I love New York, but sometimes you gotta get out of town every now and then. So I just got back from a week in the Bahamas with my girlfriend — and while I was there, I was anxious to check out the Nassau cocktail scene.<\/p>\n
Our resort<\/a> had an open bar (several, in fact) with top-shelf liquor, but the bartenders weren’t too into the classics; one bartender I talked to said the most-ordered cocktails were the tropical ones: Sex on the Beach<\/a>, and the two main Bahamian specialties of the Bahama Mama<\/a> and the Goombay Smash<\/a>. (I’m not a coconut fan, so I skipped both of those.) I had a Tom Collins<\/a> that was about one part gin, one part club soda, and half sour mix…and my attempts with other drinks fared no better. The bar had Cognac and Cointreau, so I tried to talk a bartender through a Sidecar<\/a>, but he cut me off, saying "Just tell me what goes in it, and I’ll do the rest." I got a tumbler that had equal parts Courvoisier, Cointreau, and sour mix on the rocks, complete with a lime wedge. At a different, quieter bar, I tried to get a Daiquiri<\/a>, but the bartender said that they "don’t do frozen drinks here."<\/p>\n Most of the week, I contented myself with gin and tonics (not to mention the local Bahamian beer Kalik<\/a>, which is light, crisp, and eminently quaffable in hot weather.) Outside the highball realm, I did have a surprisingly well-made Rusty Nail<\/a>. The bar also had a row of self-service frozen-drink machines, serving up smoothies in pina colada, mango, banana, and strawberry flavors. They were virgin, but the bar tended to leave a bottle of Appleton Rum within easy reach for do-it-yourself spiking.<\/p>\n