Happy Halloween From Maker's Mark!

They'll put wax on anything at that distillery.

A Beer at...Kevin Barry's Bar & Grill

For my latest installment of the Eater "A Beer At..." feature, I walked down a gritty stretch of Lawrence Street in downtown Brooklyn, and passed through the doors of Kevin Barry's.

The draft selections are the usual. I chose a Sam Adams. Daniella, the bartender, scrunches up her pretty face. "The Sam Adams is kinda messed up." Messed up? "Mm-mm." The lager's specific malady is not elaborated upon. OK. How about a Stella? Daniella moves briefly as if to draw a glass, but then stops and scrunches up her face. The Stella is messed up, too? "Mm-mm." I look at the remaining beers on tap, unsure as to whether any of them are in good health. "You do Bass?" asks Daniella. She is wearing black vinyl pants and a black halter top with a ring of silver spangles circling the bust line. She's nice, but no-nonsense. Bass, huh? Ugh. Well, if I have to, I could do Bass. I do Bass.

Kevin Barry's Bar & Grill of downtown Brooklyn is a lot like that: Rough around the edges, a little sketchy and doing the best that it can. The bar is shaped like an extended L-shaped alley, with entrances on both Lawrence and Willoughby—a good configuration if you're looking to dodge someone. Pink lights on red walls make you feel like you're in the Champagne room at some nightclub no matter where you walk. (The bar's name in some listings is actually Kevin Barry's 140 Club.) The place's handle—it's named after the Irish Republican teenage martyr who was executed in 1920—and the very Irish pub facade notwithstanding, the vibe is far from a slice of old Killarney.

A group of men holding down a corner of the long bar chew over the merits of the teams going into the World Series. Some of them might be judges for the "So You Think You Can Sing?" talent content that had been scheduled to begin at 4 PM. But no one's singing, and it doesn't look like anyone will be. A good friend of Daniella's comes in with his sister and her boyfriend. The friend looks beat, like he's just come off working 12 hours straight at a crummy job he hates. Daniella's concerned. Then, she remembers: her son's selling candy bars for a school fund raiser. She hauls out the box of chocolate. People eye is greedily, but no one's buying.

KISS-FM is hosting the talent contest, and one of the radio's staff members comes over for a splash of cranberry in her vodka and pineapple juice. She drinks and declares the cocktail much improved. An old lady in a red beret, carrying a sign sealed in protective plastic peers through the window uncertainly before entering by the Willoughby side. A manager springs into action. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no" he says in a gentle, but insistent tone. The woman quietly turns around and exits. A man at the bar mentions the time he gave a beggar some money, then saw him the next week in a fancy car. The manager and man nod at this story, knowingly.

Kevin Barry's evidently draws a healthy lunch crowds most work days; the dinner hour looks to be more sparsely patronized. Like most bars in the city, the saloon is having a Halloween bash tonight and tomorrow night. Doors open at 6 PM and close at 4 PM. 25 or older ID necessary. "We deserve the right to be selective," notes a postcard. There's a DJ booth and enough floor space to dance; the place is made for music; might be fun. After all, at what other bar can you buy jumbo chocolate bars?
—Robert Simonson

Where Zywiek Is As Common as Bud

I've always thought the Polish beer Zywiek was a relatively hard brew to score, even in New York. I'd see it only in the occasional Polish deli, and very rarely on tap.

That was before I paid a visit to the Queens neighborhoods of Ridgewood and Glendale. More that other New York Polish nabes, like Greenpoint, Zywiek flows like water here. It's not only in every bar and every deli, there are huge advertisements everywhere proclaiming its existence. Posters, neon signs, and round hanging signs that are to this area what the circular Guiness beacons are to Irish neighborhoods in New York.


Zywiek was founded in 1852 and started brewing in 1856. It was an actual royal beer! It was built and initially owned by Archduke Albert, Duke of Teschen and his younger brother Karl Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, and called "Zywiec Archducal Brewery". It remained in the hands of the Habsburgs until the Communists nationalized it. After the Commies were kicked out, the descendants of the original owners sued the Polish government for $77 million. (The case was settled out of court on undisclosed terms in December 2005.)


All that historical hullabaloo doesn't seem to have affected the quality. I find it a more-than-above average lager.

As to how Ridgewood and Glendale get so much of the stuff. Well, take a look at this distribution center on Seneca Road in Ridgewood. You see where their priorities lie.

Miracle on Henry Street

Last night, I saw something I never thought I'd see. Looking around from my table for two at Carroll Garden's esteemed haute pizzeria Lucali, I saw....no one. I and my companion were the only diners. At 7 PM! Prime dining time. True, it didn't last long—roughly 10 other people had been there five minutes before, and a couple minutes later, two other people came in. But it did happen. I was alone in Lucali! Alone in a place where the waits often range between 30 minutes and an hour.

I thought perhaps the excessive rain had kept people away, but the waitress corrected me. It was game one of the World Series involving the New York Yankees. Lucali owner Mark Iacono complained to two friends, "The game is killing me tonight."

Note to self: hit up Lucali whenever a New York sports title is playing a major game.

Why Hasn't "Mad Men" Exploited "21"

The AMC series "Mad Men," which is set in New York in the early 60s, has done a good job of mining the city's great restaurants and bars—both extant and vanished—for background texture. We've had mentions and scenes set in such bygone food and drink meccas as Toots Shor's, The Stork Club, The Pen & Pencil, Rattazzi's, Lutece and Chumley's. Of eateries and watering holes that still exist, we've heard from Keen's Chop House, The Four Seasons, P.J. Clarke's and La Grenouille.

What's missing here?

The "21" Club, of course. Around since the 1930s, a longtime favorite of businessmen with fat expense accounts, and just a hop, skip and a jump from Madison Avenue, where "Mad Men" ad agency Sterling Cooper is located, it's a natural. The show's characters should have availed themselves of the place's red-checkered tablecloths long before now and inhaled a Southside or two. You just know that Roger Sterling haunted this place at least twice a week, and probably had his own table.

So, what gives? I asked "21"'s longtime publicist Diana Biederman and she confessed that, indeed, she has been valiantly trying to coax the "Mad Men" people into giving the restaurant a cameo, or at least a mention, for some time now. But to no avail. Biederman sent the production people volumes of historical material about "21," including clear ideas on what the place would have looked like in the early '60s. Among those material was an image of the above artwork, which hangs in a private hall on "21"'s second floor. It's an illustration that appeared in Town & Country magazine in 1961, of a smartly dressed woman about to be seated in the bar room's second section, right underneath the bell. (That's J.J. Hunsecker's seat in "Sweet Smell of Success," by the way.) Pearls, gloves, purse, patterned topcoat with shortened sleeves—you could just see Betty Draper in that outfit, couldn't you?

Biederman thinks she may have came close at the end of the second season. There was a scene in the final episode—where Betty beds down in the ladies room of a bar with a stranger—that the publicist feels may have once possibly been intended as for "21." But, Betty sits at a stool, and Biederman had told the show that "21" did not have stools in the 1960s. (The loss may have been for the best. Sex in the bathroom? It's not really a "21" moment, is it?)

One thing we know for sure—with the third season almost over, there's no chance of "21" getting its due this year. Let's hope Matthew Weiner wises up and sets a scene there in 2010.

I Know What You're Asking

You're asking yourself, "What's the absinthe of the month?"

Well, friend, the Absinthe Museum of America, located in New Orleans, has the answer for you. It is Lucid Absinthe Supérieure.

The museum plans to announced a new "absinthe of the month" every month. The way this liquor category has exploded in the last 12 months, I actually think they can keep this up for at least three or four years and never run out of absinthe brands. (Whether people will care in three or four years is another matter.)

Lucid, of course, was the first genuine absinthe out of the gate when the green stuff became legal in the United States in 95 years.

Review: Happy Little Cherry

Is there a happier red wine than a good bottle of Morellino di Scansano?

I always enjoy this Italian wine when I drink it, yet then seem to forget about it afterwards and unconsciously discount it as inconsequential and minor. Then I drink another and I'm happy all over again. It's Chianti's younger, friskier cousin, not so heavy and concerned with itself and tradition, but more interesting in bright conversation and living in the moment. The wines come from the environs of the village of Scansano (natch), in the Maremma, which includes a part of the coast of southern Tuscany. Morellino is what the locals call the Sangiovese grape varietal.

The name means "Little Cherry of Scansano," and a more appropriate name there never was. Bright, bouncy cherry flavor is almost always found in the best bottles. Moris Farms, a fine producer in Grosseto, rarely disappoints, and a 2007 I just had was deep yet bright. It had a wonderful dark cherry nose with tinges with spice, sweet tobacco and charcoal and lightly perfumed. In the mouth, it was beautifully dusty and dusky, with more charcoal, cherry and blackberry. It was as light as can be (even at 14%), yet full of depth, like a cheerful person with a lot of character.

This particular wine was vinified in stainless steel tanks and put in bottle after only four months. Morellino need not see wood or age for very long, two reasons for the buoyancy. The mix must by 85% Sangiovese. Moris Farms used 90 % Sangiovese, plus 10 % Merlot and Syrah.

Also, it's cheap. Roughly $15.