard graduates, threw a party celebrating its latest issue at the PUBLIC hotel on Thursday. While gossiping and shouting over one another on the packed terrace, gorgeous young literary scene regulars knocked back gin gimlets and Moscow mules like it was the last day on Earth.
On New York weekends, topless revelers at Jacob Riis Park can be found trading canned mojitos. Up and down Manhattan, noon sunlight directly overhead on any given weekday sends tumblers of tequila and lime alight. But which drink is the drink?
Every year, enterprising pop stars (and their lyric writers) battle it out for the title of Song of the Summer, and with cocktails, it’s the same: as the warmest months of the year pour thirsty patrons into bars and parties, a dominating, theme-setting drink tends to emerge as the clear favorite.
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As the result of a mercenarily effective Campari campaign, 2018 belonged to the Aperol spritz, a still-beloved orange liqueur and sparkling wine combo. In the first two years of the pandemic, driven to madness by home-confinement, everyone was pretty just hammered on anything they could find.
In the first six months of 2021, mentions of the espresso martini on Yelp leapt 300 percent, and while the creamy, caffeinated concoction still hits the spot, the culture seems to be craving a fresh obsession.
As a glorious June dawns in 2022, competitors are beginning to emerge. An April piece in New York magazine heralded the return of the classic martini, which this reporter can confirm are being sucked down in droves by 20-somethings in dive bars, upscale haunts and everywhere in between.
The Times speculated in May that the Dirty Shirley—the syrupy kid’s drink laced with vodka—has the potential to emerge as this summer’s frontrunner due, in part, to its blossoming popularity on TikTok. But some aren’t so sure.
“I never heard of it,” Michael Lombardozzi, the owner of Dromedary Urban Tiki Bar Bush, a Bushwick spot beloved for its drag brunches, told The Daily Beast.
“They can be pretty popular, but only if someone sees it on a menu,” Wolfgang Porter, bar manager at The River, a new, dangerously stylish spot on Bayard Street conceptualized by the hot design firm Green River Projects, told The Daily Beast. “People won’t really order one unless the option is presented to them.”
Porter reports that while the bitter negroni is The River’s hottest drink at present, it’s the matcha martini that really has potential to be the next big thing. “It’s really straightforward actually, just vodka shaken with matcha and a small amount of sugar,” Porter said. “The secret ingredient is a tiny bit of Baileys for froth and creaminess. It’s like drinking a boozy matcha mochi.”
“[A] matcha martini would be the trendy option for sure,” Justine Musselman, a bartender at Dromedary, told The Daily Beast. “I also feel like the Mai Tai is coming back?! Vintage!”
“Negronis—delicious but out,” chef and food writer Jonah Reider told The Daily Beast. “I think this is the summer of beer. Nice Bud Light in a glass bottle is screaming summer 2022—raw maximalist recession summer fun vibes.”
Of course, one always has the option of abstaining from trends entirely.
“It’s hard to resist the urge to sign off—right this moment, at 10:55 a.m. on a Friday—and find the nearest, most photogenic Dirty Shirley in town,” Bon Appétit wrote in May. “But you know what’s sweeter than an espresso martini or a Sprite and vodka? Ordering whatever the hell you want this summer.”
Sure sure, but there’s a mystery afoot here! Are Dirty Shirleys really all that popular, or are we dealing with a conspiracy cooked up by shadowy Cocktail Lobbyists?
“The Dirty Shirley clickbait is a food media inside joke,” Reider said. “Anyone who was thinking of thinking of ordering a Dirty Shirley: get a Cosmo.”
Tony Milici, bar manager at Rolo’s, a recently-opened Ridgewood restaurant that’s quickly become a favorite of the neighborhood and Pete Wells, told The Daily Beast that matcha martinis aren’t really martinis.
“A trend is everyone calling everything martinis and spritzes when they’re not actually that,” Milici told The Daily Beast. “A martini is a stirred vermouth and spirit 2:1 cocktail with bitters. No one makes them like that anymore.”
“A real trending serious cocktail is The Last Word,” Milici offered, “a 1906 cocktail that consists of lime juice, maraschino liqueur, green chartreuse, and gin.” The downside: “It’s expensive to make and hard for a bar to charge for,” so maybe not quite Drink of the Summer material; especially, Milici says, because the vibe this year is “raunchy. People want straightforward fun.”
To give the Dirty Shirley a little credit: what could be more playfully straightforward than a kiddy beverage spiked with Smirnoff?
Ultimately, of course, the Drink of the Summer will be determined not by experienced, watchful bartenders, but by their patrons. And all across the nation, we’ll vote with our dollars and pay with our hangovers.
