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Specialization is hot in New York’s crowded bar scene. Want an Italian aperitivo? Or Japanese-style cocktails? You’ve got options in spades. Spirits themselves, too, prove rich enough to warrant entire bars dedicated to their varying expressions, especially whiskey and agave spirits like tequila and mezcal. There’s one spirit, however, that two bar industry veterans believe deserves another devoted destination, especially now: gin.
Brian Gummert and Blake Walker have joined forces to open the gin-focused Chin Up Bar at 171 Chrystie Street in New York City’s Lower East Side. The partnership makes sense: Gummert owns Lower East Side cocktail bar Subject; Walker bartended there, as well as at Nitecap and Amor y Amargo, the latter of which is one of New York’s prized specialty spots concentrating on amaro.
“Brian and I both love gin, and there’s been an explosion of exciting gins in the past 10 to 15 years,” Walker tells Observer. Classic London dry styles from well-established distilleries have long been popular in Europe and back bar staples in the United States. But more recently, American craft distilleries, like Tenmile Distillery in upstate New York, have been leaning more into the spirit. Gins are also popping up in regions not previously associated with the spirit, where endemic fruits and botanicals give it a fresh spin—South Africa’s Bayab Gin with local pineapple and palm sap, for example, or Vietnam’s Sông Cái Distillery with heirloom pomelo, jungle pepper, black cardamom and green turmeric.
The thrill of discovery fueled the proliferation of whiskey and agave bars over the last two decades, Walker adds. Craft whiskey options exploded in New York, followed by an increased availability of quality tequila and mezcal, and suddenly bar-goers had entire categories to explore at dedicated destinations. Now, he says, gin “is ripe for that.”
Gin’s own craft boom has resulted in myriad different flavor profiles for such exploration. Walker and Gummert curated a back bar just shy of 100 gin bottles ahead of the December 2025 opening, which Walker says could likely double in the next few months and continue to grow from there. In addition to heavy hitters in the London dry vein, Chin Up Bar’s shelves represent the aforementioned options from upstate New York, Vietnam and South Africa, as well as those from Japan, India, Kenya, Mexico, Australia and more.
Bolstered by this kind of selection, Chin Up Bar speaks to gin lovers above all else. But Walker and Gummert are willing to bet that even those who believe they don’t like gin just haven’t found the gin for them yet.
“A lot of people avoid gin due to unfortunate experiences early in their drinking careers,” Walker says. “They had bad gin, or they still have the perception it’s old-fashioned or stodgy. I think that’s diminishing and a lot of those attitudes have really sloughed off, but there’s still a little bit of persistence there.” For Walker and Gummert, the perception that gin is all pine tree and booze burn may be what has prevented the spirit from having its own dedicated menus in the past.
To showcase gin’s versatility and vast breadth of regional expressions, Walker and Gummert have shaped a menu balancing classic gin cocktails with more novel creations.
The classics help demonstrate the impact different gins can have on familiar, popular flavor profiles—Martin Miller’s Westbourne Strength gin is perfect in a martini with a refined balance of juniper, citrus, spice and clean smoothness. Roku Japanese gin has peppery spice and herbaceous green tea notes that sing in a dirty martini, and Neversink New York gin possesses a hint of sweetness that brings out the same in the Gibson’s leek vermouth and sherry vinegar while tempering the drink’s acidity and brine. Then, there are the more adventurous Chin Up Bar originals.
Floral, citrusy and spicy, Dorothy Parker New York gin pulls together the Rendezvous in Chennai. With Madras curry, coconut, apricot, ginger and lime, the slightly creamy, velvety cocktail explodes with bright, tropical flavors before the savory curry, with its subtle heat, blossoms and lingers in the drink’s finish. Elsewhere on the menu, the Australian Four Pillars yuzu gin plays with guava and sunflower seed orgeat, while the Mexican Condesa prickly pear gin anchors thyme, kiwi, honey and sparkling wine.
Walker and Gummert aren’t afraid to venture beyond traditional gin cocktails and inventions crafted specifically around gin. Aquavit, essentially a Scandinavian gin riff featuring caraway instead of juniper, punches up the traditionally more rounded, sweeter old-fashioned with spice, while apple brandy, Granny Smith apples, wasabi and red shiso broaden its flavor horizons with a bright crispness, earthiness and heat. Gin even found its way into a coquito Walker was pouring before Christmas. The rich, coconutty Puerto Rican holiday punch is made with rum, but Walker splits its base with gin. The result is a more complex coquito with punchier spices and subtle botanicals keeping the drink safely distant from cloying territory.
There’s plenty to learn about gin at Chin Up Bar, but it’s up to guests how much information they want served up with their drinks. Walker and Gummert prioritize staff education, so information on various gins comes across more naturally in dialogues with guests rather than requiring rehearsed spiels. They also plan to have classic gin botanicals on hand for people to smell on their own, and they allow guests to liberally sample with one-ounce pours of anything on the back bar.
“It’s important for us to leave the doors wide open to educational experiences and talk about things in a knowledgeable way without forcing it on anyone,” Walker explains. “They can just come in and have a delicious drink without that if they want.”
Chin Up Bar’s seafood-forward menu has been intentionally developed to pair well with gin. Even in the minuscule world of gin-focused bars, this level of detail is rare; gin isn’t framed in a pairing context the same way as wine, beer, or even whiskey.
There’s the option to simply feast on shrimp cocktail with your martini, but you can also order dishes recommended based on your specific drink. For example, Walker suggested smoked mussels escabeche and a tuna dish with red shiso leaf and dehydrated beets to pair with the Rendezvous in Chennai and aquavit old-fashioned. The red shiso leaf in both the tuna and the old-fashioned matched well, and the mussels’ smoky character highlighted the Rendezvous’s savory curry note. (It’s worth mentioning that the satisfyingly toothsome, densely flavor-packed beets on that tuna dish deserve their own award.) A selection of oysters may not be as carefully curated to cocktails’ flavors, but similarly to the shrimp cocktail, they feel like a low-stakes, classic nosh for a cocktail bar.
All of this gin celebration takes place in a refreshingly singular space. You won’t find Art Deco “bathtub gin” nods here, nor the de rigueur martini bar plush red banquettes. The space itself feels sculptural, with cave-like white stucco walls inspired by the Gilder Center at the American Museum of Natural History. High vaulted ceilings with sky murals by Ori Carino wink at the ceilings of Grand Central Station, while touches of greenery pay homage to Sara D. Roosevelt Park near the bar. All together, the interior looks other-worldly—it’s giving a chicer, more restrained Mos Eisley Cantina—but every element weaves in some New York reference.
Envisioning Chin Up Bar’s space, Gummert recalls serving drinks elsewhere during the pandemic and thinking how excited people would be to be in a new space.
“People were stuck in nostalgia for a while, but now seem to be wanting something fresh,” he says. The bar is in a new building, so he and Walker got to design the layout from scratch. “Patterns emerged little by little, inspired by New York public spaces, cathedrals, subway stations…it was time to see something new and interesting in New York.”
Walker and Gummert would love Chin Up to become a destination cocktail bar, but Walker notes that “it’s locals, it’s regulars that keep you open and sustained for a long time. Our focus has been creating an experience to make people want to come back over and over.” Gin enthusiasts will already be locked in to a concept like this, but between the reliably well-made classics, interesting originals, and strong food menu, there’s more than enough for every other kind of imbiber to appreciate.
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Courtney Iseman
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