Bennett: At this Irvine speakeasy, You Never Know — except that it’ll be impeccable and creative

Walking into You Never Know is like walking into an alternate world within an alternate world. Or rather, it’s like being transported to somewhere that exists in the real world after you’ve first wandered through a computer rendering of a more hip, alternate one.

Either way, walking through a hotel lobby that looks like the VIP area at Coachella, where you can stare at a wall of TVs playing videos of Chinese forests while sipping on a tableside-decanted, applewood-smoked old fashioned, is a transportive experience unlike any other. This is exactly what you need when you’re in the bowels of the Marriott in a freeway-adjacent part of building-stacked Irvine.

It’s this unique, immersive environment that’s made the year-old speakeasy YNK — which comfortably seats about 12 people in one of the hotel’s refurbished private dining rooms — the most consistently exciting bar in Orange County.

“We’re mainly about the craft and making cocktails how they’re supposed to be made,” says Ravin Buzzell, the strapping Orlando native who has been YNK’s sole bartender and employee since it opened last April. “In a busy bar [like the one in the lobby], it’s impossible to do that.”

YNK is a grand experiment from Buzzell’s employer, hotel bar consultant the Ellis Adams Group, which was offered the small room in the back of the on-site restaurant during the Irvine Marriott’s multimillion-dollar renovation a few years ago. The upgrades, revealed in full earlier this year, include seating pods equipped with built-in speakers for convention attendees, ping-pong tables for team-building exercises, massive fire pits that flank a day-party-ready sunken pool area and, for the solo traveler, a single guitar on a stand attached to a set of headphones where you can sit and jam out in full view of the check-in counter.

While assisting with the launch of the Marriott’s new Floe Lounge restaurant and bar and the exclusive business-class M Club, Ellis Adams managing partner Chris Adams thought the small room would be perfect for launching a new concept (a first for the company) he’d been floating around the office: a bespoke bar catering to the locals that’s constantly changing its decor, theme and drink menu.

“That’s why it’s called You Never Know,” Buzzell says. “You never know where we’ll go next or what we’re going to be making.”

So far, the bar has used the 30-foot-long room to transport people to New Orleans, Asia and Latin America by serving indigenous cocktails alongside new, creative ones from the minds of Buzzell and other EAG bartenders, including New Orleans Bartender of the Year nominee Cassie Hesse.

Favorites from previous travels (all drinks remain available even after the theme turns over) include a hurricane made with house grenadine syrup and dehydrated lime dust, a Ramos Gin Fizz topped with hand-whisked heavy cream and a bizarre-but-delicious tequila-based yellow curry beverage called Same-Same, served with Thai chilis in a miso soup bowl.

Furthering the impeccable weirdness, Buzzell has also been known to make his own boba, find casual uses for cardamom bitters and, if you’re prone to standing directly in front of his small cart as he makes your drinks, pull a full #saltbae when he dashes your glass with a decorative topping.

As of last month, YNK is in Spain, replete with ornate Moorish pillows, twinkling Spanish guitar sounds, YouTube videos of tourists strolling through historic plazas and six new drinks that range from a simple gin and tonic (made with a custom tonic water crafted by Bombay and EAG, garnished with a sprig of baby’s breath) to a whiskey-and-allspice Hesse original, the Spanish Armada.

This display of contrasts — using the best ingredients possible to make a perfect classic cocktail versus experimenting with creative drinks that match the theme — is a hallmark of YNK.

“There’s something for everybody, they just don’t know it yet,” Buzzell says of his diverse drinks list. “I like to think I’m giving people what they didn’t know they could have.”

But Buzzell — who came up in Orlando’s high-volume, sugary-drink-laden hospitality industry — is an unlikely character to be calmly guiding you through an intimate experience of this caliber. In fact, he wasn’t even into the craft side of cocktails until he started this job. After decades of perfecting how to make massive amounts of fruity drinks with little umbrellas in them while loud music thumps around him, he’s turning that same precision and care toward classic recipes.

“I’m not a mixologist. I’m just a bartender. I’m not doing anything special,” he says humbly. “I’m just executing recipes correctly and not cutting any corners and taking my time to do it right. But nobody does this anymore, so it seems amazing.”

The original goal of YNK was to prove the concept by setting up a functioning speakeasy at the Marriott, training a local bartender to take it over and — like all of Buzzell’s other consulting gigs — moving on.

But finding an O.C. cocktail maker willing to take on the challenge of building a new brand and new clientele — in the middle of Irvine, no less — has proved difficult, and for the last year Buzzell has become the face of the project in a way he could never have imagined. Even though he recently made his first hire and is starting to train her in the YNK ways, Buzzell’s top-notch customer service and attention to detail will remain at the forefront of the concept for a while.

“I’ve painted myself into the best possible corner I guess. I can’t just leave YNK. It’s my baby,” he says. “I built up the clientele. I built up the regulars. I did exactly what we said we were going to do as a company, and I did it working there alone. As far as I know I’m staying here. I’m not going anywhere.”

You Never Know is at the Irvine Marriott, 18000 Von Karman Ave.; open Tuesday-Saturday, from 5 p.m.

SARAH BENNETT is a freelance journalist covering food, drink, music, culture and more. She is the former food editor at L.A. Weekly and a founding editor of Beer Paper L.A. Follow her on Twitter @thesarahbennett.