Eater NY - Eater's Third Annual Cocktail WeekThe New York City Restaurant, Bar, and Nightlife Bloghttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52682/favicon-32x32.png2014-10-23T13:40:30-04:00http://ny.eater.com/rss/stream/67845422014-10-23T13:40:30-04:002014-10-23T13:40:30-04:00Milk & Honey's Cocktail Savant Sasha Petraske's Never Ever Had a Hangover in His Life
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<p>As Milk & Honey 2.0 gets ready to close, Petraske explains his plans for the 3.0 edition and a fried chicken pop-up, plus his simple method for avoiding hangovers. </p> <p>When <span>barman Sasha Petraske opened </span><span>Milk & Honey </span><span>—</span><span> </span><a href="http://ny.eater.com/2009/2/18/6773757/end-of-civilization-milk-honey-posts-phone-number">New York's original speakeasy-styled cocktail den</a><span> </span><span>— </span><span>15 years</span><span> ago, he didn't know how to operate a printer. So he opened without a physical menu. B</span><span>y the time he figured out the printer thing, it was too late. Milk & Honey had already earned a reputation as the bar with creative bespoke cocktails and no menu. But when Milk & Honey </span><a style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: #ffffff;" target="_blank" href="http://ny.eater.com/2013/1/25/6490399/beloved-cocktail-den-milk-honey-now-open-in-new-23rd-street-space">relocated</a><span> to a more spacious home on 23rd Street early last year, it became a bar not only with a drink menu, but with food, too. And now the cocktail lounge is being </span><a style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: #ffffff;" target="_blank" href="http://ny.eater.com/2014/9/23/6834623/milk-and-honey-to-close-next-month-move-back-downtown">forced to move</a><span> </span><span>yet again; October 25 marks the last hurrah. </span><span>On a recent Tuesday night at 7 p.m., however, it was business as usual, booths were filled, barstools occupied, and eager imbibers collecting in the front parlor.</span></p>
<p>After the shutter, Petraske plans to move the bar back downtown, although he has yet to find a suitable home, despite scouting for the last six months. He's hoping to downsize (right now Milk & Honey has 68 seats as opposed to 24 at the original), and he will likely do away with food. The earliest Milk & Honey could reopen is February. But, the silver lining is that in the meantime, possibly in December, Petraske will launch a <b>pop-up bar in Red Hook dedicated to fried chicken and margaritas</b>. Meanwhile, he tells us about a bottle of booze with a pickled baby cobra in it, drinking on the job, and how he's managed to never, <i>ever</i>, have a hangover.</p>
<p><span><b>What's the craziest thing that's happened at Milk & Honey over the years?</b></span><i style="line-height: 1.5; font-weight: bold;"> </i></p>
<p><i style="line-height: 1.5; font-weight: bold;"></i><span>The craziest thing I can not say ... We have a security camera and I once saw a one-legged man in a wheelchair chasing a cat at three o'clock in the morning. I just happened to be looking. </span></p>
<p><span><b>Most unusual drink request? </b></span></p>
<p><i style="font-weight: bold;"></i>I<span>'ve had people come in with challenging spirits. I once had a guy come in with a bottle filled with a bunch of herbs in a yellow liquid, but the main thing suspended in this liquid was a pickled baby cobra. It was from Thailand. And so they brought this thing in and set it down on the bar and asked me to make a </span>cocktail<span> with it. And the truth is that I could not improve upon it. </span></p>
<p><b>When you finished a shift, you reach for a...</b></p>
<p>I encourage my staff to drink on the job and you can quote me on that. So, at the end of a shift I'm probably going for breakfast.</p>
<p><b>Is there such thing as the perfect cocktail?</b></p>
<p>The cocktail bartender has a particular opinion about the question of whether there's a sound when a tree falls in the forest. The perfect cocktail is the one that is perceived as perfect at that particular time.</p>
<p><b>Hangover cure?</b></p>
<p>I've never had a hangover in my life. I drink water.</p>
https://ny.eater.com/2014/10/23/7042379/milk-and-honey-sasha-petraske-interviewKat Odell2014-10-23T11:05:45-04:002014-10-23T11:05:45-04:00A Bartender Gives the Rundown on the Craft Cocktail 'Program' at Manhattan's First Denny's
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<p>Yes, people order the $300 Grand Cru Slam with eggs and a bottle of Dom on the regular. </p> <p>At 10 p.m. on a Saturday night, the Denny's in the Financial District is about as crowded as you'd expect it to be. Few tables in the large, split-level space are occupied, and there's no one at the bar besides a handful of Eater editors and the friendly young bartender who worked previously at an uptown Applebee's. Over the course of a couple cocktails — and a giant plate of cheesy hash browns, fried jalapenos, and mozzarella sticks — she talks about how the craft cocktail program works at the diner chain.</p>
<div style="width: 23%; float: right; margin: 1% 0 1% 0; min-width: 100px;"><a href="http://ny.eater.com/cocktail-week" target="_blank"><img src="http://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2365520/cocktail_week-01.0.png" alt="cocktail week logo" class="small" width="90%"></a></div>
<p><b>How does the drink menu work?</b></p>
<p>For now, all the drinks at Denny's are plays on the classics. But, before the end of the year, we're going to change the menu. Our head bartender is always back here behind the bar mixing things and experimenting with new drinks.</p>
<p><b>You should infuse a drink with bacon. </b></p>
<p><b></b><i>[Laughs] </i>Maybe! Especially if people are coming in and requesting it, I could see us putting it on the menu.</p>
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<p><b>What kind of crowd do you typically draw? </b></p>
<p><b></b>It's not so busy usually at nights, but we do really good business at breakfast and for happy hour. People come in after work.<b></b></p>
<p><b>Most of the drinks on your cocktail menu are $10. What kind of specials do you offer? </b></p>
<p><b></b>We get those businessmen coming in after they get off the clock, so we do happy hour from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays. At happy hour, there's $4 or $5 beer, $7 glasses of wine, and an $8 cocktail of the day.<b></b></p>
<p>During brunch, guests can get a cocktail and an entrée for $16, and there's the Biggie Brunch, which is a T-bone steak, cheese, eggs, Welch's grape juice, and a cocktail for $24.</p>
<p><b>Some of these cocktails take time to make. How do you keep up with demand when the restaurant is busy?</b></p>
<p><b> </b>We pre-batch some of our most popular drinks at the beginning of the week. The Lower Manhattan and the Vesper are in big glass dispensers over the bar. Everyone loves the Lower Manhattan. People order it all the time, even at brunch. It's been our cocktail of the day at happy hour for a while now.<b></b></p>
<p>We also keep prosecco on tap, and we have the Manhattan Cream Soda on tap too. It has bourbon, vermouth, maple syrup, and vanilla.</p>
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<p><b>This is the first Manhattan Denny's, and the first on this coast with a bar. How did that come to be?</b></p>
<p>The neighborhood didn't want us here. We're right below condominiums, and the residents were worried about the crowds that a 24/7 establishment would bring in. But the locals did need a neighborhood bar, so we compromised. Now we have a bar and we're only open from 5 a.m. to midnight.</p>
<p>All of the Denny's in New York City will have bars. We're looking at opening one on 125th Street in Harlem, and another somewhere in Brooklyn.</p>
<p><b>Tell me about </b><a href="http://www.eater.com/2014/8/29/6163447/someone-actually-ordered-the-300-dennys-breakfast"><b>the $300 Grand Cru Slam</b></a><b>. How often do people order it? </b></p>
<p><b></b>It's Grand Slam entrees — pancakes, eggs, bacon, and sausage — for two, Dom Perignon champagne, and a bartender high five for $300.<b></b></p>
<p>I'd say people come in and order it about once a week — you'd be surprised. Most people are visiting, they're not from NYC, so they come in, they've seen it on Letterman, and they get it for the experience. They can tell their friends, "I went to Manhattan and had a $300 breakfast with Dom at Denny's."</p>
https://ny.eater.com/2014/10/23/7009115/dennys-breakfast-craft-cocktails-grand-slam-new-yorkSonia Chopra2014-10-22T16:51:55-04:002014-10-22T16:51:55-04:00Acme's Jon Neidich Opens His Retro Tropical Bar The Happiest Hour Next Week in the Village
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<p>Possibly the city's only cocktail bar that allows drinkers to sub in vodka to any cocktail.</p> <div style="width: 23%; float: left; margin: 1% 0 1% 0; min-width: 100px;"><a href="http://ny.eater.com/cocktail-week" target="_blank"><img src="http://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2365520/cocktail_week-01.0.png" alt="cocktail week logo" class="small" width="90%"></a></div>
<p><a href="http://ny.eater.com/2013/3/4/6473943/acmes-jon-neidich-and-jean-marc-houmard" style="line-height: 1.24;">Acme's Jon Neidich</a> is settling into a busy two weeks. <a href="http://ny.eater.com/2014/10/21/7026645/tijuana-picnic-may-finally-start-serving-mexican-asian-food-on-the">His Mexican/Asian mashup Tijuana Picnic with Jean-Marc Houmard and Huy Chi Le </a><span>is slated to finally open on November 3 in the old Laugh Lounge Space. But before that happens, he will open his retro-style bar and restaurant The Happiest Hour with</span><span> Jim Kearns, who counts stints at Pegu Club, The NoMad, and Death & Co among his experience. The back-to-back opening might explain why Tijuana took so long.</span></p>
<p><span>The space at the Happiest Hour is dark, but also tropically inspired. The bar plans to serve a small curated menu of seven drinks like the Sugar Shack (salted maple syrup, vermouth, soda, made with rum, applejack, or bourbon) and What the Doctor Ordered (sarsaparilla, vanilla, wintergreen, soda with rye, rum or scotch) and seven classics including a manhattan and an old fashioned. The most novel part of this cocktail menu is that all of the house drinks offer the drinker a choice of three different base spirits, and anything can be made with vodka instead (if that's really what you want to do).</span></p>
<p><span> There's a small food menu to go along with all that, which includes a burger, the requisite kale salad, buffalo cucumbers (which sound like they were lifted right of the Parm menu), and a curiously named salt and broccoli. The bar seats 15, but there's also a dining room which seats another 55. Downstairs, a separate bar area with a more old school vibe and a soundtrack of Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, and Gladys Knight, will open sometime soon. </span><i style="line-height: 1.5;">121 West 10th Street, Greenwich Village</i></p>
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<p><a href="https://go.redirectingat.com?id=66960X1516589&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.scribd.com%2Fdoc%2F244009716%2FThe-Happiest-Hour-Menu&referrer=eater.com&sref=https%3A%2F%2Fny.eater.com%2F2014%2F10%2F22%2F7040943%2Facme-vet-john-neidrich-is-opens-his-retro-tropical-inspired-bar-the" title="View The Happiest Hour Menu on Scribd" rel="sponsored nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Happiest Hour Menu</a></p>
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https://ny.eater.com/2014/10/22/7040943/acme-vet-john-neidrich-is-opens-his-retro-tropical-inspired-bar-theDevra Ferst2014-10-21T13:00:03-04:002014-10-21T13:00:03-04:00Veteran Bartender Tom Richter Wants Chefs to Get Out From Behind the Bar
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<p>Welcome to a special Cocktail Week edition of Lifers, in which Eater interviews the men and women who have worked in the restaurant and bar industry for the better part of their lives. Up now, Tom Richter, who's been bartending with the best for the past 30 years.</p> <div style="width: 23%; float: left; margin: 1% 0 1% 0; min-width: 100px;"><a href="http://ny.eater.com/cocktail-week" target="_blank"><img src="http://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2365520/cocktail_week-01.0.png" alt="cocktail week logo" class="small" width="90%"></a></div>
<p>What started out as just a way to supplement an acting career has become a career of over 30 years for bartending veteran Tom Richter. In recent years, he served as head bartender at (the dearly departed) Beagle, and now splits his time between Dear Irving, Milk & Honey, and Attaboy, while producing his own artisanal line of tonic called Tomr's Tonic on the side. Read on to hear about his influences, his least favorite drinks to make, and why bartenders should keep their cocktails simple.</p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 16px;">How did you get into bartending?</b></p>
<p>I feel like most bartenders who have been doing this as long as I have lied to get their first bartending jobs. That was about 30 years ago for me in Minneapolis. I told them I already knew how to bartend, but I didn't. Luckily I learned on the fly. I was acting back then, and you have to do be doing something between the shows, so I was always in and out of restaurants. I have actually worked in every capacity in a restaurant from front of house to back of house. The only position I haven't had is executive chef, but I've been on the line, I've bussed, I've dishwashed, I've worked pastry, I've waited, I've bar-backed, I've bartended, I've been a wine director, and I've been a general manager. I pulled out of theater a while back and I just do this now.</p>
<p><b>Every time I've been in this bar I've noticed you're training a bartender. Did you have any mentors when you got started?</b></p>
<p>There's a woman named Sylvie Darr who ran the bar program at Zuni Café in the late 80s, when I was there. That was really when this "fresh" thing was happening and we were doing some pretty cool stuff, like fresh squeezing limes into drink and emphasizing quality in the drinks we made. She taught me a lot about wine as well. I split my time between being a bartender and a sommelier/wine director after that. David Drake, a chef that I worked with in Jersey, was another mentor. We got to be really good friends, and he explained to me that I was doing exactly what he was doing, only with liquid. That made a lot of sense to me. And Sasha Petraske was definitely a mentor as well. When we reopened the <a class="sbn-auto-link" href="http://ny.eater.com/venue/the-john-dory-oyster-bar">John Dory Oyster Bar</a> he was definitely hands on. That was the benchmark for me as far as getting into this style of drinks, because he's the one. He pretty much created this style of bar with Milk & Honey back in 2000. Because of him, these types of cocktail bars are all over the world.</p>
<p><b>How important is it for you to teach younger bartenders what you know?</b></p>
<p>Well, you can't teach someone to give a shit. You either do or you don't. It's just about figuring about whether you care about this and whether this is what you want to do. A lot of bar-backs who want to learn train with me on Sundays, and a few are starting to move into bartending slots. That's the best way to learn this, by bar backing and really watching. When I was learning, I would go to bars and watch the bartender like a hawk. You can pick up a lot like that, but you have actually practice too in order to really learn it.</p>
<p><b>How long have you been at Dear Irving?</b></p>
<p>I have been here since the bar opened about four months ago. Before that I was the head bartender at <a class="sbn-auto-link" href="http://ny.eater.com/venue/the-beagle">The Beagle</a>, which was open for about two and a half years. I got to know Meaghan (Dorman) because a lot of bars that are of the Sasha Petraske family all know each other. When The Beagle closed I heard rumblings that she was going to be doing a new project. We met for dinner, talked, and she wanted me involved and I said absolutely. And I've been here ever since.</p>
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<p><b>Do you have a favorite drink to make?</b></p>
<p>I just like making cocktails. One of my drinks that has actually made it into the cocktail vernacular is the Haitian Divorce, which is basically a riff on an old fashioned (but made with rum, mezcal and Pedro Ximenez sherry). It's on the menu at Raines Law Room and they make it at Milk & Honey and Attaboy as well.</p>
<p><b>Have you gotten any requests over the years that have been particularly difficult to accommodate?</b></p>
<p>People will ask for the weirdest things. Like a Sazerac, but no alcohol.</p>
<p><b>But how would you mimic those flavors without alcohol?</b></p>
<p>You don't! I just say no. It's all alcohol. There's no way to do that. Also, say there's a really well done cocktail on the menu and someone wants to order a drink, but with vodka instead. Well, I typically say no. We put a lot of time into balancing that drink for the menu and swapping out a liquor would throw it way off balance. If you want a different spirit I'll just make you a different drink. Speaking of <span>which, there are a few drinks that people order that I don't even consider to be cocktails. Take vodka sodas: a mixture of two colorless, flavorless liquids. If that's your drink you should get a therapist and quit drinking.</span></p>
<p><b>Tell me about your tonic.</b></p>
<p>It was when I was doing a bar program for David Drake, I was researching the cocktails that I wanted to make, and the gin and tonic is pretty much the most ordered of all cocktails. At that time, and this was about seven years ago, there was nothing in terms of artisanal tonic. You were starting to get all these cool gins coming out onto the market, but only really crappy tonic. So I went online, found some tonic recipes and started experimenting with them. At first they all kind of sucked, but there were qualities from each recipe that I liked, so I started combining them until I had a recipe I liked. And it really hasn't changed since I first created it. It's a brown syrup, because I use real cinchona bark. Most tonics you get that are clear use chemically extracted quinine, add some high fructose corn syrup, and are then carbonated. That is what most people know as tonic, and that's just not acceptable. So I started making the tonic for this restaurant and people were losing their mind over it. They kept telling me to bottle it, which I avoided for a while because that seemed like too much work. But about two years later I started <a href="http://www.tomrstonic.com/" target="_blank">Tomr's Tonic</a>, and now we have global distribution.</p>
<p><b>What do you drink at home?</b></p>
<p>I drink Smith and Cross on the rocks and a lot of sherry, especially Palo Cortado. I was in Jerez recently and, while visiting Bodegas Hidalgo I was told that I could drink anything I wanted to without getting a hangover if I started the evening with a glass of amontillado. It's like medicine.</p>
<p><b>Did you see Pete Wells' article in the Times about bad restaurant cocktail programs? What do you think about this?</b></p>
<p>I think there is a little too much ego involved in those restaurants that are always trying to create their own take on a drink. I don't understand why they don't just make a great simple cocktail. Unfortunately, in restaurant bar programs too often the chef is involved. I think that they should stick to what they do and have somebody behind the bar who is also an expert, rather than just an extension of the chef. Often the drinks are overly complicated and self-ingratiating. Let's get down to a maximum of four ingredients if we can handle it. I would rather respect the artist that made that liquor than mess around with it.</p>
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<p><iframe src="https://ny.eater.com/videos/iframe?id=57660" frameborder="0" seamless="true" marginwidth="0" mozallowfullscreen="true" webkitallowfullscreen="true" name="57660-chorus-video-iframe"></iframe></p>
<b>Eater Video</b>: <i>The Vapotini - Getting Drunk Without a Single Sip of Booze</i>
https://ny.eater.com/2014/10/21/7028015/veteran-bartender-tom-richter-wants-chefs-to-get-out-from-behind-theLayla Khabiri2014-10-21T12:12:13-04:002014-10-21T12:12:13-04:00Bâtard's Cocktail Glassware Ranges from Family Heirlooms to Flea Market Finds
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<p>Order a cocktail at Batard, and you might find yourself drinking from a glass once owned by Drew Nieporent's mom. </p> <div style="width: 23%; float: left; margin: 1% 0 1% 0; min-width: 100px;"><a href="http://ny.eater.com/cocktail-week" target="_blank"><img src="http://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2365520/cocktail_week-01.0.png" alt="cocktail week logo" class="small" width="90%"></a></div>
<p>"My girlfriend jokes that every times she comes to the restaurant there is something from home that has made its way here" quips Jonathan Winterman, referring to the collection of vintage glassware at <a class="sbn-auto-link" href="http://ny.eater.com/venue/batard">Bâtard</a>. The managing partner of the Tribeca hot spot has been collecting vintage glasses for years, and decided to put some of them into service at Bâtard. <span>"I was always against having the exact same glass for every cocktail" he says. The mix </span>and<span> match philosophy dovetails perfectly with </span>the restaurant's unexpectedly casual atmosphere.</p>
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<p class="caption">The Baccarat glass on the right belonged to Nieporent's mother.</p>
<p>Winterman is constantly on the hunt for new glassware, visiting flea markets and antique stores with Batard bartender Candice Valettuti, who is tasked with caring for the collection. Winterman has even gotten his mother in on the act — she recently furnished a set of coupe glasses from an estate sale in Indiana. And <span>Drew Nieporent himself recently surprised the bar staff by donating a set of mid-century Baccarat glasses that belonged to his mother and had been in storage for the past 19 years. "T</span><span>he only downside is that you have to hand wash a lot of things, as they can be fairly delicate" says Winterman. </span><span>Nieporent found that out the hard way when he tried machine washing one of the Baccarat glasses.</span></p>
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<p class="caption">Winterman's mother found these coupes in an estate sale.</p>
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https://ny.eater.com/2014/10/21/7026471/batards-cocktail-glassware-ranges-from-family-heirlooms-to-fleaNick Solares2014-10-20T16:06:10-04:002014-10-20T16:06:10-04:00Step up to the Voodoo Down, a Rum and Bourbon Classic at Eleven Madison Park
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<figcaption>Nick Solares</figcaption>
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<p>Welcome to a special Cocktail Week edition of The Hot Dish, a behind the scenes look at the making of the dishes (and in this case drinks) of the moment. Up now, Eleven Madison Park head bartender James Betz makes the Voodoo Down cocktail.</p> <p>Though most drink mixing takes place behind the bar instead of in the kitchen, the process that goes into making cocktails as some of New York's most refined establishments can involve just as menu steps and ingredients as a dish off the menu. Here, <span><a href="http://ny.eater.com/venue/eleven-madison-park" class="sbn-auto-link">Eleven Madison Park</a> head bartender James Betz makes t</span><span>he Voodoo Down, a rum and bourbon cocktail that he describes as "light and refreshing but with some spicy qualities". A concoction of house made ginger and honey syrups, fresh lemon juice, two kinds of bitters, St. Germain liquor, Old Forester bourbon and The Scarlet Ibis rum, this cocktail requires slicing, straining, measuring, and the use of a stove. </span></p>
<p><span>Also, for those who are wondering, the name of the drink comes from the Miles Davis song "</span><span>Miles Runs The Voodoo Down"</span><span> from the </span><em style="line-height: 1.5; font-size: 16px;">Bitches Brew </em><span>album. </span><span>Watch as Betz makes one of the restaurants most popular and longest running cocktails.</span></p>
https://ny.eater.com/2014/10/20/6987665/step-up-to-the-voodoo-down-at-eleven-madison-parkNick Solares