The Bitters Maker of Brooklyn

Brooklynites, these days, have forged a reputation for making just about everything needed for a bar from scratch. Beer, spirits, wine, not to mention the various infusions, potions, sweeteners and such that one finds behind the best bars. The only this missing from the borough-wide, liquor-industrial complex is bitters. Oh, yes, many bars make there own house bitters. But there's no non-bar-owning entrepreneur that specializes in bitters production.

Louis Smeby, a 28-year-old from Minnesota with a newsboy's youthful face, is out to seize that territory. A waiter at The Modern who lives in the South Slope, he has been whipping an alarming number of original bitters in his kitchen, and has managed to place them at such estimable watering holes as Gotham bar & Grill, Braeburn, PDT, The Vanderbuilt, Buttermilk Channel, Quarter bar, White Star, and The Modern, among others.

The bitters are sold under the name A.B. Smeby Bittering Company. Smeby had the interested idea of applying the now-entrenched dining and drinking notion of seasonal menus to the world of bitters. He produces different potions based around the flavors found in each season. So the bitters available from him in the winter may not be the ones available in the spring. "Also important to the concept is the size of the bottle that I sell the product in," he said in a recent interview with Off the Presses. "It is a 2 ounce bottle. Bitters have a shelf life, especially when they are made with all-natural products."

Smeby says that most of the brands of bitters sold commercially are full of adjuncts, additives, and artificial ingredients that help maintain their shelf life, "but also offer a very synthetic tasting product. To add to this, they are all sold in bottle sizes too large for their flavor to be maintained before the product is finished, leading to inferior product at the end of the day."

The bars using Smeby's bitters so far seem to be taking them on a drink-by-drink basis, as they find applications for them. The Modern has used his Spiced Cranberry, Black and White (which actually tasted like a classic New York Black and White cookie), Vanilla and Forbidden Bitters in specialty cocktails. PDT has used only the Lemon Verbena bitters on the menu, but owner Jim Meehan thinks the Hibiscus Rose are great, too.

Some of the flavors Smeby comes up with boggle the brain. Apple Cinnamon with Molasses; Licorice-Nectarine (a favorite of mine, though, as of yet, I have no idea how to use it in a cocktail); Highland Heather; and Cherry Vanilla. Semby puts the most stock behind his Forbidden and Diesel bitters. The latter he promotes as a possible substitution for Angostura. I made an Old-Fashioned with it and found the result striking. It added a certain punch to the drink, familiar yet persuasive in its own way.

Smeby's ingredients are mainly locally sources (Lemon Verbana comes from Long Island), but he does go out of his way for some vitals. His cranberries come from Wisconsin; Buddahs Hand Lemons from California; nectarines from the west coast. Most of his spices and seasonings are bought from very small companies that specialize in only two to six products.

The Modern sent over the following original recipe, which I found equally winning:

Devil in White

1.5 oz. Death's Door White Whiskey

1.5 oz. Dolin Vermouth Blanc (not the dry!)

5 dashes A.B. Smeby Black & White Bitters

Stir all ingredients over ice. Strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with two cherries.

Smeby has recently started filling orders to clients in Eugene, Oregon, and Albuquerque. He hopes to take his bitters to the retail market sometime in the future. In the meantime, you'll have to visit one of the above bars to sample his wears.

Got a Neighborhood? Here's Your Drink

I started noticing the geographic specialization of cocktail names a couple years ago, when I read about the Red Hook, a seeming spin on the Manhattan that added Maraschino liqueur to the rye and sweet vermouth. Then I learned about The Slope, an invention of Julie Reiner. Another spin on the Manhattan, this one added apricot brandy. Hm, my reporter's brain hummed. A trend?

Little did I know. I suggested a story to Time Out New York about such locally named drinks and began to investigate. I found a Greenpoint, a Cobble Hill, a Bensonhurst, a Little Italy, a Brooklyn Heights, an East Village Globe Trotter. Someone said there was a Williamsburg (I never found it). Brooklyn, it seems, is running out of neighborhood to name drinks after, though, strangely, there is no Carroll Gardens cocktail, even though the nabe is surrounded by new cocktails on add sides (the Cobble Hill to the north, Red Hook to the south, The Slope to the east).

The wellspring of most of these concoctions, I learned, is Sasha Petraske's Milk & Honey, where a few years back all the bartenders decided to challenge each other to create new spins on the Brooklyn cocktail (rye, sweet vermouth, Amer Picon, Marascino liqueur). Enzo Errico was the first out of the gate with the Red Hook. The Greenpoint (created by Michael McIlroy), Bensonhurst (Chad Solomon) and Cobble Hill (Sam Ross) followed.

(My estimation that it was a riff on the Manhattan was wrong, but, hey, the Manhattan and Brooklyn are so similar is their bases. It was an easy mistake to make. I should have been tipped off by the name: Red Hook is part of Brooklyn, not Manhattan.)

It took a lot of doing, but I finally gathered all the threads together into an article, which Time Out has run today with a lot of pictures. Here it is:

Local flavor

By Robert Simonson

The New York bartenders of the 19th and 20th centuries showed their hometown pride by giving the world the Bronx cocktail, the Brooklyn, and most famously, the Manhattan. Mixologists of the aughts have gotten even more specific: Drinks are being named after Gotham neighborhoods at a furious rate—most of them descended from those granddaddies, the Brooklyn and the Manhattan (though the Bronx cocktail’s mix of gin, sweet vermouth, dry vermouth and orange juice was a sensation a century ago, it doesn’t seem to be inspiring many tributes these days). Of course, the whole idea of geographical cocktails is arguably a misapprehension. The Manhattan, after all, wasn’t named after the island, but in honor of a swanky club. The Bronx, one story goes, commemorates the zoo, not the home of the Yankees. Still, all that backstory doesn’t mean you can’t show your NYC pride by raising one of these libations skyward.

THE MANHATTAN

One of the most profound mixed drinks of all time, it was reputedly created at the Manhattan Club on Madison Square in the 1870s. By the next decade, it was ubiquitous and wildly popular. Virtually any competent barkeep can make one work; the Manhattan has never gone completely out of style. Try one in the dignified setting of Bemelmans Bar (The Carlyle, 35 E 76th St at Madison Ave, 212-744-1600; $16.75).

Recipe:

2 oz rye whiskey
1 oz sweet vermouth
Dash of Angostura's bitters
Cherry garnish

Pour liquid ingredients over ice and stir. Strain into cocktail glass, serve up (no ice) and garnish with a cherry.


LITTLE ITALY

A classic creation of Audrey Saunders, owner of Pegu Club (77 W Houston St between West Broadway and Wooster St, 212-473-7348; $13) and one of the high priestesses of the cocktail revolution. “I named it the Little Italy as I was using the Manhattan cocktail as a frame for it, and wanted to give a nod to the ingredient Cynar,” she says. This Italian-American Manhattan is bitter, sweet, classic and dramatic—like the people.

Recipe:

2 oz Rittenhouse 100-proof rye
1/2 oz Cynar
3/4 oz Martini & Rossi sweet vermouth
Luxardo cherry garnish

Pour liquid ingredients over ice and stir. Strain into cocktail glass, serve up and garnish with a Luxardo cherry.


THE SLOPE

“I love Manhattans, and am always playing around with them,” says Julie Reiner, Slope inventor and owner of Flatiron Lounge (37 W 19th St between Fifth and Sixth Aves, 212-727-7741; $13) and Clover Club (210 Smith St between Baltic and Butler Sts, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn; 718-855-7939; $11). “Not much of a story, but that’s it.” The Slope is richer than a Manhattan, owing to the apricot brandy and Punt y Mes—a liquid fruitcake (in a good way).

Recipe:

2 oz Rittenhouse rye
3/4 oz Punt y Mes sweet vermouth
1/4 oz Apricot brandy
Angostura bitters
Cherry garnish

Pour liquid ingredients over ice and stir. Strain into cocktail glass, serve up and garnish with a cherry.


THE BROOKLYN

“It first popped up in the 1910s, probably as a response to the Manhattan,” says cocktail historian David Wondrich. As for the drink, it’s like a Manhattan, just a bit rougher and more complex. Sort of like Brooklyn itself. The once-popular Amer Picon, a bitter-orange cordial, has sadly been off the American market for decades. Try the version at Weather Up (589 Vanderbilt Ave between Bergen and Dean Sts, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn; no phone; $11). There’s no Amer Picon, which results in a slightly sweeter drink. But three fourths of a good cocktail is better than none.

Recipe:

1 oz rye
1/2 oz sweet vermouth (early recipes use dry vermouth)
Dash Amer Picon
Dash maraschino liqueur
Cherry garnish

Pour liquid ingredients over ice and stir. Strain into cocktail glass, serve up and garnish with a cherry.


RED HOOK

The recent streak of NYC-named cocktails began in 2004, when Vincenzo Errico (Milk & Honey) concocted the Red Hook as a 21st-century answer to the Brooklyn. The drink so wowed other bartenders that they countered with their own riffs. The maraschino defines this one; it’s a Brooklyn with a cherry center. Try it at Little Branch (20 Seventh Ave South at Leroy St, 212-929-4360; $13) or White Star.

Recipe:

2 oz rye
1/2 oz Punt e Mes sweet vermouth
1/2 oz maraschino liqueur
Maraschino cherry garnish

Pour liquid ingredients over ice and stir. Strain into cocktail glass, serve up and garnish with a cherry.


GREENPOINT

Michael Mcilroy, a regular bartender at Sasha Petraske’s taverns, created the Greenpoint as a response to Errico’s Red Hook. The moniker plays on the hue of the chartreuse, which is the key to this beautiful creation, planting a core of herbal notes in a Brooklyn framework. Coincidentally, Mcilroy ended up living in the namesake neighborhood. Order it at Little Branch or White Star (21 Essex St between Canal and Hester Sts, 212-995-5464; $10).

Recipe:

2 oz rye
1/2 oz Yellow Chartreuse
1/2 oz sweet vermouth
Dash orange bitters
Dash Angostura bitters
Lemon peel garnish

Pour liquid ingredients over ice and stir. Strain into cocktail glass, serve up and garnish with a twist of lemon peel.


BROOKLYN HEIGHTS

Maxwell Britten, head bartender at Jack the Horse Tavern (66 Hicks St at Cranberry St, Brooklyn Heights, 718-852-5084; $10), was well aware of the Red Hook, the Greenpoint and every other borough-inspired drink out there when he invented this spin on the Brooklyn cocktail last year. “The idea came after many nights watching the seasons out the window of the bar,” he says. It’s a complex, yet calming wintertime treat, a Brooklyn edged by the bitter Campari and warmed by sparks of cinnamon and allspice coming off the Abano.

Recipe:

Campari in a spray bottle
1 1/2 oz Rittenhouse 100-proof rye
1/4 oz Luxardo Amaro Abano
1/2 oz Luxardo maraschino liqueur
1/2 oz Noilly Prat dry vermouth
2 dashes Regan’s orange bitters

Spritz glass with Campari. Pour remaining ingredients over ice and stir. Strain into a cocktail glass, serve up.

White Star, Green Liquor

I passed by White Star—Sashe Petraske's new absinthe joint on the Lower East Side—a few times before I realized it was the place I was looking for. Another of the currently popular no-sign bars. (Honestly, when will this increasingly infantile trend reach its natural end?) The small place is on the south end of Essex Street, just before the lane runs out of steam. Not much in the way of decor at this point. The bar, white marble, up front near the door, is the main feature. That and the two absinthe drips on top of the bar.

Better than television, those absinthe drips. I could watch them in operation for hours—the cool, iced water slowly passing from the transparent basins through the silver faucets, gradually dissolving the sugar cube placed atop the serrated absinthe spoon, which is in turn balanced over a glass half filled with the potent herbal green liquor. Mesmerizing. And, based on their stares, most of the customers felt the same way.

Sasha was pouring out only the Swiss Absinthe Superieure Kubler. He said he would expand to include more brands in the future, saying "Watch this space." He also had some rather blunt words for some of the other major absinthe brands out there, comments I won't include here if case he'd like those opinions kept private. He and his fellow bartenders kept the drips filled with fresh ice at all times, to ensure the chilliness of the aqua.

Absinthe—served the way that would be familiar to any 19th-century Frenchman—was being dolled out gratis that night, and two came my way. That was about one too many. Dilute it as you like, this stuff still packs a punch, and gets you drunker faster than any other legal intoxicant I know. I got about half way through my second glass and decided to call it a day before I started seeing visions of Edgar Degas.

But, truthfully, another thing kept me from finishing my second helping. And that is, well, I just don't love the stuff. I like the idea of it very much—the history, the romance, its exotic nature, and, above all, the way the drink is prepared. (Those ingenious drips are half the fun and half the attraction where absinthe is concerned, in my opinion.) It's all beautiful. I also love a dash of absinthe as a component in cocktails that claim their base liquor elsewhere. But just absinthe and water and sugar? You pretty much have to be in love with the dominant flavor of anise to want absinthe more than once in a while. And I am not in love with that flavor, which I am well aware is the defining aspect of many a liqueur the world over. Good absinthes have layers of flavor, but layers within that limited herbal spectrum. One absinthe lover described it to me as "liquid springtime," which is great, unless you're longing for a little summer, winter and autumn in your drink.

This, I suspect, might be the difficulty in making a go of an absinthe bar (though, certainly, Sasha intends for people to drink other things as well at White Star). I also doubt the market can support a couple dozen new brands.

Still, I must admit I got a bit of a thrill standing there knowing I was inside the first New York bar that was legally selling absinthe by the glass, in the traditional manner, in nearly a century.

One side note: Sasha mentioned he would open a place in Long Island City sometime in the future. Name: Dutch Kill.