The bar is called Bitter & Twisted, which you might assume is ironic branding — a cute name slapped on a dimly lit room pouring mediocre manhattans. It is not. The cocktail program here is one of the most technically rigorous in the Southwest, and the room is actually pretty cheerful about it.
Bitter & Twisted occupies a stretch of downtown Phoenix that has been cycling through identities for years. The address — 1 W. Jefferson — was the old Luhrs building, a 1924 skyscraper that once housed attorneys and bondsmen. Now it has a two-floor bar that takes up more square footage than most Phoenix restaurants, with a glossy black bar on the ground level and a mezzanine that looks down on the whole operation like a mezzanine that knows it’s in a good spot.
The menu arrives as a magazine — an actual bound publication — catalogued by flavor profile: bitter, sour, floral, spirit-forward, and so on. First-timers often assume this is theater, that the drinks themselves will be vaguely competent. This is where the expectation curls back on you. The bartenders here clearly worked backward from the menu categories, not forward from what’s easy to batch. The Oaxacan influence cocktails taste like someone made a considered decision about every single component. The bitter section in particular is worth exploring if you’re the kind of person who actually wants Campari to do something.
Happy hour runs weekdays from 3 to 6 p.m. and is a genuine deal — several craft cocktails come in around $8 or $9, which for the quality is a minor miracle. On a regular evening, expect most cocktails to run $14–$18. That’s not cheap, but it’s not inflated for the neighborhood either. The bar food menu is better than it needs to be: the cheeseburger sliders have a following, and the pretzel with beer cheese exists without embarrassing anyone.
The crowd on a Thursday evening leans professional — people who just finished something in the financial district, a table of women celebrating something, a few solo drinkers at the bar who clearly come often enough to skip the magazine. Weekends add a louder, younger contingent. The space is big enough that none of these groups particularly intrudes on the others, which is a civic service downtown Phoenix doesn’t always provide.
Service is attentive without being performative. Nobody will explain the cocktail to you unless you ask. If you do ask, they’ll tell you something worth knowing. There is a QR code on the table, which I ignored in favor of the physical menu, and no one seemed troubled by this choice.
If you’re downtown for a Suns game or an Orpheum show and you’re looking for somewhere to go before, Bitter & Twisted is an easy walk from both. If you’re not doing anything in particular, it’s still worth the trip. Phoenix has no shortage of bars with good branding. A bar with a good branding and drinks that back it up is rarer than it should be.
Park in the street or grab the garage on Jefferson. Get there before 6 if you want the happy hour pricing. Order something from the bitter section. Adjust your priors accordingly.
