Summer sipping

BY RUTH TOBIAS

Maine

Havana, 318 Main Street, Bar Harbor, (207) 288-2822. While the classic Cuban cocktails, mojitos and periodistas, are the toast of this Latin-style café, it's the rum-based Havana martini ($7.50) that gets my vote for Most Tropical Transport. Pineapple and lime flavors dominate, both in the glass via fresh juice and on the rim as garnish; orange-flavored Cointreau cuts the tartness just a touch.

Michaela's, 18 Monument Square, Portland, (207) 780-1818. The bar at year-old Michaela's, a contemporary American bistro, produces a mojito ($7) noteworthy for its sprightly summery twist: the inclusion of blueberries. The standard mojito combines white rum with sugar, club soda, lime, and crushed mint; Michaela's packs its punch with Bacardi Limón clothed in the velvet glove of the berries, whose flavor pairs so smoothly with those of citrus and fresh mint that even if you know what hit you, you won't much care.

Local 188, 188 State Street Portland, (207) 761-7909. Granted, Jenny Gardiner, mixologist at this art-gallery-turned-chic-café, didn't invent white sangria ($4 glass/$15 pitcher). But she sure reinvents it come summer, and her generosity with ingredients results in a quasi-fruit-salad. Says Gardiner, "It varies from batch to batch, but generally I like to put peaches, pineapple, mango, and strawberries in white wine, and leave them to soak for a couple of days. If I have apricots, they'll go in, too." But her secret weapon, she admits, is wine-poached pear; the double maceration boosts the overall effect of boozy, lightly fizzy sweetness that gives Spanish-born sangria its good name among us sugar-high American imbibers.

Massachusetts

Noir, 1 Bennett Street, Cambridge, (617) 864-8010. Speaking of sangria, the Charles Hotel's swank Noir Bar has come up with a wink-wink drink for summer that it calls "instant sangria" ($9), whereby a perfectly respectable glass of pinot noir goes daringly wayward with a nudge from Chambord, a raspberry liqueur, and a tumbling of oranges and cherries. Equally sly is the Naughty Au Pair ($9), a blend of Stoli Vanil and pear brandy topped off with Champagne, that handily replaces dessert on a sultry summer's eve, when your appetite for food wanes with the heat, but your taste for sexier things is in full swing.

Teatro, 177 Tremont Street, Boston, (617) 778-6841. For such a tiny space, Teatro -- scrunched in beside the mammoth Loews multiplex in the Theater District -- has generated an enormous buzz over the past few months. And in the course of a single evening, it'll generate one for you too -- namely in the form of a bubbly California Hot Tub ($10). The drink starts with the lush pineapple vodka that bartender Ned Greene infuses in-house for a whole week; a splash each of Chambord and sour mix, plus a floater of the Italian sparkling wine known as Prosecco, fill the tub almost to overflowing. So take the plunge -- just don't get in over your head.

UpStairs on the Square, 91 Winthrop Street, Cambridge, (617) 864-1933. Reigning over the Club Bar on the ground floor of the new UpStairs, übertender Lolly Mason exudes the same zany energy we might associate with the very Alice in Wonderland character for whom she has named her latest creation. Indeed, Mad Hatter's Tea ($10) is an almost psychedelic mingling of flavor sensations; basing it jointly on a South African vanilla tisane and Souza Gold tequila, Mason goes on to include melon-flavored Midori, almond-tinged amaretto, apple schnapps, orange bitters, pineapple juice, grapefruit juice, cranberry juice, and, finally soda -- all in a single wineglass. What, no teacup?

Radius, 8 High Street, Boston, (617) 426-1234. Radius has maintained its chic momentum since day one, in the sleek bar no less than in the minimalist dining room. Now, well past day 1000, bar manager Judge DeCicero is forging ahead with a flair for fruit purées, transforming traditional cocktails into tangy, tailor-made treats. The Dixe Fraîche ($10) is his take on the raspberry-lime rickey. Rather than including the more pedestrian flavored syrup, DeCicero adds fresh raspberry purée to Tanqueray gin, soda, and lime juice. He also inflames the usually cool, soothing mojito with Bacardi Orange and passion-fruit juice ($10).

Atria, 137 Main Street, Edgartown, (508) 627-5850. Of Martha's Vineyard's choice dining destinations, Atria is one of the choicest for the balance it maintains between respecting raw materials and transforming them. Its summer-cocktail menu alone is an exercise in making the familiar sparkle. Take the green-bamboo martini ($10), which proprietor Christian Thornton (who collaborated on the new menu with his bartending staff) likens to "a lemonade that's gonna get you tanked." The blend of Bombay Sapphire, Cointreau, and lemon juice derives its spicy kick from fresh ginger and crushed mint. Meanwhile, a piña-colada martini ($10), with Malibu rum, coconut milk, and pineapple juice, preserves the creamy savor of the concoction it's based on while losing its froufrou connotations, coming as it does straight up in a martini glass.

RooBar, 586 Main Street, Hyannis, (508) 778-6515; 285 Main Street, Falmouth, (508) 548-8600; 907 Main Street, Chatham, (508) 945-9988. With locations popping up all over the Cape, the RooBar is always hopping. The fact that the cocktails are 10 ounces apiece may or may not encourage said hopping, but the Red Bull some of them contain undoubtedly does. In particular, the Bob Dole ($12) is a Bull-fueled blast of seasonal fruit-flavored booze, from strawberry vodka to peach schnapps to raspberry liqueur; bartender Shannon Roddy even manages to squeeze in some orange and cranberry juice for extra tang.

Rhode Island

Salvation Café, 140 Broadway, Newport, (401) 847-2620. In the summer of 2001, Newport's long-time funky fave outfunked itself by installing a tiki bar; two years later, the potions concocted by bar manager Terrance Leach share that original quirky spirit. Take Leach's own inspired version of the mojito, which he calls the mojito crush ($7) -- it's frozen, margarita-style. So, for that matter, is his strawberry-mint limeade ($7), which starts out innocently enough with limeade, mint, and fresh strawberry purée, and then goes bad with the addition of citrus-flavored vodka -- which is to say it's very, very good. Even sin can be Salvation.

Cheeky Monkey, 14 Perry Mill Wharf, Newport, (401) 845-9494. True to his place of employment, bartender Hank Whitin is sufficiently cheeky when introducing this summer's specialty drink: "It's not just the New Jen Kelly martini," he stresses, it's "the New New Jen Kelly martini [$7]. Make sure you get that second `New.'" Got it, Hank. What you'll also get is the alcoholic equivalent of a packet of SweeTarts: Absolut Citron, Mathilde Framboise (a French raspberry liqueur), and pineapple juice, shaken and served straight up.

Pineapples on the Bay, 1 Goat Island, Hyatt Regency Newport, (401) 851-3325. This poolside café overlooking Narragansett Bay is open only from June to September; tropical concoctions are its bread and butter. And the crowning morsel is the Pineapple Passion ($7.50), a blend of banana rum, pineapple schnapps, pineapple juice, mango purée, and vanilla ice cream. Both frothy and creamy, sweet and, well, sweeter, it's fodder for the froufrou fan in all of us.

Ten Prime Steak and Sushi, 55 Pine Street, Providence, (401) 453-2333. The sophisticate in all of us, on the other hand, might just as soon hit Ten for a drink that's the ultimate in understatement, yet utterly refreshing, dewy and clean: the cucumber martini ($8.50). Two ingredients suffice: Vanhoo vodka and the juice of a skinned cucumber. ("Yes, you must juice a skinned cucumber!" proclaims bartender Ted Newcomer Jr.) They're shaken and served straight up in a chilled martini glass, garnished, of course, with a wedge of the veg. Ten can also, however, get festive with the best of 'em; take the sunburn margarita ($7.50), which combines peach vodka, triple sec, sour mix, and cranberry juice in a red-sugar-rimmed margarita glass for a sipper that looks as flushed as it'll make you feel.

Bevo, 566 South Main Street, Providence, (401) 751-2386. Downright hot and bothered is how you'll feel when imbibing at Bevo, where the drinks are as steamy as the weather to come, with names to show for it. For bartender Sarah Merkert, black-raspberry liqueur is the mixer of the moment, and she includes it in both the French Tickler ($8) -- which further titillates the taste buds with raspberry vodka and Champagne --and the Orgy martini ($8), in which it joins vodka, peach schnapps, cranapple and pineapple juices, and yet more of the bubbly. So far, so good? Well, Bevo serves 133 more martini varieties where those two came from -- why not while away the summer trying them all?

Ruth Tobias can be reached at ruthiet@bu.edu.