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The farm-to-table concept isn't just for the kitchen. Bartenders also are getting in on the farm-fresh action, offering fresh (often organic) ingredients coupled with old-fashioned techniques. Cocktails have taken a turn for the better in the past year — the national trends that highlight the "culinary cocktail," where bartender becomes chef, coupled with the resurgence of the classics and the techniques that follow them are alive and well with Atlanta bartenders.

Mixologist. Bar craftsman. Liquid artist. Bar chef. The label doesn't matter: What makes a great bartender these days is her attention to the same details a chef would adhere to: procuring really fresh ingredients, exploring possibilities and following sound techniques. Combine all this culinary prowess with the widespread availability of small-batch and boutique liquors, and cocktails are suddenly as revered as wine. Pink drinks are passé; the new guard mixes cocktails that are less sweet, and better for you — using juices, foams and gels to fortify drinks with vitamins and antioxidants as well as booze. Many bar chefs are making their own tonics and bitters, pickling their own onions and concocting herb-and-spice potions.

Becky Stein/special (ENLARGE)
Lindy Colburn's Beleza drinks are healthy as well as hedonistic — but she's leaving her bartending job for family reasons.
Joey Ivansco/Staff (ENLARGE)
Restaurant Eugene's Greg Best, creating an 'Alphonse,' also is exiting to run the bar at the sister restaurant next door.
Renee' Hannans Henry (ENLARGE)
Lara Creasy's 'La Migra' mixes lime and orange juices, Hornitos reposado tequila, Grand Marnier and warming guajillo pepper.
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The relationship between chef and bar chef has become a necessary pairing as well. Many chefs work directly with their barkeeps to make sure the mix is just right. The result? The fresh philosophy from the kitchen trickles over to the bar, becoming an extension of the kitchen in the same way the wine list marries with the menu. These five mixologists in Atlanta best embody this cocktail esprit de corps.

Lindy Colburn at Beleza Restaurant and Lounge

905 Juniper St., Atlanta. 678-904-4582. www.belezarestaurant.com

Best drink: Acerola Mojito

Critic's note: As we go to press, Beleza owner Riccardo Ullio informs me that Colburn will be leaving to work for a wine distributor; as a mom, she wanted better hours for herself and her daughter, which nobody understands better than this critic. Before leaving, she created an entire year's worth of cocktails for Beleza, and Ullio plans to continue to develop the bar program as diligently as he has in the past. Her talent will be missed ...

Passion is a large element of the unpredictable, and in that sense Beleza delivers on all accounts. The offerings are beautiful, unexpected and — here's the kicker — good for you. Inspired by trips to Brazil, owner Riccardo Ullio has brought to Juniper Street a small space with a very big personality. At once it offers some of the best — if not the best — culinary cocktails from mixologist Lindy Colburn doubled with a menu inspired by Brazil, but certainly not beholden to it. Ullio and Colburn have teamed up to offer drinks and bites that are healthful yet hedonistic. Certainly the most Brazilian thing about Beleza (which means "beauty" in Portuguese) is the bar. The drinks here are fresh, full-flavored masterpieces: a mojito made from acerola (a tart, tropical tree cherry with a bijillion doses of vitamin C in one serving) is sweetened with agave nectar and the usual lime and mint. It's the best I've had in Atlanta. A Key lime and coconut caipirinha made with coconut-infused cachaça needs to be listed with the government as a controlled substance. Pineapple and vanilla pair in a smooth caipirissima (sort of the red-headed stepchild of the caipirinha) with vanilla rum, muddled pineapple, agave nectar and crushed ice. It tastes as if you are swallowing summer. Batidas (think Latin smoothies) and fresh sodas like passion fruit and pomegranate are alcohol alternatives. Colburn's steady hand and attitude make her one of the city's best. 5:30-11 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays; 5:30 p.m.-midnight Fridays-Saturdays; 5:30-10 p.m. Sundays. Lounge open until 2:30

a.m. Tuesdays-Saturday and midnight Sundays. $$-$$$

Greg Best at Restaurant Eugene

2277 Peachtree Road N.E., Atlanta. 404-355-0321. www.restauranteugene.com

Best drink: Alphonse Cocktail

Chef-owner Linton Hopkins has turned this lovely Buckhead gem into a four-star destination. And one of the best places to enjoy his offerings is at the bar, where mixologist Greg Best creates lively, old-fashioned cocktails to pair with the kitchen's well-sourced meats and vegetables. Hopkins cooks by the creed all chefs should: Fresh, local, seasonal — and Best follows his lead. Part chemist, part artist, Best pickles his own onions and stocks a bar that boasts a bounty of boutique liquors such as Michter's small batch rye and Sarticious gin. The "Sergio Leone" has a hard-hitting reputation with Michter's small batch rye, Amaretto Di Saronno and Angostura bitters. The "Alphonse" sounds like something Fonzie and Richie would slurp, but is a refreshing mix of brut champagne, Dubonnet Rouge and Regan's orange bitters, the perfect mix of a little sweet and a lot of sour. Dinner: 5:30-10 p.m. Sundays-Thursdays; 5:30-11 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays. $$$$

Critic's note: As we go to press, Best will be leaving Restaurant Eugene to run the bar at its sister restaurant next door, Holeman & Finch Public House. He will be replaced by his assistant, Nick Hearin, who's already blazing his way to bar fame making drinks with names like "Scorched Earth."

Lara Creasy at Shaun's

1029 Edgewood Ave. N.E., Atlanta. 404-577-4358. www.shaunsrestaurant.com

Best drink: La Migra

Chef Shaun Doty's menu is true bistro, a term that gets thrown around as easily in Atlanta as peroxide and Palm Pilots, though very few of those using it actually know what it means. It means small, down-to-earth, affordable. It's usually chef-driven, and the chef is usually the owner — that's Shaun's. Bartender Lara Creasy is to Doty what Abbott was to Costello: a solid anchor of ideas that enhance Doty's menu offerings. Creasy often spends weeks coming up with new concoctions, and will stop at nothing short of perfection, trying and retrying combinations until she gets it just right. Fresh fruit juices are often where she begins: a mix of Absolut ruby red vodka, Campari and super-fresh grapefruit juice — all on the rocks — packs a mouth-puckering punch. But "La Migra" shows off Creasy's, um, spirits best with a mix of lime and orange juices, Hornitos reposado tequila, Grand Marnier and a hit of warming guajillo pepper. Dinner: 5-10 p.m. Wednesdays-Thursdays; 5-11 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays; 5-9 p.m. Sundays. Brunch: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Sundays. $$$

Russell McQueary at the Globe

75 Fifth St. N.W., Atlanta. 404-541-1487.www.globeatlanta.com

Best drink: Pimm's Cocktail

Ultra-modern, the Globe embodies an attitude that is part SoHo, part San Francisco — and all Atlanta. In a city rife with mingling diversity, the Globe's über-contemporary atmosphere is where it's at, baby. Chef Joshua Perkins' worldly menu is light and inviting, and bartender Russell McQueary mirrors the beauties from the kitchen at the restaurant's ultra-sleek bar. Like the kitchen, the vibe at the bar takes classics to a hip, modern level with a champagne cocktail of Courvoisier, orange brandy, sugar and bitters topped with a hit of bubbly. But McQueary's take on the old-fashioned Pimm's cup cocktail is a clear-cut case of everything old is new again — to muddled lime, orange and mint he pours Pimm's No. 1 and a hit of ginger ale. Lunch: 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Mondays-Fridays. Dinner: 5-11 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays; 5-11 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, bar open until 1 a.m. Brunch: 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays. $$$

Eric Simpkins at Trois

1180 Peachtree St., Atlanta. 404-815-3337. www.trois3.com

Best drink: The Trois Cocktail

Restaurateur Bob Amick is so much better when he puts his efforts into a grown-up venue such as Trois, then hires the most young, talented bartender on the planet to man the bar for him. Chef Jeremy Lieb has taken Amick's pinup fantasy of a modern French restaurant and brought it into flattering focus, albeit with a few strokes of the airbrush. Lieb's dishes possess a clever modernity that impress without overreaching, and Eric Simpkins' classy bar creations are their willing soul mates. A little crazy and a lot creative, Simpkins mixes old and new with classic technique brandished with the heat of youth: He infuses brandy with local organic peaches to re-create a classic mint julep and offers the Vesper — a dry gin-and-vodka martini with lemon peel and lillet invented by James Bond in Ian Fleming's classic, "Casino Royale." A big believer in good gin, his pinnacle of perfection is the Trois cocktail, a groovy mix of gin-infused green tea and mint mixed with simple syrup, lemon juice and egg white shaken with ice until frothy and sprayed with a mist of rosewater. Lunch: 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Mondays-Fridays. Dinner: 5:30-10:30 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays; 5:30-11:30 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays; 5:30-10 p.m. Sundays. $$$-$$$$