Cocktails at The Whisky Club strive to balance flavors without losing the whiskey itself.

Despite their renewed popularity, cocktails of the gilded yore can still suggest stiff collars, French cuffs, cigars – a certain level of masculine formality. But not at The Whisky Club.

The Vieux Carré waltzes across your palate, the rye whiskey twirling in step with a sensation of candied citrus trailed by a ribbon of bitter zest. An Old Fashioned feels like privilege. Awakened by a dose of coffee, the “mocha” version of the classic cocktail takes you back to the ballroom, only this time the step is more dreamlike – a blur of sensations.

Such imagery comes from cocktails crafted with delicate balance from a stock of fine whiskeys, as well as a willingness to play around the fringes of tradition. For the stately New Orleans cocktail – the Vieux Carré – Mitchel Sawhney and his team put bénédictine aside in favor of a house-made simple syrup. It would seem a notch down, but instead the swap allows for flavors of mellow oak and the hoarse bite of grain to fall in with the vermouth and zest. The bar’s Signature Old Fashioned uses Buffalo Trace bourbon and has a sweet disposition with prominent notes of vanilla and toasted caramel. The cherry is – well, you know.

But they can push boundaries further. In the mocha Old Fashioned, coffee becomes the cocktail’s pivot point, its maypole, a fixture almost – but not quite – lost as whiskey and opulent fruit stream around it. Again, it is a smooth, balanced and intriguing sip.

THE WHISKY CLUB, 425 Alvarado St., Monterey. 241-6713, twc11.com