I am not usually fond of complicated cocktails. It is a general axiom that the more ingredients in a drink, the less palatable it is (that’s right — I’m talking to you, Mr. Long Island Iced Tea). I am also of the opinion that the speakeasy style of joint that hit max hep in the late aught years has been a tired, tiresome, and tiring concept (where is the hidden doorbell on what unmarked door?) ever since. How is it, then, that a Washington, D.C., speakeasy with complicated cocktails has caught my fancy? It’s about as likely I would like a Schmenge Brothers Play Hip-Hop Favorites album or John Cage performing a 4-minute, 33-second version of the “Beer Barrel Polka.”

But like it, I do, in no small part because the walls are covered in a fantastical oil mural featuring riffs on John Tenniel’s art for the Alice books, with Alice replaced by Ruby Bridges, drawn not unlike how she was movingly illustrated by Norman Rockwell in the painting The Problem We All Live With. Alice faced the ruthless Queen of Hearts; Ruby faced King Kleagles. There is a certain similarity, painter Erik Thor Sandberg told me: “I thought something rang true about a smart and thoughtful young girl that enters a world of irrationality and hostility.”