Weather Up Tribeca Opens for Business

It's been a long wait for Weather Up Tribeca, the cocktail lounge on Duane Street that first promised to open on Halloween. These things take time, and sometimes liquor licenses don't arrive as promptly as you would like.

But on Saturday, Dec. 4—Repeal Day Eve, as it would happen—the offshoot of Prospect Heights' Weather Up quietly swung open its doors for business. The capacious space (plenty of room behind the long bar for the mixologists to work their magic) was about half-filled by 10 PM, and doubtless invited in more revelers before midnight. The fishy menu of oysters and haddock ceviche was already on offer, as was a compact cocktail list, seen below.

The Via Vero was brought over from Dutch Kills, another property co-owned by Weather Up Tribeca co-owner Richard Boccato. The Revolver, a west coast drink invented by Jon Santer, makes a surprise appearance. There's also a Weather Up Jr., a spin on the strong signature drink of the Brooklyn boite. Still based on Cognac and Amaretto, Jr. substitutes dry vermouth and Champagne for Sr.'s lemon juice. I didn't try it, but Jr. sounds like the better drink. The average drink price is $14.

Ice Harvesting in TriBeCa

The cocktail world's obsession with ice just took a big step forward. Soon, no bar owner will be able to hold his head up if not equipped with their own ice works.

Here's an item I wrote on the new Weather Up in Tribeca for the Times' Diner's Journal:

TriBeCa Bar Will Have Its Own Iceworks

By ROBERT SIMONSON

Weather Up, Kathryn Weatherup’s latest eponymously named cocktail bar — set to open at 159 Duane Street in TriBeCa in early November — is one saloon that will never have to send out for ice.

“We’re going to be the first bar on the East Coast of the United States that is doing in-house ice harvesting and production,” said partner Richard Boccato. Whether that’s precisely true or not, as any cocktail aficionado knows, ice — its purity, its size, its shape — is of paramount importance to the modern mixologist. The ice-works will be in the basement, but chunks of the cold stuff will be on display through the bar, cut into pieces by “bandsaw, chainsaw, chisels, hammers, and other torture devices,” as Mr. Boccato put it.

The ice machine is called the Clinebell CB300X2 Carving Block Ice Maker, and costs $6,000. According to Mr. Boccato, it produces two 300-pound blocks of crystal clear ice every three to four days through a slow-freezing cycle. A pump mounted inside the machine’s cabinets circulates the water, thus preventing impurities from freezing into the block, and as well as the formation of troublesome oxygen bubbles and striations which make carving difficult.

“Essentially this ice freezes in the same fashion as natural ice freezes in a lake — from the bottom up,” Mr. Boccato said. “Once the cycle is finished, excess water and impurities are removed from the top of the block prior to harvesting by use of a common wet and dry vacuum. The blocks are then broken down to suit our needs.”

The ice will come in handy chilling the daily selection of oysters and caviar. “It’s basically the best way to put salt in your body,” said Matthew Maddy, another partner in the venture, and one of the founders of No. 7 in Fort Greene. (For the more prosaically hungry, there will be French fries.) Ms. Weatherup and Mr. Maddy founded the original Weather Up (pictured), in Prospect Heights, in 2008. At the time, it was one of the first high-end cocktail joints to brave the Brooklyn scene. Both the Brooklyn and Manhattan bars will share the same vaulted ceiling of white ceramic tiles.

“Because this is a bigger, more complicated project,” said Mr. Maddy, “we wanted to bring in some friends and family.” That includes Tyler Kord, the chef at No. 7; and Mr. Boccato, an owner of Dutch Kills in Long Island City and a fierce proponent of the kind of classic pre-Prohibition cocktails the TriBeCa Weatherup will serve.

The bar will open daily at 3 p.m., offering six to eight draft lines, a selection of wines and an array of martinis and manhattans — what Mr. Boccato calls a “warm-up” cocktail list, made to accompany the oysters. Other cocktails will be available as the day wears on.

What's in a Name?

No one can accuse today's cocktail lounge owners of waxing dull when they christen their bars. Jake Walk in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, was named after a Depression-era disease born of greed, bad liquor and dipsomania. And it's doubtful you'd ever catch a restaurant putting out a shingle as macabre as Death & Co.

Some joints call themselves after once-classic, now nearly forgotten cocktail (The Pegu Club, The Clover Club), while others choose the name first and think up a cocktail to go with it later (Jake Walk, Weatherup). Do these namesake libations actually make for good drinking, or just good copy? To find out, I put in some very casual research, spread out over a number of night.

Starting from the top, a Pegu Club at the Pegu Club makes for great drinking! This mix of gin, orange curacao, lime juice and bitters—invented at a British Colonial Officer's Club in Ragoon—is stunningly presented here under a blanket of fine ice and an ornately engraved lime wedge. (I've tried to created this icy effect at home and failed miserably.) It is brisk, bright and refreshing—and very popular, if my bartender was to be believed.

The eponymous drink of Julie Reiner's newly opened Clover Club in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, is a frothy, egg-based potion that was once the title tipple of a group of some riotous Philadelphia swells. Reiner makes the frothy concoction with the original raspberry syrup—not its dreaded latter-day substitute: Grenadine—and to the mix she adds vermouth, an ingredient found an early printing of the cocktail, but missing in action. The barkeep's vigorous shaking integrated Mr. Gin and friends beautifully. It may look like breakfast, but it makes a good dinner.

Prospect Heights' Weatherup is named after its owner, Kathryn Weatherup, and so, thus, is the drink Weatherup. The most expensive cocktail on the menu ($15), it is composed of a kingly amount of Cognac, balanced with Amaretto Lazzaroni and lemon juice and decorated with a huge spiral of orange peel. The menu's jest that no more than two are allowed per customer is no joke: this drink will knock you down. Tasty, but approach with caution.

The Jake Walk's signature drink was compiled by cocktail historian David Wondrich, no less. It is made of equal parts reposado tequila, white rum, St. Germain elderflower liqueur and fresh lime juice, with 2 dashes Peychaud's bitters. The resultant refreshing concoction tastes, somewhat paradoxically, almost exactly like a pink grapefruit—which is perhaps both its appeal and its limitation. But hey: it tastes good, and the gals I was drinking with uttered no complaints whatsoever.

The Drink Itself

I visited Weather Up, Katheryn Weatherup's (love that name) new cocktail den in Prospect Heights a few weeks back. Everyone I've met, who doesn't know she owns the bar, thinks Weather Up is some 19th-century tavern expression. You know, "the weather's up, so I need a stiff one." Kathryn and Sasha Patraske, who devised the cocktail list, joked that they are happy to foster this misapprehension.

The place, located on a deserted stretch of Lafayette in Brooklyn, right down the street from a gas station and McDonald's, has a white-tile facade, like the inside of a bathroom. No sign. Cozy inside with a few tables and a handful of seats at the bar, and more of that tile on the ceiling and lots of amber light.

Weatherup was on hand, a tall, willowy Englishwoman with a lots of hair and a long interesting tattoo on her back, conveniently framed by an elegant backless dress.

There are only a few featured cocktails as of yet. One is named after the owner—the so-called "signature drink" that cocktailians seem to feel is so important to the success of any bar these days. It is the most expensive drink on the menu, at $15, mainly because its base is Cognac. The remainder is composed of Amaretto and lemon juice.

The menu jokes that there is a limit of two Weather Ups per customer. Except this is no joke. If you want to know how lethal a cocktail can be, try one. It packs a mighty wallop, belied by its fancy-dancy presentation, in a wine glass with a long twirling orange twist. The almond and apricot flavors of the Amaretto dominate, fooling you into the ideal that you're drinking something lightweight. All the while, the Cognac's landing a sucker punch.

I was a little unsteady on my feet after one. Do NOT go for two. You have been warned.

The Brooklyn Cocktail Wave

The New York Sun today published my thumbnail survey of the new (and I mean new) Brooklyn cocktail scene. In the past six months, three major cocktail joints—all on a par with the best of the Manhattan places, or at least getting there—have opened in the Borough of Kings: the Hideout, Weather Up and Jake Wake. On its way is the The Clover Club, which has been under construction for months on Smith Street. It could well overshadow the others once it gets up and running.

I've been to all of these, and like each for different reasons. The Hideout is closest the secretive, elite aesthetic you get at PDT or Milk & Honey. Weather Up is attractive because of its outpost aura; it's really in the middle of nowhere. Jake Walk is good is you just to sit back and be yourself, free from the judging eyes of poseurs. Welcome all!

Brooklyn’s Artisanal Cocktails
By ROBERT SIMONSON

Brooklyn residents no longer have to trek to Manhattan and knock on specific unmarked doors below 14th Street to get a perfectly made Sazerac. The cocktail revolution, which has reintroduced a generation to the historical and artisanal joys of tippling, has crossed the bridge in recent months. One of the most anticipated new watering holes, Cobble Hill’s Clover Club — from the creators of Manhattan’s Flatiron Lounge — won’t be open for a couple months. But here are three others that are stocked and ready to pour.

The Hideout

Following the psuedo-speakeasy aesthetic so popular across the East River, this snug, swank tavern sits behind three garage doors in a former 19th-century stable. Vaunted British-born mixologist Charlotte Voisey was drafted to fashion the cocktail menu — drinks are $12–$14 each — currently marked by high amounts of fresh muddled fruit and invention (rose petal-infused simple syrup). Co-owner Asio Highsmith, who points out that none of the scotches on hand are younger than 12 years, commented: “We don’t make mojitos.” (266 Adelphi St. at DeKalb Avenue, Fort Greene, 718-855-3010)

Weather Up

For this oasis on a desolate block in Prospect Heights, owner Kathryn Weathup joined forces with Sasha Petraske, who, like Ms. Voisey, helped shape Manhattan’s cocktail culture; he runs Milk and Honey on the Lower East Side and Little Branch in the West Village. The bar has started out slowly, with just a few featured libations, and plans to venture into wine. Signature drink: the Weather Up ($15), a potion made of amaretto, cognac, and lemon juice. Only two a customer are allowed — and that’s a good thing. (589 Vanderbilt Ave. at Dean Street, Prospect Heights, no phone number yet)

Jake Walk

Patrick Watson and Michele Pravda, owners of a mini mercantile empire on Smith Street that includes wine shop Smith & Vine and the cheese store Stinky, are behind this new saloon. Fittingly, the cocktail program shares the spotlight with a choice wine list and delectable cheese plates. Still, any bar that features both a Star (apple brandy, sweet vermouth and Angostura bitters) and a Bijou (gin, Chartreuse, sweet vermouth, and orange bitters) — two classic, pre-Prohibition-era drinks ($9 each) — on the same menu knows its way around a cocktail shaker. (282 Smith St. at Sackett Street, Carroll Gardens, 347-599-0294)

The Clover Club Is Coming

There's been some construction going on on Smith Street for a while now, around the former location of Johnnie's Bootery. I wasn't sure what it was all about until last week when they put up a sign saying Clover Club.

Woo-hoo! The Clover Club is coming! I've been hearing about this cocktail joint for some time and it seems it's to be a reality. The fine folks who brought you the Flatiron Lounge are behind the new bar, and I can't think of a finer name. The Clover Club is a lovely, under-recognized egg-based drink from days gone by, and it's right that it's so honored. Can't tell when it will open.

Between this and Sasha (Milk and Honey) Petraske's Weather Up in Prospect Heights, good times are coming to Brooklyn!