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

This week's Eater column:

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

A scarecrow of a man in a crumpled bucket hat shuffles into O'Hanlon's Bar on 31st Street in Astoria, past the wooden phone booth and the shelving unit that used to hold phone directories for the Manhattan, Brooklyn and Nassau County, but is now empty, since people don't use phone books anymore. He settles back onto his stool, his beer waiting in front of him. It's noon. "Lot of food out there," he says. Food for Al Pacino, Channing Tatum and Katie Holmes. They're making a film in the area. Pacino plays a world-weary detective. Trailers and caterers are parked just outside the 71-year-old tavern. There's word that a scene may be shot inside the bar, but no one knows for sure.

More About Painkiller

Richard Boccato and Giuseppe ("Joe") Gonzalez' new tiki bar Painkiller opens officially tonight. I visited the place on Monday, and talked to Boccato about the debut menu shortly after. Here are my findings, published yesterday, in the New York Times' Diner's Journal.

Zombies Descend for Drinks on the Lower East Side

By ROBERT SIMONSON

If the patrons at the new Lower East Side tikiden Painkiller want to order a Zombie — as many will — they’ll have a choice.

“We have to pay respect to Donn Beach,” said Richard Boccato, one of the owners of Painkiller, which officially opens on Friday. Beach, who founded the legendary Don the Beachcomber bar in Hollywood in 1934, is one of tiki’s founding fathers. But one of his signature drinks, the lethally alcoholic Zombie, is also one of the most debated cocktails in tiki history, with several differing published recipes.

How Many White Russian Variations Does One Need?

To commemorate the 55th anniversary of the White Russian first appearing in print (who knew?), Kahlua has hustled up four modern spins on The Dude's favorite cocktail.

Now, I'm pretty much OK with there just being one White Russian out there, but I admit to becoming curious when I saw one of the recipes came from Greg Seider of Summit Bar, whose work I like. But, to be fair, I'm printing all four here. Be prepared: there are a ton of eggs involved, and instructions are lengthy and difficult on three of these. (Double boiler? Really?) In fact, two of the recipes actually seem to be desserts, not drinks. Not that there's anything wrong with that. The same could be argued about the White Russian itself.

Moscow in Mexico
Created by Mixologist Gregory Seider of Summit

1 part Kahlúa
1 part Absolut Vodka
1 shot of espresso
1 half part walnut liquor

Directions:
Combine all ingredients into metal cocktail shaker and add ice. Hard-shake for 10 seconds and double strain through tea strainer into martini glass. Using aerolatte milk frother, froth cold milk and spoon on top of cocktail. Top with cardamom powder.

White Dog Has Its Day

I first tasted white dog at the Labrot & Graham distillery, where Woodford Reserve is made. I remember everyone else around getting very excited about tasting this just-off-the-still clear joy juice, and my thinking it was moonshine and was going to blow the roof off my head. I was surprised when I tasted a delicate, fruity, multi-faceted liquor that I almost preferred to the aged Woodford.

Soon after that visit, I began to see commercially released white whiskeys on the market, first, and most commonly, Death's Door from Wisconsin. That Buffalo Trace recently got into the game is a sure sign that white dog has hit the big time, and that this spirit is never again going to be a secret caviar savored only by liquor geeks who either make their own or sip it on the sly during distillery visits.

I just wrote an article on the phenomenon for the New York Times:

Moonshine Finds New Craftsmen and Enthusiasts

By Robert Simonson

IN early April, Kris Comstock, a representative for the Buffalo Trace distillery in Kentucky, conducted a seminar on bourbon at Char No. 4, a bar in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, that offers 150 kinds of American whiskey.

Among the bourbons he poured were Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare and Blanton’s. But his students weren’t interested in those.

“The first thing that everyone wanted to taste was the white dog,” he said. “We make products that win amazing awards all around the world, and they want to taste the white dog.”

Drinking in Brooklyn

I spent a good deal of the early part of the year talking to anyone and everyone who has anything to do with the cocktail, beer and coffee scenes in Brooklyn. The canvasing was in service of a feature on the Brooklyn drinking scene for Imbibe magazine. It wasn't difficult to research; a Brooklynite for 16 years, I had been doing casual, unscripted research for such a survey two or three years by simply paying calls on the new Brooklyn bars and cafe as they opened in waves in 2008 and 2009. And most of the people I interviewed for the piece I had already come to know. Nothing quite as pleasurable as doing an in-depth piece on your own hometown.

Here's the article. There are also lists of places to go for  cocktails, coffee, beer and wine (yes, wine does get a mention in the piece, though not a thorough going over, thank God—adding that aspect to the article might have killed me), all put together by yours truly. But I won't print those here. I have to leave some reason to go out and buy the mag.


A SCENE GROWS IN BROOKLYN

By Robert Simonson

IN THE LATE 19th CENTURY, BROOKLYN WAS A GLORIOUS PLACE TO DRINK. The borough (then a full-fledged city in its own right) boasted 48 breweries and lent its name to The Brooklyn, one of the country’s most popular cocktails at the time. Two of America’s largest coffee roasters of the area—R. Buckle Brothers and the A & P company—called Brooklyn home, and the venerable, gas-lit Gage & Tollner restaurant on Fulton Street served coffee so strong, some customers asked for it to be diluted.

Then came Prohibition, the Depression, high taxes and rising labor costs. The Breweries—Trommer’s, Piels, Rheingold—closed one by one. The last, Schaefer, turned off its Brooklyn taps in 1976. The Brooklyn Cocktail died from memory as an essential ingredient, Amer Picon, fell into obscurity. Gage & Tollner closed, its landmark interior eventually invaded by TGI Friday’s and then Arby’s.

In the last decade, however, craft breweries, cocktail lounges and coffee bars have been cropping up from Greenpoint to Bushwick. The shift took root in the ’90s, when New Yorkers crossed the East River in droves to escape rising rents and encroaching homogenization bred by Manhattan’s bear hug of chain stores and luxury condos. Some of those transplants became entrepreneurs, opening bars and cafés over the years to slake the thirsts of the new locals. That trend has steadily gained steam, and today Brooklynites have reclaimed one of the most enviable drink cultures in the country.

The Sipping News

Paul Pacult's new liquor competition, Ultimate Beverage Challenge, has released the results of their first Ultimate Cocktail Challenge, in which the judges make their determination as to which liquors go best in what drinks.

Opinions are split on the 2009 Bordeaux. [Dr. Vino]

Dr. Vino interviews "Bobby Paynerchuk."

Eric Asimov dissects the ominous-sounding Comprehensive Alcohol Regulatory Effectiveness Act of 2010, which is being considered by Congress, is loved and supported (and probably written) by wine and beer distributors, and hated by the Distilled Spirits Council, which wrote in a press release, "For good reason, the beverage alcohol industry is sharply divided over the merits of this controversial and ill-conceived proposal. Distilled spirits, wine and beer companies are strongly opposed to the legislation and we urge you not to co-sponsor the bill."

The Chicago Tribune goes in search of the true Templeton Rye.

How to Tag a Tiki Bar

Last night, May 3, the new Lower East Side tiki bar Painkiller has a soft opening for "family and friends." Preparations were so up to the brink that the storefront was still getting spray-painting up until the doors opened at 9 PM, and even afterwards. The artists, we were told, are graffiti taggers of some renown. Inside, there were Painkillers, Zombies, Mai Tais and about 587 people.