Behind The Bar At Red Phone Booth

At first glance, the red phone booth located in the heart of downtown Atlanta is a seemingly displaced-yet-charming London antique. But by securing a secret phone number and dialing it into the restored rotary phone found inside, the old-school telephone box grants exclusive entry to Red Phone Booth, a Prohibition-style speakeasy.

Red Phone Booth's mixologist Max Elliott says the upscale bar — which also includes an extensive cigar program — is "a turn of the century modernized view of what it was like to be served classic, craft cocktails during a time that paved the way for the bar industry today."

The establishment's 1920s mob-style decor features restored original brick flooring, a honey onyx bar and custom Italian leather couches that complement a unique, whiskey-centric cocktail menu.

"We use 100-percent fresh-squeezed juices, hand chipped double reverse osmosis ice and cut to order garnishes, along with a collection of some of the rarest spirits available on the market," says Elliott.

That same attention to detail goes into Red Phone Booth's Smoked Old Fashioned, which Elliott describes as "hands-down our number one cocktail." Elliott kindly gave us the signature recipe to try at home this weekend — unless you can score that top secret phone number for speakeasy access, of course.

Take a stab at the spin on this sophisticated classic, straight from behind the bar at Red Phone Booth:

Red Phone Booth's Smoked Old Fashioned

Ingredients:

• 2 oz. Four Roses Yellow Label bourbon
• A dash of simple syrup
• Fresh cut lemon zest
• A couple dashes of bitters
• Smoking wood chips over the top

How it's made: "We smoke hickory wood chips over Four Roses yellow label bourbon, and add bitters, simple syrup, and fresh-cut citrus zest. It is complemented with our hand chipped, and serve over double reverse osmosis ice," says Elliott.

Image Credit: Red Phone Booth