A nightclub focusing on handcrafted drinks, high-end shooters and bottle service paired with custom cocktail ingredients opens today in Miami’s South Beach. Located in the city’s South of Fifth neighborhood, Craft Social Club features “cocktail suites”—VIP tables with built-in bars—that include cocktail ingredients with every bottle purchase, allowing guests to mix their own drinks.
The tableside service ($350 to $2,000) offers a range of spirits types and brands. Vodkas, such as Grey Goose, Ketel One and Absolut Elyx, are paired with house-made ginger beer, lime cordial and artisanal sodas. Rums, including several expressions of Bacardi, Facundo and Brugal, come with lime-mint cordial for Mojitos, house-made cola and lime cordial for Cuba Libres, and lime and sugar for Daiquiris. Scotch whiskies like Johnnie Walker, The Macallan, The Glenlivet and Haig Club are served with extra large ice blocks, a tray of different vermouths and citrus peels, and honey, ginger and lemon for making a Penicillin. Champagne, such as Perriet-Jouët and Veuve Clicquot, is accompanied by bitters, citrus peels, and house-made cordials and purées. A selection of Tequilas, Bourbons and gins is available as well.
In addition to bottle service, patrons can order single drinks ($14) from venue’s open-air cocktail kitchen and batching station. Designed by food and beverage director Evan Hawkins—formerly of New York City’s Marquee nightclub—the drinks list includes the Swedish Chef, mixed with rhubarb-infused Absolut Elyx vodka, Pimm’s No. 1 liqueur, lemon juice, mint-cucumber syrup and ginger beer, and the TCB (Taking Care of Business), comprising bacon-washed Knob Creek rye whiskey, Giffard Banane du Brésil banana liqueur, peanut orgeat and candied bacon. Craft Social Club also offers a range of shooters ($8), such as the Lindsay Lohan, made with Fernet-Branca amaro, house-made cola syrup and peach-cranberry shrub, along with punch bowls ($200 to $700) like The World Is Yours, which mixes Don Julio 1942 Tequila, strawberry-infused Marie Brizard Blue Curaçao, The Bitter Truth Golden Falernum liqueur, house-made ginger-peach cordial and ginger fizz. The venue has a short list of beers ($8 a bottle) and wines ($8 a glass) and plans to gradually incorporate food offerings.