MARLIAVE

By CARA BAYLES | PHOTOS ANTHONY O'BRIEN

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Tucked away on a sleepy downtown strip, recently reopened Marliave is a secret enclave destined to become impossibly popular. But when we wandered in on a Sunday afternoon, the place was empty except for Melissa the waitress, Robbie the bartender, Jackie the bar manager and Scott Herritt, Grotto's infamous chef, who bought Marliave after it was shut down two years ago. First founded as a hotel/bar in 1875, Marliave's gimmick is Prohibition-era cocktails, and I was told, "You might have to make it a three-drink minimum." Ha! We're seasoned professionals here.

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Drink 1: Waterloo ($10). The Waterloo is gin, simple syrup, lemon and a champagne floater, and it's light, crisp and sweet without being syrupy. It also comes with a lemon twist, a garnish that rests on the glass, and kept hitting me in the face until I finally asked Robbie if it's rude to take it off (it's not, but they're a pain in the ass to make). Be nice to your bartenders or they just might recycle garnishes ... only kidding, Department of Public Health!

Drink 2: Amelia Earhart ($10). Made with quintessential gin, maraschino liqueur and lemon, this drink is sweet and inexplicably minty, as the aviator herself no doubt tasted. I pick it in solidarity with my pal Maggie, who wrote an essay on Ms. Earhart in fourth grade. Herritt tells us Earhart lived in Medford and freelanced for the Globe (Maggie knew none of these fun facts), and that the Waterloo was named as such because Napoleon said that when he won a battle he drank Champagne to celebrate, and when he lost he drank it to make himself feel better.

Drink 3: Boston Tea Party ($10). Who drinks tea at night, even if it does have tequila in it? Definitely a day drink. Marliave serves brunch until 4pm, so we order the French toast, which is soft and comes with sweet cheese and strawberries; one wouldn't dare muddle it with maple syrup. We also learn Marliave uses a Kold-Draft machine, which makes perfectly square ice cubes that "preserve the integrity of the alcohol" (don't know who said that, but I wrote it down).

Drink 4: The Great Experiment ($10). Wow. The thing about the drinks at Marliave is that they're strong without punching you in the face, and they're tasty but not heavy. This drink is Jackie's invention—Hendrick's gin, mint, cucumber, spices, lemon, orange—named for Prohibition. Marliave is proud of its failure in the experiment: It was once a speakeasy, and Herritt displays a framed notification that Capt. Reardon's liquor squad (the name of my next rock band) found 5 gallons of booze there before the 21st Amendment passed.

Drink 5: Molasses Flood of 1919 ($10). My old high school buddies point out we learned about this incident freshman year, but I'm not remembering much at this point. My notebook's hijacked and scrawled with notes about a concept for the next season of Survivor (Billings, Montana!), how if I'd dated Maggie's cousin I could've gone to Iowa for free and what a funny name Jay Feeley is. The place fills up and I try a sixth drink, the Yellow Journalism ($10), for extra credit (three drink minimum indeed!).