In the great world of cocktail garnishes, there are Old Fashioneds with maraschino cherries, margaritas with salt and wedges of lime, and then there are cocktails with flourishes that rev your engine before the sweet booze ever hits your lips—like this ol' thing. Here's a guide to 10 Cocktails With Stunning Garnishes, for you to digest from every angle.
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10 Cocktails With Stunning Garnishes

Bocanova's El Vaquero
Bar manager Stella Davies shakes pisco, smoked paprika, beef bouillon, burlesque bitters, and barolo chinato to make the El Vaquero. The proverbial "cherry on top" is a slab of beef jerky with a slice of jalapeno.
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Goose & Gander's Cucumber Collins
Scott Beattie uses fresh and pickled cucumbers stained with huckleberries for this take on a classic Collina; and the berries themselves are pickled with mirin, sake, rice wine vinegar, and sugar. This show-off is topped off with bright yellow sunflower petals.
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Fifth Floor's 9 Herb Charm
Brian Means finishes this drink with an aperol-Tia Maria-orange juice cocktail sphere perched on an absinthe spoon. Then the garnish is garnished with dehydrated aperol. It's a bitter "adult gusher" to balance out the sweetness of drink below.
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Park Tavern's Bloody Mary
Park Tavern pours its Bloody Mary into a Mason jar, then tops it with a toothpick strung with an olive, pickled string bean, and smoked Waygu beef jerky. Unemployed celery sticks need not apply.
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AQ's Mexican Piano
A fuchsia combination of Espolon blanco tequila, lime juice, and tarragon-huckleberry syrup is topped off with a torched Bay leaf, causing a dramatic curl of smoke to rise off the cocktail's surface like witch's brew.
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Zaré's Fly Trap Martini
The classic Zare at Fly Trap Martini is garnished with pickled fiddlehead fern curlicues for fall. This baby comes with your choice of Hangar 1 vodka or Damrak gin.
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Upstairs Bar's Bourbon Dynasty
Fig- and vanilla-infused Bulleit bourbon is shaken with Carpano Antica Vermouth. Licor 43, and chocolate bitters, then served up in a martini glass with a Moscato-poached fig for garnish.
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Michael Mina's The Orient
This Thai take on the Moscow Mule comes with vodka, Thai basil syrup and ginger liquer, served in copper mug with a garnish of young coconut foam, pink peppercorns and two Kaffir lime leaves.
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The Thomas's Gin & Tonic
Not your grandma's gin and tonic, this beaut is composed of housemade tonic water, Beefeater gin and an ice spear made with water, fresh cucumber juice and a long slice of cuke. As the ice spear slowly melts, it infuse the cucumber flavor further into the drink.
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Foreign Cinema's "Sunday Bloody Caesar"
Not only is Foreign Cinema's Bloody Mary made with housemade "Clamato," fresh lime, Worcestershire, and jalapeños, but it is also garnished with one, honking poached Gulf prawn.
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