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Overstory

New York

Fine drinking with a New York skyline setting

Overstory is the 64th-floor cocktail bar of a Financial District skyscraper that climbs into the clouds above New York's unmistakable skyline. Up here at the bar's own open-air, wrap-around terrace, there's a high-definition view that seemingly lasts forever – but inside, Harrison Ginsberg and his team also require a little of your attention.

One foot in the warm and you're taken by Overstory's chicness, the interiors matching the Art Deco stylings of this 1930s building. At the lounge's centrepiece is a minimally attired bar which glows against what is otherwise a mute-toned lounge. Up here, with this view, it would have been easy to be complacent – the high-rise bar category has rarely been the height of bar culture – but no, here you have it all as Overstory also masters high-end drinking.

Expect spirit-led drinks leaning into agave spirits and whiskey, with unusual, often local ingredient accompaniments. Try the El Bandito with tequila, tomato water, koseret, lime and yuzu kosho or the perfectly apt In The Clouds made from whiskey, Earl Grey, vanilla, champagne and clarified milk – whatever you choose it's all very grown-up drinking.

The signature of the bar though is the Terroir Old Fashioned and no drink better illustrates Overstory's raison d'être. Eschewing whiskey for tequila, and adding the exotic palo santo, a more classical element comes in the form of sherry-like French wine Vin Jaune and herbal yellow chartreuse. But possibly most importantly is Tilden Salt, which is harvested directly from Fort Tilden in Queens by none other than the bar team. That's different – but perhaps what you'd expect here, where the standards and imagination are both equally sky high. 

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