This story is part of a partnership between “City Lights Collective” / WABE” and Rough Draft Atlanta called “The Beverage Beat with Beth McKibben.” As a regular “City Lights Collective” contributor, McKibben joins the program monthly to highlight her most recent Rough Draft story on Atlanta’s cocktail, wine, coffee, and nonalcoholic beverage scene. This story airs Aug. 5 at 1 p.m. during WABE/City Lights Collective.
Have you ever ordered a cocktail only to have it arrive in a glass containing enough liquid equivalent to eight ounces of water? We’re talking boozy mixtures served in fishbowl-like goblets or martinis so dizzyingly large, your head’s already spinning before the glass even touches your lips.
If you break down the sum of the parts of a cocktail where eight or more ounces of liquid are involved, at least four of those ounces are alcohol, with alcohol by volume (ABV) ranging from 20 to 50 percent. Think four shots. The other ounces in the drink comprise flavor enhancers, such as juices and mixers.
We tend to suck down rather than sip and savor these potent concoctions, thanks to sugary additives that make it easy to forget there’s booze in the drink. And, the larger the cocktail, the more it takes to keep it cool.
Served on the rocks, dilution sets in, and the cocktail quickly loses flavor. Served straight up, meaning a drink has been shaken or stirred with ice and then strained into a glass, an oversized cocktail loses its chill halfway through, leaving you sipping a drink similar in temperature to tepid bathwater. If you’re lucky, the bartender may supply you with a sidecar on ice to refresh your cocktail when needed.
Let’s face it: There comes a point when you have to admit maybe there’s too much cocktail in your cocktail.
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Thankfully, the majority of today’s cocktails average between four and five ounces, containing around two ounces of alcohol, with the remaining ounces reserved for other ingredients. However, some Atlanta bars are embracing fun-sized cocktails, dialing down the ingredient proportions even further to create teeny Negronis, mini martinis, and snaquiris (snack-sized daiquiris) served frozen or straight up.
In other words, drinks you can consume in four sips or less, and typically for half the price.
Classic proportions
Diminutive versions of modern-proportioned cocktails aren’t new. Bartenders have been offering tiny tipples for years as happy hour specials and after-dinner drinks.
Most half-sized cocktails on menus skew toward three- and four-ingredient classics, like the martini, Manhattan, Old Fashioned, daiquiri, margarita, and Negroni. These drinks are easy to whip together or batch and store in the refrigerator behind the bar to pour upon ordering, especially during high-volume services like happy hour.
Back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, glassware was much smaller; therefore, the petite portions we see as specials on menus now were standard size for cocktails. But as glassware increased in size over the decades, ounces in cocktails also inched up.
Related stories:
• Why the margarita is the most popular cocktail in America
• The Manhattan: A cocktail power player for 150 years
• The Martini is never out of fashion. The Martini is forever.
The three-ounce rule
You can thank the snaquiri for reviving the teeny tiny cocktail, a revival that began around 2010 in New York City as a bartender’s handshake. (A handshake is a small drink offered as a hat tip to off-duty bartenders, regulars, and industry insiders. Kind of a wink, wink, nudge, nudge of respect from the house, on the house.)
The typical miniature cocktail these days contains no more than three ounces, including alcohol.
In a 2023 article by cocktail writer Brad Thomas Parsons for VinePair titled “When It Comes to Classic Cocktails, 3 (Ounces) Is the Magic Number”, he said that “The return to 3-ounce cocktails at the turn of the century was nothing more than a long-in-coming correction. The huge cocktails of the 1980s and 1990s were an aberration.”
Cocktail historian and celebrated drinks writer David Wondrich agrees with Parsons, touting three ounces as “the ideal volume to convince someone of the value in their drink. It also keeps cocktails at the optimal temperature.”
Here’s where you can find pint-sized cocktails in Atlanta.
Talat Market
112 Ormond St., Summerhill
For martini lovers, try the $7 mini tini at Talat Market in Summerhill.
This half-sized version of the Thai restaurant’s Super Cold Martini mixes vodka and London dry gin with Contratto Bianco vermouth, Madeira, and pear eau de vie.
The bar batches the mini tini and stores it in the freezer so it’s poured at zero degrees Fahrenheit instead of 23 degrees Fahrenheit when stirring a cocktail a la minute.
no. 246
129 E. Ponce de Leon Ave., Decatur
At no. 246, the Decatur Italian restaurant owned by Ford Fry’s restaurant group, Rocket Farm, the $5 tiny Negroni is considered “a small pour of a perfect classic.”
The restaurant’s baby Negroni is batched fresh daily, and has been a mainstay at no. 246 for years.
Fry’s Westside Provisions District restaurant Little Sparrow also serves a petite martini for $10, served ice-cold thanks to being kept in the freezer, along with an equally petite cocktail glass.
Little Tart After Dark
437 Memorial Dr., Grant Park
Looking for a snaquiri, also known as a “snaq?” Head to Little Tart After Dark, the after-hours cocktail and wine bar run out of Little Tart Bakeshop’s Grant Park location on Saturday and Sunday evenings.
For $10, this snaquiri serves as a four-sips-or-less version of Little Tart After Dark’s frozen daiquiri, made with seasonal fruit. A recent version included white rum, lime, and Georgia-grown blackberries.
Hopdoddy Burger Bar
Sandy Springs, Druid Hills, Cobb Parkway
Hopdoddy Burger Bar, with locations in Sandy Springs, Druid Hills, and on Cobb Parkway, features a mini margarita called the “Lil’ Larry.”
This is a daintier version of the burger joint’s frozen margarita, the “Big Larry.” At four ounces and $4, the Lil’ Larry comes souped-up with a float of Grand Marnier.
Boqueria at Colony Square
1221 Peachtree St., Midtown
While barely qualifying as tiny, weighing in right around, if not a tad over three ounces, the mini martinis at Boqueria in Midtown are served in a proportion-appropriate Nick & Nora glass.
Offered from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. daily, and after 9 p.m. on weekends, you can order a Social Hour mini martini dirty or classic made with gin or vodka for $8, or as an espresso martini with vodka, Licor 43, and brandy for $9.