At Ballard’s Essex, mason jars with Sharpie-labels—housing, oh, a celery tincture or a vanilla angostura—line the top shelf and sing trophy-like testament to the same handcrafted tradition of its next-door pizza-slinging sibling Delancey. And if the taco and tiki Tuesdays seem like a non sequitur for a Euro-tinged bar, they’re also a welcome reminder that our cocktails can come with a grin as well as a pensively furrowed brow.