Dry Goods Cold Drinks is Shanghai's Newest Speakeasy

By Betty Richardson

Shanghai isn’t done with speakeasies yet – far from it. In fact, we’ll go so far as to say the city has undergone something of a speakeasy revival thanks to several new ‘underground’ openings, including Dry Goods Cold Drinks (DGCD hereafter), hidden behind the façade of a general store.
Sharing digs with the (excellent) adjoining steakhouse Roosevelt Prime, DGCD sits in what used to function as the restaurant’s off-site wine cellar.
It’s been a fairly hasty reconstruction. Vestiges from the venue’s former life can still be found, including (empty) wine bottles from little known wineries like Petrus Pomerol, Chateaus Margaux and Latour. Heard of them? Us neither.
Drinks have a pretty classic vibe – it is adjoined to a steakhouse after all. We’re not sure we can see Don Draper necking three marmalade addled breakfast martinis (RMB68, maybe a ‘Grumpy Old Man,’ RMB78, is more his persuasion?), though the accessible price point of the menu is a welcome change from the whole RMB120 for a negroni shtick. None of the cocktails go above RMB88.
If you are drinking on a budget, and we mean, like, really drinking, opt for the ‘Ndràngheta (RMB58, named after the Calabrian mafia and a fitting analogy for the bar’s gangster hideout vibe); this is the only time we’ve drunk Fernet Branca and not winced.

For whatever science/mixology reasons yours truly can’t aptly explain, this specific balance of Jim Beam Black, Campari, Montenegro Amaro and good old FB results in a libation that tastes like it has very little alcohol in it. A ‘panty drop punch,’ if you will. Suffice to say you’re not going to the designated taxi hailer after a few of these.
Other than cocktails, the whisky program here is strong and with plenty for rye and bourbon imbibers to get excited about, though mainly focused on whale clientele who buy by the bottle. Lucky us little guys aren’t getting short changed on the cocktails.

To Enter:
Go through 'Dry Goods & General Merchandise' store on Yongjia Lu and take a left out of the store and into a door directly ahead.
Press this here button at the peak of the pyramid and enjoy the bar/lifetime membership into the illuminati.

Price: drinks from RMB50-88.
Who’s going: locals and expats, whales, possible Mafiosi
Good for: cocktails, whisky

Dry Goods Cold Drinks, Entrance via 'Dry Goods,' 128 Yongjia Lu, by Jianguo Lu.

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