Brooklyn's new zero-waste bar is turning scraps into cocktails

"Landing in Clinton Hill at 216 ½ Greene Avenue, the new spot from Redwood Hospitality, the team behind Café Mado, Place des Fêtes and Laurel Bakery, takes an almost zero-waste approach to drinking, without turning it into a lecture. Golden Ratio opened late last month, just down the street from Place des Fêtes, and its entire cocktail program is built around one deceptively simple idea: start with a single seasonal ingredient and use every part of it."

"Instead of a standard backbar stacked with familiar labels, Golden Ratio relies on proprietary, house-made distillates created from greenmarket produce, foraged elements and byproducts from the group's own restaurants. Citrus peels come from Place des Fêtes, leftover bread is sourced from Laurel Bakery and other normally discarded ingredients are reworked into spirits and non-alcoholic distillates, forming a closed-loop system that keeps waste low, with no lack of creativity."

"Every drink can be ordered with or without alcohol and both versions get equal attention. Rather than mimicking booze-free classics, the NA drinks are treated as parallel expressions (sometimes closely related, sometimes wildly different) depending on what the ingredient wants to do. "If an ingredient has a strong, central flavor identity that works for both alcoholic and non-alcoholic formats, we rebuild it into two drinks that echo one another," explained partner and beverage director Piper Kristensen."

Golden Ratio is a Clinton Hill cocktail bar at 216 ½ Greene Avenue from Redwood Hospitality that applies an almost zero-waste approach to drinks. The cocktail program starts with a single seasonal ingredient and uses every part of it so juice, skins, peels, stems and leftovers are considered rather than discarded. The bar produces proprietary house-made distillates from greenmarket produce, foraged elements and byproducts sourced from Place des Fêtes and Laurel Bakery. Citrus peels and leftover bread are repurposed into spirits and non-alcoholic distillates, forming a closed-loop system that reduces waste. The menu offers 16 spirited and 16 non-alcoholic drinks, each available with or without alcohol.

Read at Time Out New York