Sunken Harbor Club

Sunken Harbor Club occupies the second floor above Gage & Tollner on Fulton Street in Downtown Brooklyn, and it is one of the most completely realised bar concepts in the city — a tropical room run by Garret Richard as Chief Cocktail Officer, with St. John Frizell as partner and Tom Wolfson as quartermaster. Richard is among the most respected tiki technicians working in America and co-wrote Tropical Standard: Cocktail Techniques and Reinvented Recipes, which is effectively the modern reference text for the category. A second location opened in Bermuda in 2022. It is walk-in only, first come first served, and 21-and-over after 7pm, open from 5pm daily.

It was one of seven winners at NYC's Best Bars for NA 2025 — the awards run one flat, unranked winners tier rather than named categories, so "winner" is the accurate word and "won its category" is not. The judges' reasoning is the useful part: they praised it for pulling off an extremely committed tiki bar concept with excellent non-alcoholic drinks that are not just juicy mocktails, calling the five On Dry Land concoctions diverse and complex — and adding that any bar which sets drinks on fire is a winner in their books. That section name, On Dry Land, is subtitled simply Nonalcoholic, and the five are entirely house-made, using no bought-in non-alcoholic spirits at all, which is rare and is why they taste unlike anyone else's. Jubilee at $18 is the bar's spin on a cherry phosphate, combining sour cherry and wild cherry bark with seltzer, lime and juniper over pebble ice. Scrimshaw at $18 is the ambitious one — clarified grapefruit and elderflower stirred with bitter herbs and spices as a genuine alternative to amaro, served on a big rock. The Elixir at $16 is a carbonated brew of gentian, sarsaparilla and wintergreen. Silk Road Swizzle at $16 is Assam tea with cardamom, spiced lime and quinine. Eye of the Storm at $16 sets golden passion fruit against the force of the house ginger beer.