Mixing It Up the Old-Fashioned Way

“Today’s bars are all about time,” laments Bob Casey. “Everything’s pre-made: Just add ice.”

Casey would know. He’s worked in more than half a dozen watering holes, from North Carolina to Florida. But these days--make that nights--Casey’s behind the bar at Cinnabar in Glendale, one of a handful of places around town, from Trader Vic’s to Michael’s Room, where things are done the old-fashioned way. It’s not out of devotion to retro; it’s simply because those techniques make for better-tasting drinks.

At Cinnabar, most customers order from a special menu of vintage and custom cocktails, from the Trader Vic’s Mai Tai and the Raffles Hotel Singapore Sling to the Cinnabar’s own Negroni. Original bartender Jason MacDonald, who moved to New York several years ago to pursue his acting career, created that menu with owner Alvin Simon, who was aiming for distinctive cocktails that fit the bar’s look and mood.

Simon says, “Our signature is reviving classic drinks from the ‘30s through the ‘50s, when people came to bars for cocktails, not just a beer or a Jack and Coke.”

(The bar, too, speaks of another era: Simon purchased the huge antique piece from the historic downtown joint Yee Mee Loo when it closed. Tattered Chinese silk lanterns hang over the bar, and cabinets on either side hold a collection of cocktail books from the ‘40s and ‘50s.)

Casey, who started working at Cinnabar 3 1/2 years ago, stepped easily into the position.

“I already knew half the cocktails on the list; that’s why I got the job,” he says with a laugh. Moving fast, both hands flying like a stock market trader’s, Casey chats about the bar’s specialties while he works. He has no blender, and he’s working with fresh lemon and lime juices from the restaurant’s kitchen.

He carefully assembles a mojito, hand-pulling a few mint leaves to order, then muddling them (think mortar and pestle) with a splash of rock-candy sugar syrup, soda and lime juice “to release the oils,” he explains. He eschews sweet-and-sour mix, a timesaver that often gives a canned, sickly sweet flavor to cocktails. Likewise, his mai tai faithfully follows the Trader Vic’s recipe: fresh lime juice, orgeat syrup, and light and dark rums. Such hand-made exotic cocktails line the bar and cover most dinner tables nightly at Cinnabar, which speaks to their popularity with customers.

A few other bartenders around town share Casey’s enthusiasm for authenticity. At Michael’s Room in Los Feliz, there’s a trio of female bartenders (Traci McWain, Megan Mangum and Maggie McVeigh).

“I make everything from scratch, including all mixes,” McWain says. An actress, writer and artist when not tending bar, McWain whips up her Bloody Mary mix with tomato juice and fresh herbs while setting up the bar for the night. Her sculpted arms, well displayed by a sleeveless top, testify to nightly vigorous hand-shaking of countless cocktails.

But if McWain seems like a natural with the time-consuming, vintage techniques, it’s not something she’s done in previous jobs, including a stint at Mr. Stox in Anaheim. “There just wasn’t enough time,” she says.

Owner Michael Moore believes quality is essential to his success.

“We have a high standard,” Moore says. “It’s the way we do things in the restaurant,” he says of the adjacent Hollywood Hills coffee shop. “Our chef handpicks the vegetables every day at the market. We have a lot of repeat customers because we operate at a certain level.”

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McWain uses only fresh juices--orange, grapefruit, lemon and lime--all with plenty of pulp. She uses fresh egg whites in a brandy Alexander and the various “sour” drinks, and she muddles orange rind and cherries for a proper textbook (and labor-intensive) old-fashioned.

And it’s not just the cocktails that get such special treatment. McWain and the other bartenders devote equal attention to their martini olives, marinating them in a variety of spices from the kitchen. The mix changes from week to week and might feature a blend of garlic, rosemary and peppercorns.

The best--and most popular--cocktails in the house, McWain says, are the margarita and the cosmopolitan, both made with fresh lime juice.

What does McWain drink when she goes elsewhere?

Simple stuff, like beer or wine. She would never order margaritas at another bar, she says, “because I know they’re gonna stink.”

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Cinnabar, 933 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale, (818) 551-1155. Michael’s Room, 1745 N. Vermont Ave., Los Feliz. (323) 661-3319.