Amor y Amargo opened on East 6th Street in the East Village in 2011 and was the first bar in America dedicated entirely to bitters and Italian amari. Bartender Sother Teague built the program around those high-proof botanical ingredients that most bars treat as seasoning rather than the main event. Every drink here has bitters as a structural component rather than a finishing touch.

The room is tiny. Standing room and a handful of stools along a penny-tile counter. There's no space to feel lost in it, which is appropriate given the specificity of what's being poured. The menu educates as it goes, and Teague and his team are genuinely interested in the subject in a way that carries into conversation.

Amor y Amargo has won awards from Tales of the Cocktail and appeared on the World's 50 Best Bars lists consistently. For a bar that specializes in what most people consider an ancillary ingredient, that level of recognition says something about what's possible when a single idea is executed without compromise.