Photo by Eric Denman

D.C. has always had a reputation as a drinking town. Maybe it’s because of all the lobbyists, lawyers, and politicians, but in the heyday of the cocktail, before Prohibition, residents of the District supposedly out-drank their counterparts in other areas of the country several times over. We even have our own cocktail that was named after a lobbyist. These days, many of the top restaurants in the city now have extensive cocktail programs to match their ample wine lists, and a number of places focused solely on making a truly great cocktail have opened in the last few years.

DCist sat down with master mixologist Derek Brown of The Gibson and the Mixmaster column on The Atlantic Food Channel to talk about the cocktail renaissance, what makes D.C. a great drinking town, and to find out a bit more about the place he and brother Tom Brown (of Cork) are planning to open.

So obviously the last few weeks have been pretty exciting, with metrocurean announcing that you and your brother Tom are planning to open a bar of your own, tentatively called The Passenger.

Yeah, and forgive me, I’m going to be a little tight-lipped about it. And one of the reasons why is just because I guess we’re still developing. I mean we’re still trying to figure out… what I can say without a doubt is that my brother and I have always wanted to work together. But, more importantly, we recognize that we both bartend with different perspectives and experiences on our respective ends.