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Little Nickel Bar Manager Josephine Castro, General Manager Madison Pere and Assistant Bar Manager Ailsa McCutcheon
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Madison Pere roasts poblanos to infuse tequila.
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Poblano peppers on the grill
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A fresh batch of strawberry vodka and poblano tequila for the coming week’s cocktails
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Ailsa McCutcheon prepares lemongrass syrup.
It’s 8 a.m. at the tropical-themed Forest Hill restaurant Little Nickel, and Bar Manager Josephine Castro is already directing the day’s work. Clipboard in hand, she moves down the prep list with a pen: roast poblano peppers for the Papi Verde, batch syrups for the frozen Jet Pilot, whip up orgeat for the Saturn.
At night, the room will lean into its identity as a high-energy cocktail bar. In the morning, however, the scene is something much more methodical: a tight-knit team of bar professionals deep in prep. Amid Tiki glasses and island vibes, the crew of three flutters through the dining room building batches that yield up to 100 cocktails at a time. This approach allows them to serve thousands of drinks each week that taste the same on a Monday as they do on a Saturday. It ensures precision, prevents overpouring and preserves the craftsmanship behind every sip.
“It’s a long morning,” Castro says, noting they’re the first ones in the building on prep days, “typically about four hours.”
Few bars can sustain this level of production. By the time a guest orders a drink at Little Nickel, the sum of its parts have already passed through hours, days and sometimes weeks of labor. While cocktail bars tend to prioritize quality over quantity, at this South Side escape it’s both, with the sheer volume of customers that come through the doors upping the ante.
Castro is backed by General Manager Madison “Maddie” Pere and Assistant Bar Manager Ailsa McCutcheon. Together, they are responsible for all the infusions, syrups and frozen ingredients listed on the drink menu — and they have their own dedicated walk-in freezer and trailer to prove it. For Pere, its impact on their workflow can’t be overstated. “I say that I got a raise because they gave me a walk-in; it was the best thing that could have happened.”
The tenured trio measures, converts, chops and dilutes, toeing the line between the culinary and the scientific. Everything is made or infused in-house, from toasted coconut rye or rosemary mezcal to syrups flavored with saffron, lemongrass, fassionola and sour orange. The prep space hums with blenders, the glug, glug, glug of liquor, the scent of cinnamon cooking down on the stove. Tables are covered in storage containers, bottles of booze, bushy mint and fragrant Thai chiles, while each bartender works from a dedicated station and binder of recipes, often focusing on specific drinks.
“We definitely have our babies,” McCutcheon says with a smile. “Blackberry whiskey and orgeat are mine.” She explains that the blackberry bourbon used in the Doc Holiday sits for about a week to fully achieve its flavor, while the orgeat starts with blended almonds — sometimes peanuts or pistachios — finished with orange blossom water and fortified with alcohol.
“I don’t like anyone else to touch the frozens at this point,” Castro chimes in.
Pere, meanwhile, can be found back in the kitchen — the place where her hospitality career began — grilling poblanos to infuse tequila. The ex-line cook transitioned to bartending and joined Little Nickel shortly after the Giavos family opened the restaurant in 2018. “The program is the way it is because I cooked for so long,” she says. “I still want to be making everything, not using artificial flavors. If we can infuse it, we are. It makes a huge difference.”
The shift toward batching took hold during the pandemic, when the General Assembly first passed legislation permitting restaurants to sell cocktails to go. The measure became permanent last year, allowing the team to focus even more on prep while producing more dialed-in drinks at scale.
The Big Texas Tea Swizzle, Mami Juice and Mi Loquita cocktails at Little Nickel
Ratios can shift; citrus can fade; and even small variances in water, acidity or time can affect the final product. Each batch is tested and adjusted. “There’s a lot of science,” Pere says of the process. “It’s funny, because I hated algebra, and I feel like we do more math here than I ever imagined. Every day is an algebra problem.”
McCutcheon concurs. “I don’t think you get to this place in bartending unless you really love the science or history behind how flavors work together.”
For all the structure, there’s a sense of ease, trust and a shared understanding that each cares as much about the end result as the other. The trio first worked together at Rappahannock before reuniting at Little Nickel, where Pere helped shape both the cocktail program and the crew while growing alongside it. When Pere became a mother, Castro gradually took on more responsibilities. “I wanted her to have more time with her family,” Castro says. “I started doing more prep and got comfortable.”
Pere now has a team to uphold the high standard they’ve built together. Beyond consistency, they’re showcasing their mastery of the technique behind an often misrepresented category of cocktails. “I think people would only really understand the level of prep if they saw us here during the day,” Pere says. “Especially with Tiki drinks, there’s a stigma that it’s all juice and sweetener. We’re always trying to change that perception.”
When a guest orders an umbrella drink that captures that “on vacation” feeling, the gratification is immediate — a rewarding culmination of behind-the-scenes work distilled into a single, transportive sip.
“For me,” McCutcheon says with pride, “it’s extra special when a guest says, ‘This tastes so good,’ and I get to say, ‘I made that.’”
