Aligning the menu in the header while keeping drop-menu items closer each other

I was trying to align the menu text closer to the bottom, and not in the middle as default.
I used the below code but that makes the space between dropdown menu items huge

#top .main_menu .menu li a {
padding-top: 20px;
}

I like to keep the space between drop-down menu items same, but align the menu to start closer to the content area.