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In a city where mezcal dens, martini temples and natural-wine bars all jostle for attention, gin is finally getting its own dedicated spotlight.
Chin Up, a new Lower East Side cocktail bar that opened this week at 171 Chrystie Street, is staking its entire identity on the idea that gin, long treated as a supporting character, deserves to headline the menu.
The bar comes from industry veterans Brian Grummert and Blake Walker, whose experience includes beloved New York spots like Nitecap and Amor y Amargo. Their latest project is one of the city’s few bars built explicitly around gin, with a menu designed to showcase how wildly expressive the spirit can be across regions, styles and flavor profiles.
Rather than overwhelming drinks with heavy modifiers, Chin Up’s cocktails let the base spirit shine. The menu features both familiar classics and playful experimentation, introducing drinkers to gins from New York distillers and producers worldwide.
One standout, Rendezvous in Chennai, pairs Dorothy Parker gin with Madras curry, coconut, apricot, ginger and lime, making a savory-leaning cocktail that still feels bright and balanced. A reinvented take on a Saturn, an old-school tiki drink, is made with Australia’s Four Pillars yuzu gin, while an Aquavit Old Fashioned blends apple brandy, wasabi and red shiso into something unexpectedly restrained.
The space itself also breaks from downtown bar clichés. Instead of another Art Deco throwback, Chin Up draws inspiration from civic and cultural landmarks, like the curves of the American Museum of Natural History’s Gilder Center, organic forms of Isamu Noguchi and the giant ceilings of Grand Central. A sky-inspired ceiling mural by artist Ori Carino makes the room feel open, calm and quietly transportive.
In a neighborhood that never lacks for new openings, Chin Up stands out by doing one thing with real clarity: putting gin front and center and making a strong case for why it belongs there.