Cocktails at Idlewild are all bartender’s choice, with guidance from the drinker. Pictured is the Old Maid, with gin, lime, mint, and cucumber. Photo courtesy.

Vince Chirico, owner of a cocktail bar called Idlewild that will open next month in NoDa, was on a date at Milk & Honey when he first understood how hospitality can make you feel. He and his date ordered cocktails at the now-shuttered NYC cocktail bar that helped transform American bartending, then his date went to the restroom. When their server brought the drinks to their table and realized one member of the party was missing, he brought her drink back to the bar to wait in the freezer until she returned.

“I was blown away by that kind of service,” Chirico recalls, “The server, I still remember him but I don’t want to say his name, he comes to the table and he’s like [crouching], getting to your level, he’ll put his arms around you and talk to you. And that’s how I want it to be here, I want it to be that, ‘I’ve never had this interaction with somebody at a bar or restaurant before.’ And that was, after that moment I was stunned. I was like, ‘I didn’t know it could be like this.'”

Hospitality seems to be as much of the focus as cocktails at Chirico’s upcoming Idlewild Bar, off of 36^th Street in NoDa’s Novel apartments. The bar will have a menu for beer, wine, and a few snacks, but cocktails will all be bartender’s choice. Guests will give a few parameters, noting whether they like spirit-forward or refreshing cocktails, flavors they enjoy and despise, and their spirit preferences.

A Queens Park Swizzle, a classic cocktail made with rum, lime, mint, and bitters. Photo courtesy.

In his hiring process, Chirico hasn’t asked any questions about cocktail knowledge. He’s hiring people that are passionate about hospitality and working behind a bar, and plans to do a month of training that includes a day on hospitality and 14 hours of one-on-one training with each bartender. Another day will be spent just on ice, which is going to be hand-cut by staff. The bar will follow in the style of Milk & Honey and Raines Law Room, the New York cocktail bar where Chirico most recently worked as lead bartender. Regulars in New York told him opening a bar here was a great idea, recommending neighborhoods and places to check out. He slowly fell in love with Charlotte after years of visiting, and decided to bring the Milk & Honey philosophy here.

“I owe a lot of people — having worked with them or trained with them or learned from them — for allowing me to come here and do this,” he says. Chirico calls the bartending style regimented, partially for efficiency (like the way the bar is set up), others to ensure consistency in how cocktails taste, such as how long a drink gets shaken depending on what kind of ice is being used.

Where things will be a little different at Idlewild is with its expansion of flavors. The juice will be juiced fresh at the bar, and will likely include pineapple, honeydew, and passion fruit juices. There will be a small kitchen, serving cheese and charcuterie plates, pickles, bruschettas, and bread pudding. Because of the volume of alcohol sales, Idlewild has to be a private club, but membership will only be $1.

2019 is shaping up to be a big year for Charlotte’s cocktail scene. Idlewild should be open by the end of January, The Crunkleton is scheduled to open next week, and Billy Sunday is opening in Optimist Hall in early 2019. Chirico has been visiting spots like Dot Dot Dot, Soul Gastrolounge, and the bar at Angeline’s. What he’s seeing with the city’s cocktail scene is exactly why he’s here.

“I think it’s cool the direction it’s going in and really want to be a part of that,” he says. As for his new city, he’s a fan of how much less congested it is, and how much cleaner it is. That, and “people smile,” he says with a big one. —Kristen Wile