Choose Your Own Cocktail Adventure at Bar Max

Floral? Fruity? Spicy? Cocktails come in all profiles, from boozy and bitter to citrusy and refreshing. Concocting the perfect cocktail can be as much art as science, from ingredients to glassware, from preparation (shaken, stirred) to the finishing flourish of selecting the perfect garnish.

Max Hopewell-Arizmendi and Yuki Koyama founded Café Max in 2013, and transitioned the airy, European-flavored bistro to Bar Max in 2016. Now owner Marshall Smith is behind the bar, and the Denver native is offering a rainbow of possibilities that allow guests to design the custom cocktail of their wildest dreams. “Making cocktails is an art,” says Smith. “And we want our guests to be able to join us in the creative process.”

Enter Bar Max’s Flavor Wheel and Flavor Deck, where 100 flavor profiles and ingredients make communicating your potable preferences as easy and exciting as the Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks beloved by Gen X kids. (After a hiatus, CYOA relaunched in 2005.)

"The Flavor Wheel was born out of trying to improve communication for our custom drinks,” says Smith. “It was inspired by The Laundry Room speakeasy in Vegas; that was the first place I went where the guy did all the custom drinks. It was flavors only — name your flavors and I'll make the drink. Something about that seemed so intriguing to me.”

Smith started trying that "tell me your flavors" technique at Bar Max, with limited success. “I would ask guests for flavors, but found that I wasn't getting a lot of variety," he recalls. "I think some of that was just putting people on the spot ... like how many flavors can they think of?”

The Flavor Wheel and Flavor Deck help spark the imagination, and also allow guests to remove ingredients or taste profiles that they find unappealing while being introduced to Bar Max’s massive library of rare and esoteric spirits. “If you're not in the business, you wouldn't know to ask that there's a saffron liqueur or another rarity,” says Smith. “We have a roasted dandelion liqueur — I don't think anybody else has that in Colorado. And so it was, let's put something together that will help guests know what's available, know what's out there, and be able to communicate well with the bartender.”

Many of the bottles in the plant-filled, modern space truly require a road map — including mushroom gin and a crab-infused whiskey. Smith curated the first eighty of the bar's custom cocktails into a book, which he plans to print soon.

In the meantime, Bar Max serves as a welcoming, queer-friendly hub in the community, offering discounts for educators, artists and health-care workers. (During COVID, it was also the first eatery in the state to require proof of vaccination.) In addition to cocktails, there's a small but carefully curated menu of nibbles, including housemade hummus and "fancy grilled cheese" with brie, Colby jack, fig jam and prosciutto. Sober sippers will appreciate a large and thoughtful selection of non-alcoholic creations. The Denver Film Society is just down the block, and DFS members receive $3 off regular menu drinks at Bar Max during the Denver Film Festival. The space is also available for private events and parties.

Bar Max is located at 2412 East Colfax Avenue and is open from 4 to 10 p.m. Wednesday, 4 to 11 p.m. Thursday, and 4 p.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday. For more information, visit barmax.co.