Jokes Aside

Balance before the first sip

A drink starts with a direction before the shaker moves. Johan Evers, co-founder of Jokes Aside in Stockholm, builds the bar around that order of work: type, feeling, structure, then the ingredient that can carry it. His path to this room began below the guest’s sightline, as a barback learning stock movement, reset, and pressure before he took the stick as bartender. Later roles as bar manager and food and beverage manager widened the station into timing, teams, service mechanics, and the decisions that make a room feel composed without feeling stiff. Since 2019, he has been co-founder at A Bar Called Gemma in Stockholm; since 2025, creator of Bar Othilia; since 2026, founder at Jokes Aside. The through-line is practical rather than decorative. Balance, flavour, and atmosphere arrive together, and the drink does not get to hide behind theatre.

Swedish technique, global reach

The program at Jokes Aside works from Swedish techniques and local ingredients, then lets the palate travel. Evers and the team draw from international flavours, but the build begins with clarity: what kind of drink it is, what feeling it should leave, and what structure will hold it. Seasonal rotations keep the list moving, with Swedish berries, herbs, and other local elements meeting spices, extracts, and spirits from elsewhere. The bar’s wine program stays minimal, which leaves the counter’s attention on mixed drinks, glassware, and the pace of service. That restraint suits Evers’s broader method. Copper Rights, his twist on a Manhattan, keeps the classic visible while shifting the balance through his own lens. Pearly carries a single idea rather than filling a slot. Gemma, from his signature work, uses gin, 24-hour macerated pistachio saké, ginger, and apple cider-vinegar preserved grapefruit and lime. At Jokes Aside, the same discipline appears as a house system: prep, base, acid, texture, temperature, and service all answering to the same point of view.

The counter keeps it light

The bar is small, conversational, and design-forward, with an almost entirely Swedish-built room setting the frame for the work. It aims for precision without solemnity. The mood matters here because Evers’s drink-making depends on atmosphere as much as recipe. A cocktail can be correctly made and still arrive cold in the wrong way. At Jokes Aside, the counter is meant to soften that distance: Swedish materials around the hands, global flavour in the glass, and a not-too-serious current running under the discipline.

A new room in the line

Jokes Aside extends Evers’s move from service floor to venue authorship, following A Bar Called Gemma and Bar Othilia without repeating either as a template. The room is young, opened in 2026, so its lineage will be written through the drinks that stay, the rotations that leave, and the team that learns the station under pressure. For now, the clearest thing to hold is the method: a Stockholm bar built around Swedish technique, seasonal cocktails, and Johan Evers at Jokes Aside.