Chin Up Bar is a new gin-focused cocktail spot on the Lower East Side. Photo Memory NYC

Specialization is hot in New York’s crowded bar scene. Want an Italian aperitivo? Or Japanese-style cocktails? You’ve got options in spades. Spirits themselves, too, prove rich enough to warrant entire bars dedicated to their varying expressions, especially whiskey and agave spirits like tequila and mezcal. There’s one spirit, however, that two bar industry veterans believe deserves another devoted destination, especially now: gin. 

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Brian Gummert and Blake Walker have joined forces to open the gin-focused Chin Up Bar at 171 Chrystie Street in New York City’s Lower East Side. The partnership makes sense: Gummert owns Lower East Side cocktail bar Subject; Walker bartended there, as well as at Nitecap and Amor y Amargo, the latter of which is one of New York’s prized specialty spots concentrating on amaro. 

“Brian and I both love gin, and there’s been an explosion of exciting gins in the past 10 to 15 years,” Walker tells Observer. Classic London dry styles from well-established distilleries have long been popular in Europe and back bar staples in the United States. But more recently, American craft distilleries, like Tenmile Distillery in upstate New York, have been leaning more into the spirit. Gins are also popping up in regions not previously........

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