Quiet down into your grandma’s floral-print front room and put together to get trashed, Soviet-style. This beautiful Wallingford parlor options Slavic snacks — pelmeni, borscht, housemade pickles, and many-layered honey cake — in addition to stiff drinks served in stunning glassware. See, they don’t actually have a cocktail tradition in Russia, the place people principally take their vodka straight, so Korochka co-owners Kendall Murphy and Lisa Malinovskaya got down to create Russian-themed cocktails, then named their bar after Malinovskaya’s childhood nickname. (Korochka means “heel of the bread,” a loving Russian epithet for cussed individuals). Cottagecore vibes are robust right here, with plenty of earthy-foresty flavors on the cocktail listing like beets, mushrooms, walnuts and birch syrup. A Korochka basic, the Bonfire, brings collectively mezcal, inexperienced walnut liqueur, pine liqueur, Benedictine, and Ango bitters, for instance. Or you may simply preserve it legit and clear out your sinuses with a shot of horseradish-infused vodka. —Meg van Huygen
