The Sipping News

New York cocktails crowd the $20 mark. While this is true at some new places, like the Lambs Club, the article—typical for the sensationalistic Post—is misleading. At most of the bars they mention (PDT, Pegu Club, Milk & Honey, etc.), the average price is still around $14. However, that is an increase from the $13 price tag that was the norm a year ago. [NY Post]

It also now costs more to drink on the Long Island Railroad. [Gothamist]

Another boast from the Post: Sherry is popular again. I wish it were so. [NY Post]

West Village cocktail joint Little Branch will be adding a cafe upstairs (aka street level). [The Villager, via Eater]

Jimmy, a new rooftop cocktail bar in the James Hotel, has opened in SoHo. This, unfortunately, is one of those places that offers $18 cocktails. Since it's partly founded by Hotel Griffou's Johnny Swet and Larry Poston, whose cocktails I've tasted at Griffou, I'm not sure the price is warranted. But I will reserve judgment until I try them. [Eater]

Japanese wineries (huh?) are trying to turn table grape Koshu into world-class wine. [Times]

A Final Beer At...Caskey's Tavern

I first laid eyes on Caskey's Tavern, an old bar in Ridgewood, Queens, a couple years ago. The moment I saw it, I knew it would be the subject of one of my "A Beer At" columns on Eater. It seems somewhat fitting that it serves as the setting of the last entry in that series.

I began the column almost exactly three years ago. The first bar I visited, the nondescript Lilly Coogan's in the East Village, has since closed. Some 75 bars later, I covered taverns in four boroughs (sorry, Staten Island), from dives to Irish pubs to (ugh) sports bars, and went through about four or five Eater photographers. (They didn't necessarily love me when I chose joints in Far Rockaway and Inwood.) The column gave me the opportunity to say proper goodbyes to the Holiday Cocktail Lounge (gone) and Bill's Gay Nineties (on its way out) and discover what is arguably New York's oldest bar (Neir's in Woodhaven). Least favorite bar I visited? Tonic East. If that three-story Murray Hill frat party implodes upon itself and disappears, like that house in "Poltergeist," I'll be just fine with it.

A Beer At...Caskey's Tavern

Caskey's Tavern sits on a little bend of Fresh Pond Road, where Ridgewood, Queens, begins to turn into Glendale. It's 70 years-old and has always been owned by the Caskey family. The neon sign is worthy of comment. It's only says "Tavern"—not "Bar," as is usually the case. And the font is thick and casual, as if written by a red neon crayon. Next to the word is a tilted glass, not quite a cocktail coupe, not quite a wine glass, and whatever the contents are, they are aflame.

Inside, the old, beautifully carved darkwood bar is the main testimony to Caskey's age. That and the shuffleboard table, which the woman behind the bar said she believed was the the last one left in Queens. (The only other one I've found in the course of writing this column was at Plug Uglies.) Otherwise, the ceiling and floor and walls are on the modern, drab side. A large, bulbous, sloping jukebox sits near the door like a music-spewing Jabba the Hutt. There's evidence that at some point Caskey enlarged the place, because everything in the big room past the bar smacks of modern work, the kind of pool/darts area you'd find in any bar in NYC.

The blonde, veteran bartender, who said she worked Sundays through Wednesdays, divided her time between the Daily News and "The Godfather II" on the television. "Do you ever come here on the weekends?" asked a garrulous barfly, who was itching for some lively conversation. She looked at him like he was nuts. "No," she said. "Do you go to your place of employment on your days off? I go to a different bar, a bar where they treat me better."

Two young men came in, skateboards under their arms. They knew the bartender and greeted her warmly. "How are you doing?" she asked. "Great. We'd like two beers." "Great. And I'd like two IDs." The two gabby drinkers went out to the back patio for a smoke. "Maybe now we can hear the movie," said the bartender. I complimented her on the wonderful old bar. She said she, too, loved the woodwork, and lamented that some people actually paint over such beauty. She said she likes to watch "This Old House," because she likes to know how to do things, should she ever actually own a house.

On the long subway ride out to Ridgewood, I had been reading "The Old-Time Saloon," a reminiscence of the pre-Prohibition taverns by George Ade, a early 20th-century humorist. As I looked at the neglected, dusty bottles of spirits behind the bar at Caskey's, I thought of this passage: "Gin was the dominating theme song of most of the well-known cocktails but your typical dispenser in the saw-dust places didn't want to fuss with cocktails and he had a certain contempt for them as a weak substitute for honest to goodness liquor and fit only for dudes and weaklings."

I looked at the beer signs on the walls. "The average saloon," wrote Ade, "received from the brewery gorgeous lithographs and hugh, glittering street-signs. The better-known brands of beer were featured in highly expensive advertising campaigns."

Not much has changed.

I began this column three years ago, and today I end it. It's been fun. I have visited a lot of bars I see no pressing reason to visit again. And I have grown weary to my bones of the stultifying sameness of the Irish Pubs and the Sports Bars, and now know to avoid Murray Hill entirely. But I have encountered some gems: Molly's Pub and Shebeen, The Punch Bowl, Lucy's, Shelley's, Reynold's Bar, Milano's, Grassroots Tavern, Jackie's Fifth Amendment, Joe's Bar and O'Hanlon's in Astoria (not the one on 14th Street). To these places I will return. And I still remember Linda, the young cornfed beauty behind the bar at The Blue Room, the subject of one of my first columns. She was a dancer, newly moved to New York. I wonder how she made out.

—Robert Simonson

The Sipping News

Eddie Huang, owner of BaoHaus, had gone pretty wacky with the new drink list at his place Xiao Ye. Johnnie  Walker Bubble Tea, anyone? [Eater]

The new TGI Friday's on Union Square has no prices next to its drink list, because "It's classier that way." [Eater]

For the second time in a month, San Francisco's bar scene has seen a great bartender leave his post for a brand ambassadorship. Erik Castro of Rickhouse has announce he will be the BA for Beefeater and Plymouth gins, which are owned by Pernod Ricard. Recently, Neyah White of NOPA laid down his apron  to rep Yamazaki whiskies. [Alcademics]

Rye once again sold on site of George Washington's Mount Vernon distillery. [Cowdery]

Albert Trummer, of Apotheke, was arrested for doing what he does: igniting liquor on fire. Guess that's the end of the dog-and-pony, firey homemade absinthes. [NY Times]

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

A Beer At…Smith’s Tavern

I targeted 78-year-old Smith's Tavern in Park Slope, Brooklyn, for my third "A Beer At..." column for Eater. You'd think that in 78 years a place would gather some ink-stained moss, but Smith's had kept it pretty quiet all that time. That's what it's like inside, too. Sick of humanity. You'll find some peace and solitude inside.

Here's the piece:

Hate crowds? Tired of chatty bartenders? Then get yourself to Smith’s Tavern, where you will not be bothered with anything that could be called a scene.

I went to this Park Slope bar on a recent Wednesday night and found four televisions, three customers and one beefy barkeep who said not a word to me all evening. This situation did not change, except that the drinkers left one by one. Off night, I thought. So I returned at the primo hour of 10 PM Saturday night. Again: Four televisions, three customers, and one bartender, who was comparatively verbose: he said three words.

This is Smith’s: unfussy, unpopulated, no ceremony. Come in, talk if you like, don’t if you don’t, choose your beer and watch the game. It’s a good place for lone drinkers, who enter, and leave, at regular intervals, usually to partake of Smith’s signature $1.75 Buds in frosted mugs. (These are refreshing, I must admit.) A plaque behind the bar indicates that Smith’s has been declared a “Bud Man’s Bar” by the proper authorities. The jukebox expresses a certain catholic taste in music, as well as a no-nonsense attitude. One CD was titled “Beatle’s Song’s We Find Acceptable” (with that punctuation).

Smith’s Tavern has been in business on Park Slope’s Fifth Avenue and Ninth Street since 1931 and has done a damn fine job of keeping itself out of the news during those 78 years. Go ahead: try to find a write-up of the place. Telling signs of its age include the typical long wooden bar; an actual phone booth complete with sliding door and tin walls; some stained glass at the front; and a singular design scheme that could only be called a cross between wine cellar and ship’s hold.

A series of faux-stone arches border the room. Just below the ceiling at regular intervals are small carved characters—like the figureheads that used to adorn the front of old sailing vessels—of drunken men hugging mugs and casks. Most remarkable is the huge colored frieze behind the bar of an 18th-century gentleman of sorts, in pantaloons and stockings, sitting in his cellar enjoying a flagon of liquor and a long pipe. What it all means, who can tell. Nobody gave it a glance besides me.
—Robert Simonson

In Clover

It's been a couple weeks since I first set foot inside Julie Reiner's sublime new Brooklyn cocktail den, The Clover Club, so it's about time I lay down some impressions.

It was a good time. The barstaff, led by Guiseppe Gonzalez—one of my classmates at the recent spring Bar Alcohol Resource weeklong-intensive course (which I passed, by the way, thank you very much)—was making dozens upon dozens of four select attractions from the cocktail menu, and I tried one of each. They were: the Clover Punch (gin, lemon, blackberry, allspice, Champagne) sitting in brimming glass bowls along the century-old bar; New York Sours (rye, lemon, orange, claret snap); plain old Mint Juleps; and Bermuda Swizzles (dark rum, pineapple, lime, velvet falernum, sugar).

All were beautiful. The New York Sours dense and dark. The punch was not exactly deceptively strong, as punches can be—just plain strong. The swizzles were lovingly prepared with twirling palms swirling dancing swizzle-sticks. And the Juleps were ice cold and attractively frosting up their silver mugs. (When they ran out of those, they were served in what looked like copper Moscow Mule mugs). I guess I enjoyed the Swizzle much, while the Sour most won my respect as a concoction. And, yes, I do sometimes respect drinks more than I just plain like them, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

The bar behind which these were all made was a century old, intricately carved, mahogany dandy that once lived in a tavern in a sugar-mining town in Pennsylvania. That was the story I got, anyway. (These pictures are courtesy of Eater.com.) Pressed tin ceilings, of course, and dark burgundy leather booths adorn a raised area in the front room, which is a quite a roomy affair, with plenty of air and space (and a hostess to get past) before you reach the bar. About the same distance from sidewalk to stool as you get at Reiner's Flatiron Lounge, I'd say.

The smaller back room is more elegant and stately, like an Englishman's library, with a coffered mirrored-ceiling, sconces, a smaller bar, a chandelier, scattered upholstered chairs and a corner fireplace (which was ablaze, despite its being June). I can see the intimate appeal of the back room, but I myself prefer the convivial, democratic feel of the larger, more public front area. The general idea, as I take it, is for the place to resemble the Victorian drinking dens favored by bon vivants and men who took their derbies and moustaches seriously back in the late 1800s. No juke box. No television. Thank God.

The menu is a cocktail-history buff's dream, divided as it is into arcane drink categories such as Daisies, Collins & Fizzes, Buck & Mules, Cobblers & Highballs, Punches and Juleps & Smashs, among other things. A bit wonky for the average tippler. But I'm not complaining. I get precious few chances to walk into a bar and order a Cobbler without explaining myself. (Nothing takes the fun out of ordering a drink more than having to explain your order. It's like explaining a joke.)

This is just what I did on my second visit to the Clover Club. I ordered the Madrono Cobbler (Oloroso Sherry, Amaro, Muddled Strawberry, Demerara) on the recommendation of Gonzalez. He recommended it because he invented it, and won a Sherry contest with it. Very good. Potent and meaty for a cocktail. One other note: I applaud Reiner on keeping the cocktail prices more in line with Brooklyn wallets; most drinks are $10 or $11.

A Beer at...O'Keefe's Bar & Grill

My latest in the "A Beer At..." series that I write for Eater takes me to downtown Brooklyn to a bar that looks so simply like a bar a picture of it should be next to the word "bar" in the dictionary.

A Beer At...O'Keefe's Bar & Grill

There may be better taverns in New York than O'Keefe's Bar & Grill on Court Street in downtown Brooklyn, but few have better signs. The large red neon "Bar" and "Grill" above the entrance possesses a powerfully anonymous urban iconography rarely seen outside of film. (The only place it says O'Keefe's on the facade is in small, dark letters on the glass doors.) Curiously, though a bar called O'Keefe's has been at 64 Court for 90 years, the sign was not originally theirs. It once hung over a bar called the Savoy at 41st and 9th in Manhattan. "The owner thought it would be the perfect sign" explained a bartender.

O'Keefe's unbeatable location—just steps from Borough Hall—lends it an amazing tidal pull on the working professionals in the area. Come quitting time, the lawyers and politicos and jurors quickly file in, one by one. The place is spacious, deep, clean and airy, which helps to dissipate the claustrophobic effect of the 10 large televisions. Most of these are devoted to sports. But two are diplomatically set on CNN and Fox, so as to present both political persuasions of the folks doing work on nearby Adams Street. On a recent night, Silver-bearded Wolf Blitzer solemnly weighed the threat of the Swine Flu outbreak, while bug-eyed Glenn Beck mocked Obama's first 100 days by holding a swirling red siren aloft.

Most of the seats at the long wooden bar are occupied by 5:30 p.m The two sweet, wholesome-looking young barmaids huddle in their bus station, taking turns making smiling passes through the long room. An older woman sips red wine and reads a book. Three young louts dressed entirely in grey sweats put their feet up. Four blue-shirt-gray-pants defuse over beers. A woman with her child heads to the table furthest back to celebrate a birthday. A limping grifter tries (and fails) to exchange a roll of quarters for a $10 bill. The driver of the B75 parks his bus outside and slowly strolls in to use the restroom. O'Keefe's is an outlet for myriad neighborhood needs. It also has a small reputation for buffalo wings, which can be had for the low price of 40 cents per on Mondays. Apparently, they used to be 30 cents apiece. The economy hits you everywhere.
—Robert Simonson

Previous "A Beer At..." Installments

Sixpoint Beer, Now Made in Pennsylvania

Sixpoint Ales, the massively popular brewer headquartered in Red Hook, has made a career out of marketing its Brooklyn roots, becoming the darling of Kings County locavores over the past few years. It's well-hone image—not to mention its many excellent beers—have led to soaring demand. So much so that it long outgrew it tiny digs on Van Dyke Street. Since late 2007, many Sixpoint ales have been brewed at the larger Green Point Beerworks, on Waverly Avenue in Clinton Hill, home of Kelly Taylor rival Brooklyn brew-line Kelso. But that was still Brooklyn.

Now, for the first time, some Sixpoint beer will be made outside of the borough. Eater reports that owner Shane Welch has moved a portion of Sixpoint's production to the Lion Brewery in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Welch confirmed the move. "Shane also tells us that they are considering two other options and that there is a 'different and unique project on the horizon' but doesn't reveal any details."

The development is particularly interesting because Sixpoint has often boasted of their utter Brooklynishness, faulting competitor Brooklyn Brewery for not really being a Brooklyn brewery because much of its bottled product has been made by contract in Utica. I suspect Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garrett Oliver is having a good laugh over this.

A Beer At...Teddy's

A reader at Eater said the Mae West story I include in this write-up is apocryphal. Could be. Certainly, old taverns dispense their share of self-aggrandizing lies. But I found the tale in two sources. True, one of them was Wikipedia, but the other was the well-respected "Historic Shops and Restaurants of New York." It's funny: another old New York bar I've covered in this series, Neir's in Queens, also claimed a Mae West connection.

A Beer at...Teddy's

Is Teddy's an anonymous, unknown bar? Not exactly. I remember, back in the days when Williamsburg was an actual artistic enclave—when scruffy young men wore wool caps because they were cold and poor, not because it was part of the hipster uniform—Teddy's was a key artist hangout. But today this wonderful old tavern is overshadowed by dozens of trendier new watering holes. 

Teddy's is the oldest bar in Williamsburg. It's been around since 1889. For its first 30 years, it was a franchise bar serving a local brew whose name can still be seen in the beautiful stained-glass window facing the street: Peter Doelger's Extra Beer. That the sign is still there is a bit of a miracle, since Doelger's hasn't been made since Prohibition. Doelger was a millionaire beer baron, and probably a bit of a capitalist bastard; an anarchist once left a bomb on his doorstep. He also disapproved of his daughter Mathilda marrying a boxer named John West, even though that union gave the world Mae West.

One would love to picture Mae lifting one or two here at some point. But Mathilda remarried in the 1890s—wedding the son of another local brewer (sounds like daddy's doing)—so it's hard to say. Tammany Hall pols almost made good use of the place back in the day when saloons did double duty as political centers. An Alderman actually lived upstairs once.

The food served here is a relatively new phenomenon—new, meaning the last couple decades—and the weekend brunch is popular. Live bands play here Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays as part of a series that goes by the rather square name of "Williamsburg Nights." Television sets are tuned to the night's game. I always considered televisions in a historic bar a desecration of sacred space. But such are the compromises that must be made to please a modern clientele, for which drinking and talking is not entertainment enough.

The patrons on a recent night seem strangely not of Williamsburg. Parents with children, older couples, a group of visiting Japanese tourists. Or maybe this is just theother Williamsburg, the one that doesn't get the press. And maybe in twenty years, when the current crop of tattoo-parlor habitues have moved on, and the hot bar of the moment is a distant memory, these unglamorous barflies will still be here. And so will Teddy's. 

—Robert Simonson

John Dory 2.0 to Have Own Six Point Stout

It's almost become a badge of honor among restauranteurs, to have Six Point Ales make you an exclusive brew.

Joining that select circle, which including Frankies Sputino and Bark, is John Dory, the April Bloomfield-Ken Friedman fish restaurant that reopens this week. It's called Six Point Oyster Stout. Oyster stout is stout filtered through oyster shells. I got an early taste of it at the Eater Awards on Monday. It's incredibly dry, with a great, almost metallic aftertaste, and I could see it going splendidly with oysters.

Sasha Petraske is doing the cocktail list and he's paring the drinks with food (not a trend I support, unless you like to get smashed before the entree comes).

The Sipping News

Here's a promotion I can get behind. Astor Wine & Spirits, to celebrate the rescue of the miners in Chile, is offering 15% off Chilean wines Oct. 13.

Burger & Barrel, a new pub in SoHo, will feature Red Hook Winery wines on tap. [Eater]

David Wondrich talks punch. [NYT]

Great Beaujolais producer Marcel Lapierre died Oct. 10 at age 60. [NYT]

Smith & Vine, the Carroll Gardens wine shop, has doubled its space. [Pardon Me for Asking]

V-Note, a new "vegan wine bar," opened on the Upper East Side. [Grub Street]

A Beer At...Nitecaps

My latest candidate for "A Beer At...," the regular feature I write for Eater, is this lonely, rather foreboding bar on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn. It looks like a kind of an outpost in a barren desert of decaying industry. Not a tree or bush in sight. Just miles of traffic and auto shops to fix those cars when they break. Yet Nightcaps doesn't have much competition. Much of Midwood is Orthodox Jewish, so there's no a lot of call for drinking establishments.

Midwood: There’s not much to look at on the Midwood stretch of Coney Island Avenue. But that doesn’t stop the denizens of Nitecaps from periodically emerging from their drinking den to take a gander at the four-lane traffic and un-beautiful industrial landscape. Once back inside, they have to wait another ten minutes for their eyes to adjust. For Nitecaps, which is near Avenue H, is a dark bar. Dark like a cave. Dark like a mineshift.

Wait a while and your eyes slowly begin to discern shapes of things you didn’t know were there. There, in the corner: an old metal coat rack. On a shelf below it: forgotten piles of New York phone books. Behind the bar: a small fish tank housing a solitary fish. And there, tucked in a space to the right of the door: two neatly kept dart boards, with just enough space in front of them to hold a game.

Those dart boards are not just dart boards. They are Nitecaps' heart and soul. In the cement-and-pavement center of Brooklyn, there are certain bars known as Dart Pubs, and Nitecaps is one of them. The joint is on the Gotham City Darts League circuit, and competitive games go down there on Mondays and Tuesdays. The tavern has frequently emerged victorious. Large, odd trophies, with gold dart boards at their crests, line the back of the bar. The bartender said the owner has many more in her office. (Pool is also popular here, but it takes a back seat to darts.)

A patron told me the bar is at least 20 years old, but—judging from the old, warped, wooden bar, and the aging appearance of the rest room doors—I’d add at least 20 more years to that estimate. From the outside, it looks like a kind of fortress, with a rugged gray façade and two small windows that emit no light. Large words on the front promise “Food” and “Spirits.” But this is a beer place; the available brands are written in magic marker on a piece of white paper taped to the wall; only two are on tap. There are spirits, but it’s doubtful that any but a few of the bottles stir from their shelves. And the food on offer is limited to Cheetos. (However, I do hear there’s a big spread on dart nights.)

A strange face is likely to get a friendly grilling here. One imagines few people other than extreme locals and dart lovers seek out the protecting walls of Nitecaps. Then again, who knows? After Coney Island Avenue shuts down for the night, this lonely bar is about the only game in town, darts or no.
— Robert Simonson

The Sipping News

Dr. Bamboo, out of stubborn contrariness, samples several of the available—and by cocktail snobs, deeply loathed—spiced rums.

Germany wants to build a ghastly bridge across the river Mosel, and through some famous vineyards, all to cut a half hour from the commute from Frankfurt-Hahn airport to Belgium and Holland. The proposed highway will run above a clutch of other fabled sites, including the vineyards of Zeltingen, Graach, Wehlen, and Bernkastel. Said American importer Terry Theise about the politicians pushing the project: "This is a de facto statement about what they cherish or don't cherish, and to go ahead with this is a philistine's judgment. [The Mosel wines] constitute a symbol of Germany's contribution to the cultural heritage of humanity. It does not seem wise to devalue such a thing, or to risk desecrating it for the sake of a motorway." [Slate]

Guinness is 250 years old. [Serious Eats]

Ft. Defiance has reopened in Red Hook. [Village Voice] And, turns out, the DOH was wrong to close it in the first place. [Eater]

A Beer At...O'Hanlon's Bar

Actually, there's yet another O'Hanlon's out in Forest Hills, Queens, I've learned. There are probably others as well. I'm not going to go to all of them. From Eater:

A Beer At...O'Hanlon's 

I was a paragraph or two into writing up this 14th Street pub when I realized this is actually the second time I'm portrayed a bar called O'Hanlon's in this column. The first such subject was the 72-year-old dive by that name in Astoria. Lovely place, that. This tavern, in Manhattan, is not nearly so old. But it was founded in 1974, which is something.

The corner of E. 14th and First Avenue must have been a pretty rough crossroads back then. O'Hanlon's bartender would have been equal to the scene. Small, wiry, and with the face of a longshoreman who just got off his shift, he was no ray of sunshine. "Is it still happy hour?" I asked. I had seen the sandwich board outside that said all domestic drafts were $3 during happy hour. He shrugged. Assuming that was a sort of "yes," I ordered a Brooklyn Lager. "Five dollars," he growled. "That's why I asked if it was still happy hour," I complained. "Brooklyn Lager is always five dollars," he answered. I was going to say something about how he should change his misleading "all domestic drafts" sucker sign, but I order a Bud instead.

O'Hanlon's used to have an old hand-carved sign outside. That's been replaced by one of those garish, faux-Irish frontages that are always painted some garish color. This one's red. This interior is appealing: low tin ceilings, wooden floors and iron pillars that sit a few steps below street level, giving the place the feel of a cozy den. The space is long and deep (it was a restaurant for decades before it became a bar). There's a pool room and then, further back, a dart room. Sit at a table across from the bar and the traffic between the front door and the back never quite ceases.

The clientele is varied, aside from the unifying fact that none of them put on airs. There are old men sitting at the bar; a crowd of just-off-work, loosened-tie office mates around the pool table hashing over the work day's events; husbands getting beers for their waiting wives. This is a sports bar in several ways. Green Bay Packers fans congregate here on Sundays during the football season. Dart tournaments are held in the back. And some take their pool seriously. While I was there, a stout woman came in and greeted a friend. She didn't attract my interest much until she opened a black case and started screwing together her silver custom pool cue.

The relaxed atmosphere was broken slightly by the clatter of a disabled young man and his service dog, a tall white poodle mix, noisily trying to maneuver his walker down the entryway. No one got up to help him, but no one looked surprised to see him either. I opened the door for the man. "Thank you," he said and made a labored beeline for the back room. A while later, I drew back the red curtain that concealed the room. Darts were off. It was open mike stand-up night. The young man with the walker was doing a bit on green beer. His dog sat in the audience.

—Robert Simonson

Sun Won't Set on Sun Story

There are yet more repercussions from the profile I wrote in the New York Sun two weeks ago of the Jennifer Malone-Seixas, the former sommelier at Fleur De Sel. As she previously informed me, and I reported here, she was dismissed by said French bistro just five days after my article appeared on the front page.

Since then, Eater.com, the widely read foodie blog, has picked up the story (in a rather sensational manner, if I may say). And now Grub Street has added to the debate by mentioning Ms. Malone-Seixas' situation in its interview of Ania Zaweija, the female sommlier at L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon. Their first question: "Have you faced the same prejudices that Jennifer Malone Seixas, the recently departed Fleur de Sel sommelier, says she experienced? For instance, customers demanding a male sommelier?"

And so we have a good old-fashioned debate going, which is healthy, I guess. If only it had been sparked merely by the article and Ms. Malone-Seixas' comments in it, rather than be her loss of her job. Anyway, take a look.

A Beer At...Ceol

For my latest Eater column, I went to a Cobble Hill Irish pub, not expecting any surprises inside, but finding some nonetheless.

The Sipping News

Fernet Branca is now on tap in San Francisco, as if the city was trying to reassert its love of the bitter beverage in the wake of the liquor's new popularity in New York and Boston. [Tasting Table]

Jay McInerney debuts as the Wall Street Journal's new wine columnist, and riles up a great many with his name-dropping, money-obsessed, have-you-forgotten-we're-in-a-recession-tone-deaf style.

Andrew Putz extols the virtues of Michigan wine in Food & Wine.

Eater has begun running a regular wine column by Talia Baiocchi called "Decanted."

The San Francisco Chronicle reports on the rise of Japanese whiskey.

The Sipping News

Eben Freeman has become "director of bar operations and innovation" at Michael White's Altamarea group. Nice to see Freeman finally land a new place in New York's bar world. He left his previous perch, Tailor, last year. [TONY via Eater]

Is tequila the new vodka? Or: The "Entourage" Effect. [Washington Post]

New York bars are spiking their milkshakes with liquor. [NYT]

More on the ongoing Tiki bar revival, including news of the coming Hurricane Club in Manhattan. [NYT]

A Beer at...Overlook Lounge

I have always regretted not having had the chance to drink at Costello's, the Third Avenue saloon made famous by New Yorker writer John McNulty, and frequented by every writer in the New Yorker stable. I know I would have adored it. I had thought the place was gone forever, every bit of it, but a visit to the Overlook Lounge showed me that a very slender connection to the Costello era yet exists. I don't think anyone at The New Yorker, however, then or now, would choose the Overlook as their watering hole. It's a fine place for a beer or a game or a burger. But not much more.

Here's my Eater "A Beer At..." column:

A Beer At...Overlook Lounge

How quickly the character drains from things in 21st-century New York.

I'd passed by the Overlook Lounge on E. 44th Street, near Third Avenue, many times over the years. And, aside from wondering at the slightly unusual name, I thought it a typical tavern. I did not know until walking inside that this was the last vestige of what was once one of the most storied saloons in New York history: Costello's, haunt in the 1940s and '50s of New Yorker writers such as James Thurber, who covered its wall with his iconic cartoons in order to pay off a bar tab, and John McNulty, who immortalized its regulars in innumerable stories for the magazine.

Costello's was at Third and 44th. It's long gone, torn down in the early '70s to make way for a skyscraper. Tim Costello, Jr., son of one of the owners, moved east to 225 E. 44th. The Thurber drawings had vanished (no one knows what became of them), so Tim Jr. invited Daily News cartoonist Bill Gallo and his pals at the National Cartoonist Society to cover the back right wall with their doodles. The second Costello's closed in 1990; the space reopened as the Turtle Bay Cafe. Then that shuttered, making way for the Overlook, which, for better or worse, the owners named after that mountain lodge where Jack Nicholson goes crazy in "The Shining."

In a well-meaning gesture to honor the address' history, the Overlook owners in 2005 asked Bill Gallo, then in his 80s, and his buds to return and cover the left hand side of the bar with illustrations. They did. The right wall is still the winner, though. It takes you right back in time. There's Steve Canyon, with his rock-solid jaw. Fred Flintstone, Bullwinkle and, for God's sake, Dondi. Also, forgotten cartoon figures like Boner from Mort Walker's "Boner's Ark" strip. A caricature of W.C. Fields toasts the Bicentennial with a double-necked martini glass. Another caricature captures erstwhile mayor Abe Beame. (I wonder how many of the patrons know who Beame was anymore.) Suffusing all is a bygone, hilariously sexist point of view, with plenty of willing and dim buxom women. One wonders, "If Abe Lincoln only had four scores in seven years, he must not have been much of a ladie's man."

The newer mural, on the left, has its charms—many more New Yorker cartoonists than in 1975, and second appearances of Hägar the Horrible and the Lockhorns and, for some reason, Nixon. But each character is made to utter some advertisement for the bar, like "Here I am at the Overlook!" They're all pitchmen now. Either way—right wall or left wall—none of it is Thurber caliber. The murals feel like wan attempts to recapture a more glorious artistic past.

Not that anyone really pays much attention to the drawings. (How could they with a small TV nestled in every booth, keeping you distracted?) Most of the crowd keeps to the bar up front. The ceiling is covered with hundreds of Christmas ornaments to keep up "an every day is Mardi Gras" atmosphere, according to the bartender. The menu heralds the "best pommes frites in the city." There's a sign taped to a busted juke box saying "No more dollars. You like lose it." The bar offers darts and a roof deck. There's karaoke on Tuesdays and a picture of what appear to be Osmond and Rachel Ray singing at the Overlook.

It's an OK bar, I guess. They do a brisk trade, obviously. But it just seems like such a missed opportunity, like a museum that has the Venus de Milo in the back, but gives prides of place to the museum director's salt and pepper shaker collection. Maybe it's because I've been reading a lot of McNulty lately, but scanning the history of Costello's on the back of the menu only makes me realize what's lost, not appreciate what's there. A bar that can trace its lineage to writers like Hemingway and O'Hara, but chooses to paper its walls with 20 flat panel TVs and two 9 x 9 projection screens just depresses me. But, then again, who knows? Maybe they are the best pommes frites in New York.
— Robert Simonson

One Beer, 5,999 to Go

Today I began a new column for the New York-based foodie blog Eater. It's called "A Beer At...," and it's my way of finding out what's inside every single bar in New York City. Not the established ones, the well-known, the celebrated, the popular, the crowded, the landmarks. The other ones. The ones that don't look so special on the outside, but may very well be special on the inside. Or not.

I began with Lilly Coogan's, an Irish Pub on First Avenue that gets my vote for the least-interesting-looking bar in the East Village. Here's the text:

It’s difficult to drink in the East Village and be untrendy. Nearly every watering hole has some kind of preening personality. There are haute cocktail emporiums, organic bars, iconic dives, sophisticated wine bars, neo-speakeasies and taverns with beer and whiskey lists as long as your fourth-story walk-up. Even un-hip bars can be ineffably hip in their utter unhipness.

Lilly Coogan’s, however, may be the single wholly unpretentious saloon in the 10003 zip code. It’s nestled on the absolute uncoolest block of the East Village, the one on First Avenue with the McDonald’s and the Dunkin’ Donuts. The bright red façade says Faux Irish Pub, but about the only thing Irish about the place is the Guinness on tap. The interior is general in the extreme. There’s a small bar, with PBR on draft and a liquor front line made up entirely of flavored vodka. The jukebox is a random cherry-picking of hits from the last 40 years. The mildly horrifying video game Big Buck Hunter invites stool-jockeys to “Hunt Moose,” “Hunt Elk,” “Hunt Big Horned Sheep.” (Big Horned Sheep?) A mocking sign on the wall reads, “On this site in 1897 nothing happened.” One guesses: not in 1997, either.

The free hot dogs makes one think of the uber-dive Rudy’s in Hell’s Kitchen, though the shriveled weenies actually look less appetizing that the ones of offer in Ninth Avenue, if that’s possible. (It’s probably a good thing that Dunkin’ Donuts is next door.)

Lilly Coogan’s is good place to drink if: you want to spend $5 or less a quaff; you don’t mind throwing a hand of darts from time to time; you don’t want to check what you’re wearing before you enter; you don’t care how other people in the bar look; you don’t like crowds; you plan on laughing early in the evening and crying later on; you loathe the typical East Village rat.

Come to think of it, those are not bad criteria for entering a bar.
—Robert Simonson