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LA’s indoor dining rooms are finally seeing the light of day in 2021, albeit at limited capacity. Meanwhile LA’s many local bars (at least the ones that don’t also serve food) remain closed. It’s been a challenging time for many of the city’s best bartenders as a result, but now Drnxmyth is hoping to offer a little support. The new company is aiming directly at the home consumer with retail bottled cocktail service, though the drinks themselves will act as a showcase for local bartenders.
Drnxmyth’s cocktails are crafted by popular bartenders like Ever Bar’s Saeed “Hawk” House, Madera Group’s Charity Kay Johnston, and Jason Yu from Employees Only, then bottled and sold for home drinking. Yu created a bourbon sour with bourbon whiskey, fresh lemon juice, orange juice, cane sugar, and blackstrap bitters; Hawk’s Eastside recipe combines gin, cold-pressed cucumbers, cold-pressed lime, cane sugar, and mint-infused water. Drinks run $13 or less, and can be find either online, or locally at Eataly or, surprisingly, the Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks.
Co-founders Lawrence Cisneros and Brandon Schwartz actually launched Drnxmyth two months before coronavirus hit in 2020, although the business didn’t take off until well into the pandemic. “People wanted that same bar quality cocktail when they couldn’t go to bars,” says Cisneros. “Right now, we’re able to get drinks to people that taste like it was made just in front of them by one of the bartenders we worked with.” Each drink can last months in a home fridge, because the alcohol and ingredients are separated into two different chambers. Just twist the bottom, shake, and pour into a glass.
With LA County freshly removed from the state’s restrictive purple coronavirus tier, the landscape is beginning to look just slightly better for LA drinkers — and could continue to improve if the county falls into even less-restrictive tiers that allow bars without food to reopen for outdoor service. Meanwhile, legendary Los Angeles barman Julian Cox opened his next Hollywood Media District last week, and restaurants with big drink components like Salazar in Frogtown have returned as well.
