Silver Lyan

🐻 From the Shared Beliefs section of our menu, Unspeakable Snap is shaped by how superstitions affect our lives — whether it’s bears, matches, or Ancient Egyptian pregnancy tests.

Humans have long maintained a healthy fear of and appreciation for bears, and many European cultures have taboos around speaking the animal’s name — either out of religious respect for the bear or fear that mentioning it would bring the attention of a predator upon you. Superstitions like these shape daily life in unusual ways, and occasionally are rooted in more truth than one might expect. As an example, military superstition around not lighting more than one cigarette off the same match comes from the trenches in WW1, where having a single match lit for too long made you an easy target for snipers.

In ancient Egypt, a woman who wanted to know if she might be pregnant would p*e on dried barley — if the barley sprouted, it was believed to be a sign the woman was pregnant — a test that has since been found to have 60% accuracy!

Inspired by this, we make a syrup from barley miso, combined with the smoky notes of Talisker — in reference to the WW1 cigarette theory. Sea buckthorn, huckleberries, and pinecones are all commonly eaten by bears in different parts of the world — we blend these with Dolin Blanc and Cocchi Americano, while the pine bitters are made by infusing pine needles into Regan’s Orange Bitters — a bright, smoky after-dinner drink.

So much of the work that goes into our drinks happens behind the scenes, in the prep kitchen, before opening. For our Bare Market Handshake, we make beet and adzuki garums using pancreatic enzymes from pigs, to dramatically sp*ed up the fermentation of the proteins — in this case, provided by blending pea protein powder with an adzuki bean syrup and beet juice. The pancreatic enzymes allow the garum fermentation process to take place in as little as 3 hours, as opposed to the many months required by a traditional garum fermentation — although some of those “more traditional” koji garums are pictured here! The osmanthus tea, also pictured, is used in the blood foam on the Armstrong Americano, and the raspberries go into the chanko nabe, featured in the Press Gang Daisy. We’re always happy to discuss our drinks — in as little or as much detail as you like, but perhaps most importantly, you can rest assured that our cocktails are always made sp*edily and efficiently — even if the prep work can take a few months!

One of the great things about bar snacks is that they don’t follow the structure of a traditional meal — you can have dessert to start, followed by Fried Chicken and Tater Tots, with Pizza Spring Rolls to finish — there are no rules! For those with a sweet-ish tooth, our Matcha Cream Brioche Sandwich is playful and fun, taking inspiration from Japanese fruit sandos — available ‘til 11pm weekdays, and ‘til midnight on weekends.

Our Cannibal Old Fashioned, you’ll be relieved to hear, contains no meat — human or otherwise! It’s veggie-friendly, using jackfruit in place of flesh — which we embalm, inspired by the European “doctors” who would prescribe the ground flesh of embalmed mummies as a medical treatment for a variety of illnesses, beginning in the 1100s.

We bake the whole fruit in a salt crust flavoured with oils and resins traditionally used in the embalming process. The salt crust keeps moisture inside the jackfruit, essentially allowing the fruit to confit in its own juices inside the shell. We then open it up and make an oleo saccharum with the interior flesh, which is very lightly dosed with an aji Amarillo tincture to add a bit of brightness and a gentle touch of heat.

Maker’s Mark, embalmed jackfruit, Silver snake oil, rhubarb bitters — also available boozeless 🦴

🥨 Food plays such an important part in cultural exchange — as a way to socialise, share parts of ourselves, and as a way to mix different knowledge sets. Pretzels — almost as “American” as apple pie, found their way to the US with German immigrants in the 18th century, with handmade pretzel bakeries popping up in the Pennsylvania countryside — and then across North America. Ours are tossed in everything seasoning and served with a cheese dip — comforting, nostalgic, salty goodness.

A gently savoury gimlet, Press Gang Daisy pays tribute to the long-standing tradition of sailor tattoos, which started with American sailors needing a way to prevent themselves from being kidnapped by the British Navy ⚓️

Inspired by the creative problem-solving inherent in using tattoos to get out of being press-ganged, we’re also looking to a more modern approach to avoiding military service — in South Korea, young people have used getting as fat as they can as a way of dodging their mandatory tours of duty. This inspired the “chanko nabe,” the stew Sumo wrestlers eat to gain mass.

All the flavourings of the chanko nabe used in this cocktail (besides lychee!) are pulled from either ingredients traditional to the stew, or things that were used to make traditional tattoo ink in Japan or the Philippines!

Poppyseed Fords Gin, calamansi cordial, chanko nabe of sake, sandalwood, and lychee, garnished with mint and a grapefruit slice, served on a large rock of ice, stamped with a traditional tattoo design — something we often take for granted as being non-controversial — until it is.

🦁 Meet the Lyans — Teddy Murphy! Teddy has worked in hospitality on-and-off for over a decade and has been with us since February last year. His drink of choice is a Naked & Famous, an Amaro Swizzle from Service Bar, or the weirdest thing he can find on the menu 👀

At Silver Lyan, Teddy’s fave drink is The Silver Apple Martini, followed very closely by The Unspeakable Snap, and when it comes to spirits — Mezcal takes the top spot, which he compares to “drinking a liquid charcuterie board.” Teddy (rightly!) says we’re spoilt for choice in D.C. when it comes to food and booze, but he can usually be found at Service Bar, Allegory, Moon Rabbit, Yellow Cafe, or Your Only Friend — or sleeping without any alarms, running/cycling/lounging outside, visiting family, and dancing to new music. Teddy’s secret talents include whistling like the bird from Shrek, sleeping against impossible odds, or conjuring a demonic Gollum impression — and bartending, he’s pretty great at that, too!

A complex, tangy frozen cocktail inspired by the “Forbidden Fruit Effect” (named in reference to the story of the Garden of Eden!) Banned in Boston combines Patrón reposado, pawpaw amazake, cornflake fro-yo, white cacao absinthe, and Silver pepper mix.

Multiple psych studies have shown that limiting access to something only makes it more desirable — the more you tell people they can’t have something, the more they want it — and the allure of the unattainable has been exploited by canny marketers for centuries.

Pawpaws are the official state fruit of Missouri, which is where Mormons believe the Garden of Eden to have been. We use these, sourced from Integration Acres, a farm in Ohio, to make an amazake with mango and banana purees, lengthened with water and koji rice, and stabilised with vodka.

Cornflakes and yoghurt reference John Henry Kellogg, a major health figure of the late 1800s and proponent of abstinence as a cornerstone of a healthy lifestyle — since debunked! We steep cornflakes in whole milk to make cereal milk, which is then used to lengthen Greek yoghurt for a more mixable texture, garnished with a freshly ground combo of white and red long peppercorns🍦

🦁Tomorrow, we’re joined by the uber-talented and ever-wonderful Hideyuki Saito, Senior Director of Bars for Tokyo’s Gold Bar at EDITION, for both a trade-focused panel discussion and a guest shift open to the public!

📝 From 1pm to 2pm, Saito-san will join leaders in the D.C. cocktail community for a discussion around their varying approaches to cocktail menu development, from initial concept to final ex*****on and design. Also on the panel is Service Bar owner Chad Spangler, Beverage Director Will Patton from Bresca, Jônt, and the upcoming Press Club, and Silver Lyan’s very own Alex Leidy — please note, this part of the day is trade-only and will be hosted in collaboration with the DC Craft Bartender’s Guild.

🪩 From 5pm to 8pm, Saito-san will join the Silver Lyan team for a guest shift featuring cocktails from Gold Bar’s current menu, “Once Upon a Future.” Regular Silver Lyan reservations and seating will be available, and walk-ins will be accommodated on a first-come, first-served basis!

Vlad smashed his first-ever Tales seminar infront of a fully booked room, we won the Best Cocktail Program of the Year at the RAMMYS, and there’s still more to come! This Friday in New Orleans, we’re partnering with Gin Mare on “Café Silver” — a very Mediterranean afternoon with refreshing sips and snacks, as we close out another Tales of the Cocktail!

Our celebratory menu includes five drinks, all created specifically for the occasion, including a Sunshine Caesar, Cucumber Gardenia Cobbler, Green Espresso G&T, and an Oyster Shooter, featuring a shucked oyster with green apple mignonette served alongside a tasty shot of Gin Mare, lacto lemon, fino, wasabi, and green apple 🦪

Visit us for a pick-me-up after a hot and humid week, between 11am - 4pm, with Mr Lyan, Vlad, and Sam behind the bar — bookings are available through the link in our bio.

With every menu comes the excitement of something new — a flavour or product previously unexplored, a technique we’re excited to share, or a heaps weird idea we’re hyped to present. And behind every menu is a team that’s worked super hard to develop their concepts — from a spark of something interesting to a delicious drink. We’re stoked to have been awarded a RAMMY for Best Cocktail Programme 2024, with some wonderful D.C. institutions (and some exciting newness!) taking home trophies, too.

Congratulations to all of the finalists and the winners, in particular — our pal Masako Morish*ta, who won Rising Culinary Star of the Year. And finally — congrats to our lovely, talented team — if you’ve not yet tried our new menu — with ni***es and cannibalism galore — please do! Big Lyan Love 🦁💖

Heading to Tales this weekend? Same! On Monday, Vlad is hosting a seminar on “Carbonation: The Science and How to Apply it.” He’ll be covering the physics of carbonation, including Henry’s Law and the effects of temperature on gas solubility; the chemistry of dissolved CO2, including its effects on acidity, and other solutes effects on CO2 saturation; nucleation sites — how they can reduce carbonation, and how they can be used to improve flavour, appearance, and aroma — and more! It’s a “first come, first served” session, from 12.15pm to 1.45pm, at Audubon, The Ritz-Carlton, New Orleans. And next Friday, July 26th, Cafe Silver is popping up at Peychaud’s at The Celestine, with Mr Lyan and Gin Mare – more on that, soon! We’re so excited to see y’all in the Big Easy — bringing Lyan love on the road!

🦁 Meet the Lyans — Fereshte (Jazz) Williams. Jazz has been working in hospitality for around three years, and joined us a little over a year ago as a barback, determined to get a position as a bartender — and she succeeded! Her favourite classic cocktail is a Jungle Bird or a Last Word, and at Silver, she goes for the Appletini or anything gin-related. On her days off, Jazz works out, organises, plays video games and adventures the city, exploring her fave spots, including Okpb, Service Bar, and Flash. Secret Silver insights — Jazz is hugely creative, and enjoys painting, dancing, and sewing, and is also a trained hair stylist and makeup artist — a Lyan of many talents!

✖️A plush, herbaceous egg white sour, Lovejoy’s Law pays tribute to the “free the nipple” campaigns of the last few decades, highlighting the societal double standard regarding the ni***es of male-presenting and female-presenting people — women who show their ni***es on Instagram will have their accounts suspended, but a man’s ni***es can be on full display just about anywhere! While the efforts of feminist activists have made some progress in recent years, a clear double standard remains, particularly in broadcast and social media.

Of course, the law’s inability to keep up with times changing and adjust its classifications is nothing new — despite multiple studies indicating that coumarin, the compound that renders tonka bean and bisongrass “harmful” in the eyes of the FDA, is significantly less toxic than previously believed, it’s still illegal to use either in food in the US. Additionally, despite years of studies indicating ma*****na has many medical benefits, the US has classified it as a Schedule 1 drug.

Inspired by this, we combine Żubrówka (which is not legally allowed to be flavoured with real bisongrass in the US!), h**p milk, green pea and melon honey, pastis, fig leaf (as used in Greek and Roman sculpture to cover ge****ls), and citrus. The garnish, a black “X” in the style of an ad-hoc electrical tape pasty, is made by spraying black-dyed absinthe on top of the drink — we call this “pastis” on the menu because it looks like “pasties.” We’re not better than puns!

🌭 A very happy July 4th from Team Silver! Today, hundreds of thousands of people are heading to D.C. for its world-renowned fireworks, the parade, concerts, and more, and we’re here for all of your shelter and refreshment needs. Fittingly (for us!), the humble hot dog is in itself a story of cultural exchange — brought to the US in the 19th century by German immigrants, and now arguably as American as apple pie. Ours features wagyu beef, Chi-town relish, and heaps of mustard, served in a poppy seed bun — best enjoyed with a Miller High Life, the “Champagne of Beers” — and perhaps with a real glass of bubbles, too 🍾

Visit us from 5pm - late – we hope you enjoy the show!

Yes, our new menu is now live — and yes, we’re very much enjoying sharing our latest creations with you! But we always keep one eye on the classics, too — both literal classics and Lyan classics — because old faithfuls are just as important as new and exciting. Our Silver Service Martini celebrates our love for Martinis, offering a selection of what we feel are ideal versions of each serve — wet, dry, dirty, and 50:50. Perfectly balanced, they’re accompanied by all the trimmings you’d expect — and a few you might not. They’re pre-diluted to the ideal ratio of water to cocktail, kept at a freezer temperature, and poured directly into a very cold glass. For added decadence and extra fun, your chosen Martini comes with house-brined Castelvetrano olives, house-pickled cocktail onions, an oyster, lemon, and salt. Martinis are one of ’s favourite things to share — a simple joy, perfectly suited to mid-week toasts 🍸

New menu day is here! Tonight at 5 pm we launch 11 brand new cocktails, all inspired by taboos, from small day-to-day no-nos all the way up to some of the biggest social infractions possible. Taboos are often key points of cultural exchange, and you can tell a lot about a society by what they disdain and what they embrace. As always, we strive to take a positive stance even when wading into a topic like this, and the specific stories that inspire this menu were chosen to reflect this! Project Manhattan, Lychee Martini, Nimbus Spritz, Season’s Sazerac, and our Silver Service Martini remain, alongside a selection of baller serves and shots — including those of the jello persuasion! We’re super proud of what the team has put together, and we’re stoked to share our creations with you — in all their weird, wonderful (and delicious!) glory 💙🦁

After a busy few days in NYC, we’re back in Washington D.C. and reminiscing on two wonderful events, hosted in partnership with the talented p*eps at The Dead Rabbit. On Monday we took part in DCB, collaborating with our lovely D.C. neighbours, and on Tuesday, we showcased a sneak preview of our new cocktail menu — yes, it’s coming soon! Guests were treated to our (yet to be released!) Parasol Punch, Cannibal Old-Fashioned, Armstrong Americano, and Unspeakable Snap, with Mr Lyan, Vlad, Alex Lediy, Sam, Eric, and Jo repping team Silver on the bar and floor. Fear not — our D.C. guests will get to try new drinks soon — stay tuned for upcoming updates 👀

A 90s classic – reimagined! Our Lychee Martini is a decadent, soft party starter with bright florality and botanical depth. Our lychee syrup is homemade, using frozen pure lychee puree, which we clarify by using pectinex to get the solids out of suspension. Roku gin is flavoured with six Japanese botanicals, including cherry blossom, yuzu, sencha, and sansho pepper, bolstered with Ginrei Shiro, a rice-based shochu, which we finish with a pinch of cherry blossom salt to bring some balance to the sweeter flavours in the mix.

Playful, floral, and nostalgic.

In June of 2023, Mr Lyan and the Lyaness team joined The Dead Rabbit for their tenth birthday celebrations, taking over The Parlor for one night only with Lyan classics, a lot of Martinis, and heaps of Guinness. And now — we’re doing (almost!) the same. On June 11th, we’re introducing a selection of brand-new cocktails to a New York audience, showcasing four new drinks from our yet-to-be-released menu in The Dead Rabbit’s Occasional Room, with a DJ and plenty of Silver Lyan surprises on the night. Mr Lyan will be joined by Vlad, Alex, Sam, Eric, and Jo, repping team Silver on the road — scroll through for the line-up of lovely faces!

And that’s not all! Catch us on June 10th alongside Service Bar, Allegory, and Press Club, celebrating Bar Convent Brooklyn with some of Washington D.C.’s very best bars. We are so excited to share these drinks with you, and to hang out with our NYC loved ones — if you’re visiting town for BCB, stop in for a tipple, a catch-up, and maybe a little dance, too.

🦁 The link in our bio will take you to The Dead Rabbit’s events page, with bookings available for the 10th, and walk-ins welcome for the 11th.

While the Vikings have a modern reputation for having been brutal conquerors, they were also, for a time, the cleanest people in Europe! The men of early medieval England, in particular, were known to complain that their women preferred the company of Viking invaders to their own, largely because the Vikings regularly bathed. This cocktail references Vikings through the use of both Aquavit and Scotch, which are from former Viking territory, as well as antler tincture as a nod to the made-up but very recognizable, horned Viking helmet!

We smoke cream over applewood chips, diluted with whole milk, to lengthen the flavour. Fresh green apple and elderberry juice provide enough tartness to curdle the dairy mixture, which is strained after 24 hours. Linie aquavit is used for its richer, slightly aged quality, and Talisker Storm makes up the Scotch component for both smoke and salinity. The antler tincture is made by dissolving powdered deer antler (yes, really!) in phosphoric acid and then diluting it to a safely drinkable level, similar to the bone tincture from London’s White Lyan — the OG! The name of the cocktail references Sir William Henry Perkins, who accidentally discovered the first synthetic purple dye while trying to synthesize quinine.

A layered, silky milk punch pairing aquavit aromatics off of tart elderberry and smoked cream – a celebration of how migration shapes global aesthetics.

Silver Lyan in NYC! Earlier this week, we partnered with beautiful cashmere crafters (and socially wonderful) to host a very special, very fun town-house party in their iconic West Village home for our Manhattan-based friends, fam, and loved ones. This was our second time collaborating with the brand’s founder, Rachelle Hruska MacPherson, who designed the beautiful, chic, and very festive Rigg’s Hotel Christmas tree last year! Sticking with the house party theme, we took inspiration from Mr Lyan’s “Cocktails at Home” book with a trio of Champagne cocktails using some signature Silver Lyan ingredients, a classic Martini served out of a pitcher for sharing with the usual Silver accoutrements, and — of course — jello shots! We also had a grazing table of baller cured meats, cheeses, and crudité, and the pièce de résistance — an uber decadent 1.72 kilo original tin of kaluga caviar served with Pringles (plain, and sour cream and chives a la FKABAM obvs) – once you pop, you can’t stop.

Huge thanks to everyone who joined us, a wonderful gathering of talented and creative guests in the city that never sleeps 🥂

🍸 A savoury, zesty martini, King Pausa pays tribute to the importance of a good coffee break, encouraging you to take a load off with Belvedere vodka, green coffee, green malt, woodruff sherry, red olive, and “not lemon.”

The espresso machine is the direct result of rural Italian workers insisting upon their right to a proper coffee break, and a machine that could make a proper coffee — fast. Within decades, the very invention they desired had made its way throughout Italy, returning to where those workers originally came from. Inspired by this, we make a green coffee tincture by blitzing beans until they’re well-broken up and then sous vide-ing into vodka — this lends a round, vegetal note, while un-toasted malted barley provides a soft green profile. For the woodruff sherry, dried woodruff is steeped into Tio Pepe and then strained out, with unlisted (surprise!) ingredients, including touches of soda water and Champagne, garnished with a red Cerignola olive from Puglia — making a splash 🫒

It’s been around ten months since we launched our current menu, featuring 11 cocktails that explore cultural exchange via the fascinating stories of migration — not just human migration but also robots, bees, language, salmon, space probes, and more. Grouped into chapters about one-way migrations, round trips, and nomads, the drinks paint a picture of some of the wonderful journeys — both big and small — that influence our world on a daily basis. With them came new techniques — in both prep and ex*****on — and a whole host of mise en place! And as you might have guessed — we’re currently working on what comes next.

We’ve loved sharing this menu with you, and all the weird and wonderful ingredients that come with it. But if you have a current fave Silver Lyan drink — be sure to enjoy it while you still can 👀

We’re closing out the month with some happy news — and a very special reintroduction to Sally Seawright — Meet the Lyans, Promotion Edition! Sally joined the Cafe Riggs team back in 2019, and was snapped up by Silver Lyan in 2022 — around 18 months ago, but who’s counting? Today, we’re hyped to announce Sally’s new position as a Senior Bartender. In her own words, she’s “most excited to continue growing and having fun with my team, making more tasty drinks, and developing my knowledge of both cocktails and hospitality, especially while working on R&D for our upcoming menu.” Yes — new drinks, coming soon!

⚡️Congratulations from all of us at Silver Lyan (and beyond — global team Lyan love!) Here’s to more Tequila, Martinis, tap dancing, and head balancing — executed at a Senior level, obviously🍸

🦩Flamingos are historically non-migratory, because they thrive best in lakes so intensely alkaline that they kill and skeletonize other birds on contact — a deceptively hardcore animal! Sadly, climate change and industrial development are pushing them to a more nomadic lifestyle, in a way humans will become increasingly familiar with as time goes on.

This spicy, tropical party starter incorporates shrimp notes through a vodka tincture infused with Japanese dried shrimp powder, nodding towards the brine shrimp that flamingos eat, with a Gunpowder tea in reference to nomadic resiliency and the Touareg people of northern Africa — where it’s widely brewed. 

Our tropical aperitif features Aperol infused with passionfruit in a sous vide, to which we add a tincture made with dried Morita chiles, shaken with fresh pineapple juice, Altos tequila, and lime — spicy and zippy with a bittersweet edge 🦐

🦁 Silver Lyan x Post Haste — a Weekend in Philly! 🩷

In just 2 weeks, team Silver will join Fred and the crew at Post Haste for a weekend of storytelling, cocktails, and delicious ingredients. On Saturday, May 4th, Clinth and Teddy from Silver Lyan will step behind the bar, making new, limited-edition drinks informed by Post Haste’s rigorous approach to local sourcing. Similarly, Post Haste will make unique, one-night-only cocktails inspired by Silver Lyan’s focus on storytelling, with a focus on iconic Philadelphia stories. Think skateboarding in Love Park, locally sourced solera Sazeracs, malted milks at Dewey’s Diner, a collaborative martini Silver Service with Silver Lyan’s famous martini and Post Haste’s local oyster set, and more. On Sunday, May 5th, we’ll host a masterclass, focused on our tradecraft but open to all, where the team from Silver Lyan will go in-depth on their cocktail and menu development process, followed by a Q&A session and happy hour.

Big thanks to the wonderful people at Heaven Hill and Samson & Surrey for their support in bringing these events to life. The Silver Lyan x Post Haste friendship and shared appreciation for each other’s vision is long documented, and we’ve been working on this collaboration for many months — so we can’t wait to share it with you y’all!

📍Visit posthastephilly.com for bookings.

We’ve always craved better versions of the indulgences of our youth. Ingrained in nostalgia, our tater tots have been known to steal the show — as fried potatoes often do, but we have a whole host of dishes to pair with your fave cocktails. Our bites and sharing snacks take influence from our approach to cultural exchange, along with other tasty seasonal ingredients and fun touches, too.

🌭 Wagyu beef hot dog, kimchi. An American classic, reimagined.

🦁 Join Team Silver! We’re currently recruiting for full-time bartenders, and whether you’re a rookie, a veteran, or somewhere in between, we want to hear from you. Opportunities to jump on board the Lyan train are few and far between, and we’re excited to meet our future colleagues!

Candidates must thrive in a creative environment, have an open mind and a great sense of humour, and love finding solutions. The ability to be adaptable, calm resourceful, and efficient is a key part of the role.

If you fancy calling Silver Lyan your workplace, fill in an application via the link in our bio 💙