The Golden Age

The Golden Age takes its name and its whole premise from a specific period: the decades between the first printed definition of a cocktail, in an 1806 Hudson Valley newspaper, and Prohibition, when the form reached maturity and cocktail bars became the meeting places of artists and thinkers. The bar's own framing is that it wants to present the origins of the classics before bartenders were forced into back rooms and speakeasies. It sits at 1726 Connecticut Avenue NW in Dupont Circle and is a DC original from Drinks With You, LLC, the group behind Patina, Never Looked Better and The Mirror. The jazz-age setting is backed by real programming - the team has talked about being part of a jazz revival in the city as an homage to local legend Duke Ellington, and live nights run regularly.

For a bar this committed to the spirits of a particular era, the non-alcoholic handling is notably deliberate. The drinks are not tucked into the cocktail card; they sit on their own menu, headed Beer, Wine & Non-Alcoholic, which means a table that is not drinking is handed a list rather than asked what they can have. Two zero-proof builds anchor it. The Amaro Lucano & Soda uses a non-alcoholic amaro with soda and lemon essence, and it is the more interesting of the two because amaro is the hardest category to reproduce without alcohol - the bitterness has to come from somewhere. The Peacock Room, named for the Whistler interior at the nearby Freer Gallery, is built from cider, lemon, sugar, NA bitters and sparkles. Beyond the cocktails the bar pours non-alcoholic beer from a rotating and mostly local selection, including Kit Non-Alcoholic Lager, plus NA ciders and wines. Resy has highlighted the spot for offering spirit-free and low-proof drinks - an ode to a Pimm's Cup, an Americano - alongside that range while classic jazz plays.

Practical notes. The bar is closed Sunday and Monday. It opens at 5pm Tuesday through Saturday, closing at 10pm midweek and 11pm Thursday through Saturday, so it runs earlier than much of Dupont. It is a short walk from Dupont Circle Metro.