Since 2016, we’ve set the lofty purpose of discovering the final word expression of each basic cocktail. After asking dozens of America’s greatest bartenders to submit their best recipes for Rob Roys, Jungle Birds, Martinis and past, we blind tasted all of them with a panel of specialists to crown a winner. Searching for the platonic perfect, we’ve found that some first place winners strictly adhere to conventional recipes (the case for the Manhattan and the Bamboo), whereas others look to unorthodox and probably controversial strategies—corresponding to orange juice in a Whiskey Bitter or a Negroni that forgoes an equal elements building. Right here, we’ve rounded up the most effective of the most effective basic cocktail recipes.