Indie sleaze is back — and Press Club Cocktail Bar, the buzzy, new haven from Owner Will Patton and Creative Director Devin Kennedy, is leading the charge.
Blending their love of music with boldly imaginative cocktails, the duo unveils their latest “album”: a tasting menu inspired by Arctic Monkeys’ 2013 studio masterpiece, AM — an era-defining record they hail as essential to the indie sleaze movement.
Channeling the album’s genre-blending style — where rock, hip-hop, R&B, and psychedelia collide — the cocktails are crafted to be just as sultry and seductive. Highlights include the Do I Wanna Know, a sultry twist on the French 75 made with Junmai Daiginjo sake, persimmon, lemon, and champagne, echoing the album’s iconic opening riff. Meanwhile, I Wanna Be Yours, a mix of Hennessy VSOP, coffee, chocolate, and cream, is served with “chocolate-dipped cigarettes” — a wink to both the album’s final track and the original John Cooper Clarke poem that inspired it.
Below, Will and Devin share how the idea took shape, why AM was the perfect fit, and how they translated the album’s themes and sounds into the drinks that make up this unique “album.”
What sparked the idea to build a cocktail tasting menu around AM? Was it always Arctic Monkeys, or did a few albums compete for inspiration?
Leading up to the opening of Press Club, we did a series of four course tasting experiences at our sister concept Jônt. We wanted to keep that tradition alive at Press Club while also keeping it organic to our record bar concept. We choose AM because it’s an iconic millennial album but also it blends a number of influences and genres, inspiration for how our menus blend different ingredients and techniques together.
You describe this menu as an “album” – how did that shape your approach to storytelling and the structure of the tasting experience?
We wanted to have our menu set up like the tracks with the hits up front and B sides on the back end.
With drinks like Do I Wanna Know and I Wanna Be Yours, how did you translate specific lyrics or sonic elements into ingredients, textures, or presentation?
The cocktails are more allusions, incorporating references while also expressing the ethos of the song.
How do you want guests to feel as they move through this tasting menu? Are you hoping for a kind of sensory nostalgia or something more transportive?
We want the guest to have an immersive experience that allows them to feel the living room hospitality while also engaging in the music and vibe of the bar.
Music and cocktails can both be experiential – how do you see the two intersecting in this menu, and how does that show up in the way guests interact with each drink?
We want our guests to have great time.
Looking ahead, are there other albums or artists you’d love to build future menus around – or is AM going to be hard to top?
There are a few albums up our sleeve to be released in June.
