When we talk about holding Dallas cocktail bars to a certain standard, the standard we are referring to is Midnight Rambler. In terms of service, innovation and all-round vibe, Midnight Rambler is the best explicit cocktail bar in the city.
You may try to fight me on that — good luck; I do CrossFit — but I’m not alone in my praise: The bar is routinely nominated for national bar accolades such as Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards. So it is with these preconceived notions in mind that I swung through to review the 3-year-old bar’s new menu.
Midnight Rambler is typically described as glamorous. Its entrance, accessible from The Joule’s lobby, is unmarked save for a neon sign that spells out “cocktails.” Its subterranean space features leather couches, exposed bulbs, a backlit bar and a curved, train car-esque ceiling. Pretty people wearing pretty clothes hang out here — not just hip visitors who sleep in the $350-night hotel but locals who hoof it downtown and valet out front. The atmosphere is only part of the draw.
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Tucked away beneath The Joule's opulent lobby, Midnight Rambler feels like a hidden cocktail enclave beneath the bustling Main Street above.
Kathy Tran
The bar’s spring menu features a dozen drinks, most of which are inspired by the season and designed, seemingly, to please a bumble bee. Ingredients include dried flowers, honey and pollen, plus laborious homemade eau de vie (fruit brandies), essential oils, liqueurs, extracts and teas. A few include specialty mineral waters, as if a mineral water sommelier is on staff.
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The Temple of the Moon ($12) is made with jasmine Pisco, pineapple, lime, Texas mineral water and nutmeg. Midnight Rambler uses Fujian Province Jasmine Green Tea Pearls from In Pursuit of Tea to infuse the Pisco Quebranta, and Crazy Water supplies the mineral water from Mineral Wells, Texas.
Kathy Tran
The Hogo-A-Go-Go ($12) and Lavender Bramble ($12) are more crushable options. Made with rum, lime, nutmeg and hibiscus and served over a big ice cube, the Hogo-A-Go-Go tastes like a rich agua de Jamaica. The Lavender Bramble, made from blackberry liqueur, gin, lemon and lavender, tastes like a light blackberry soda. Usually I avoid drinks with long ingredient lists — the more ingredients competing with one another, the muddier a drink becomes — but the seven-ingredient (I’m A) King Bee ($12) has a lovely, clean honey taste. Each ingredient, from the chamomile apple brandy to the egg white, only heightens the profile of the rainforest-sourced honey. It’s quite a neat trick.
On slow nights, the bartenders are helpful and fun, offering samples of specialty ingredients and challenging new hires to blind taste tests of various spirits. On one visit, I attempted to start off with the drink at the top of the menu, the Neroli Negroni ($14). In this variation, the classic gin-vermouth-Campari cocktail is spiked with bitter orange oil. But the bartender stopped me, asking if I was planning to drink more. (I was, obviously.) The Negroni, he warned, would “blow out my palate”; he suggested I start instead with one of the lighter, bubbly drinks farther down the page. It was an excellent suggestion.
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A long-running shot on Midnight Rambler's menu is the Pho-King Champ ($6), a boozy take on Vietnamese pho, made with wheat vodka, Oloroso sherry, aromatized beef stock and cilantro.
Kathy Tran
If a work conference is happening downtown, the lanyard-wearing masses can descend upon the bar at any moment, squeezing you out of contention for the bartenders’ attention. In those instances, you have permission to stop pretending you’re bougie and order something simple like the Checkered Past ($6), a delightfully low-brow shot of Slow and Low whiskey and a High Life pony. Even as the gold standard for Dallas cocktail bars, Midnight Rambler knows better than to take itself too seriously.
Midnight Rambler, 1530 Main St. Open 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. daily.