Party time
Anyone who’s ever sunken themselves into College Street hot spot Track & Field knows that it definitely brings the party. Rousing games of bocce ball are played while many a vodka soda is tossed back. But craft cocktails? Not so much. So when the former Buster Rhino’s space nearby freed up, owners Nickie Minshall and Dustin Keating found themselves praying that “something cool” with cocktails and snacks would open. It turns out, it was all up to them.

Squad goals
The partners — both on and off the clock — tackled a swarm of renos themselves, scooping up their chef pal Sonia Mondino to help along the way (a text message was composed, and the response was all happy emojis). Next, the duo enlisted T & F mainstay Max Brunke to take over the drinks program.

The Make Nice cocktail

Playing nice
Known as something of a wunderkind amongst the T & F crew — Brunke rapidly skipped from busser to bartender in a year’s time — Minshall and Keating gave him full rein with the bar’s libations. The signature Make Nice matches Miguel Torres pisco with passion fruit purée, rose-infused Cointreau, egg white and lime ($13). Dried rose petals add the finishing touch.
“I wanted to mix up a classic pisco sour,” Brunke says, whose travels played a inspirational role in the behind-the-scenes tale of the ’tail. He happened to be in Lima, Peru, for a civic holiday where water was removed from a downtown fountain and replaced with — what else? — pisco. “There was actual pisco flowing from the fountain!” he says. After lapping some up, Bunke promptly got so sick he was hospitalized, but it failed to deter him. “I fell in love with pisco,” he says. 

Pray Tell, 838 College St.