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(Yelp)

Coconut Grove’s Taurus Bar, where a wall of whisk(e)ys reigns supreme.

Taurus and Doya Bars Serve Up Miami Old and New

The watering holes of our past and future

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The Grovite is pointing across the street.

“I remember when Josh built that wall. I don’t know exactly what he was doing, but it looked like a lot of hard work. That smaller wall,” she said, as she pointed down the street toward The Barnacle and The Cloisters, “was already old by then.”

The Josh she’s talking about is Josh Billig, a well-known figure in these parts – a stonecutter and historian who became internationally famous for a hot second when he was hired to cut out and move the Miami Circle, but put off starting the work until the site could be preserved.

Of course he’d be better known for the work he didn’t do than the work he did – old Coconut Grove is like that. And there’s really no place that says “old Coconut Grove” like The Taurus, where we’re sitting.

The awning outside says, “Beer and Whisk(e)y House,” but you get a better idea of what’s in store from the historical marker on the front gate. Not what it says, but just the fact that it’s there.

The Grovite remembers the place when it was new, when the bar was wood covered in an inch of clear polyurethane, when people played backgammon in a room at the rear, and when she would make spiral designs with a credit card in the little piles of white powder on the bar after hours.

“Maybe you shouldn’t mention that part,” the Grovite mused. “It was a different time.”

Nowadays, the bar is granite, the backgammon room is a courtyard and there’s no sign of the illicit indulgences of the 1970s. There is still something timeless about the place, though. A fire burns merrily in a hearth, casting a flickering, amber light through a wall of whisk(e)ys behind the bar. There may be big-screen TVs hanging overhead, but most of the patrons are there to talk to each other, engaging in the old-fashioned art of conversation.

“We’re the oldest bar in Miami,” said Nancy, the bartender, with a broad smile. The Taurus might have been founded in 1969 but it isn’t exactly frozen in time. A test from the 1970s: Do they still pour a Harvey Wallbanger?

“We don’t even have Galliano,” Nancy laughed, referencing the vodka used in the cocktail’s classic recipe. “I can’t even think of a time I’ve used orange juice in a drink in the last six months.”

Like anywhere else in the Biscayne Corridor, the single most popular order here is a Tito’s and soda. But, Nancy says, whiskey sales combined easily outdo that drink. To explain how that’s possible, she offers a platonic ideal of a cocktail: the house old fashioned. There’s no orange juice in this, just a generous twist of orange peel that disburses a soothing aroma over a chilled blend of Benchmark bourbon, bitters and sugar.

Sipping this standard, solid cocktail, it’s easy to slip into a reverie visualizing the Miami that was, when (as the Grovite assures us) there were way fewer ice cream shops and way more sandal makers. But from the Biscayne Tippler’s more equitable perspective, nostalgia is a kind of pain. (Literally – the word means the “algos,” or pain, of “nostos,” to return home.) It’s soothing to balance one’s gazing into the past with a look toward the future.

Old Miami is always giving way to new Miami, and there are few places that exemplify the new as much as Doya. After opening in late 2021, the Aegean meze bar is well on the way to becoming a Wynwood landmark.

Where The Taurus took its name from its original status as a bar attached to a steakhouse, Doya’s kitchen serves meze, little plates of Greek and Turkish nibbles. And while The Taurus is a hidden, cozy haven of what might be called Miami hygge, Doya is open, airy and in the heart of a bustling tourist mecca.

Beverage director Anthony Medina moved to Miami from New York in 2021, “just before the opening of Doya,” he said. “What we were looking for was to give Miami an original concept, a fresh proposal, an alternative for people to share flavors with friends or family, unique and different.”

The bar may be practically adjacent to the street art of Wynwood Walls, but the vibe here is less urban graffiti than urbane tranquility. The place may look to the future, but it’s keeping a foot firmly planted in the past.

“It’s about history, culture, traditions,” said Medina.

But with the joy he takes in his work, you can tell it’s also about pushing those traditions toward new frontiers.

Medina won’t suggest a drink without asking you a few questions first. Then, after figuring out your flavors and your mood, he might put forward a Magic & Tonic, made with locally distilled Magic City Gin. Or he might offer you the Sultan, blended from rye, amaro, absinthe, mezcal and coffee liqueur. That one in particular, he says, possesses a “complexity (that) reflects what great sultans achieved in the past.”

Another cocktail that shows off Doya’s strengths – and Medina’s creativity behind the bar – is the Bursa, an earthy, spicy drink inspired by one of Turkey’s iconic cities.

THE BURSA

INGREDIENTS

  • Herradura tequila blanco
  • Ojo de Tigre mezcal
  • Ginger-turmeric juice
  • Lime juice
  • Hagave syrup

METHOD

  • The exact proportions of this drink remain Doya’s secret, but it’s served in a tall glass generously rimmed with tajin – a blend of chili peppers, lime and sea salt – and garnished with a large sprig of dill. Based on the name and flavor of the spicy syrup the recipe calls for, it’s a safe guess that it’s made by infusing agave with habanero.

Miami can be a puzzling place, home to both the prehistoric Miami Circle and the skyscrapers that shade it, and throngs crowding to see the modern art that might get its artists arrested if they painted it on any walls other than Wynwood’s. The old city shows through the new facades, and new directions sprout crazily out of the old traditions of a dozen or more countries. We like looking back to look forward, and we’re happy to look forward to looking back again.