Remedy Wine Bar: Doctor's Orders

A hundred years ago, the building at the corner of Northwest Everett Street and Park Avenue held a pharmacy, where druggists administered miracle-promising cure-alls, stomach-soothing licorice powder and blood-purifying tonics. Today, that space houses Remedy Wine Bar (733 NW Everett St., 222-1449, remedywinebar.com), where aches receive different—though still somewhat suspect—treatment. Absent are any old-timey trappings, replaced by blocky wood tables, gauzy gold curtains, beer-bottle chandeliers, cushy armchairs and throw pillows. And rather than cocaine tablets and opium tinctures, the dispensers at Remedy—the folks behind CorksCru, KitchenCru and Bowery Bagels—have a well-chosen wine list, heavy on young wines from small vineyards. Unfortunately named "lowtails" might sound like the cocktail equivalent of Coors Light, but they're actually mixed drinks built from fortified wines and aromatics—nothing over 20 percent ABV. The Little Giuseppe ($9), made with artichoke liqueur, Italian vermouth, orange bitters and finished with sea salt, is like a very earthy, very adult answer to root beer. Remedy might look torn from an issue of Architectural Digest, but this is medicine that goes down easy.

WWeek 2015