More NYC Neighborhood Cocktails

If you're a bartender and you're thinking of creating a cocktail called the Gravesend, you better hurry. Brooklyn neighborhoods, as cocktail names, are at a premium.

My current feature in Time Out New York about the new breed of libations named after NYC nabes has unearthed yet more drinks with localized labels. I had bemoaned in a previous post that there was no cocktail named after my Brooklyn neighborhood: Carroll Gardens. I was wrong. Bartender Joachim Simo of the East Village's Death & Co. wrote to notify me that he himself had invented a Carroll Gardens cocktail a year ago, and it's been on the menu at both D&Co and the Flatiron Lounge.

Furthermore, Joachim's colleague Phil Ward has a cocktail called the Buskwick.

Here are the recipes for those who want to try them at home:

Carroll Gardens (Joaquin Simo)
2 oz Rittenhouse rye
1/2 oz Punt e Mes
1/2 oz Nardini Amaro
tsp Luxardo Maraschino

Squeeze lemon twist over the drink, wipe the rim with the peel and discard.

Bushwick (Phil Ward)
2 oz Rittenhouse rye
3/4 oz Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
1/4 oz Luxardo Maraschino
1/4 oz Amer Picon

Stir over cracked ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass. No garnish.

"Mad Men" and Drinking, Part IV

"Mad Men," having established early on in the first season that its character drink copiously, and free of care, litters latter episodes with less alcohol. Still, the references to booze and cocktails get increasingly more detailed and specific.

The character of ambitious secretary Peggy Olsen shows her sophistication in Episode 11 by ordering a Brandy Alexander—though her reaction that it's not as sweet as it should be perhaps shows she does not drink them as often as she boasts. The cocktail is appropriate. A young Brooklyn girl like Peggy would probably go for a classic "girl's drink" like the Brandy Alexander, and they did remain popular in the 1950s and 1960s. (The Beatles drank a lot of them.) Peggy's date, meanwhile, orders a nice glass of Reingold beer.

Later in the episode, Peggy is seen at home having a glass of red wine. It's Chianti, as we can tell by the pot-bellied bottle bound in straw casing. These bottles of cheap Italian vino were ubiquitous at the time. (They would become a laughable cliche, code for bad red wine, in the years to come and, then, in the 21st century, be reborn as retro hip.) It's likely that the average New Yorker would not have access to a great variety of fine wine in 1960. Chianti was an available option, and a cheap one. Peggy only makes $35 a week.

Episode 12 is entitled "Nixon vs. Kennedy," and its centerpiece is an office party in which the staff watches the election returns and generally behaves badly. These office antics are, of course, fueled by liquor. The moment the bosses are on the elevator, the workers push out a cart topped with many bottles, included a generically labeled "Vodka" bottle that the "Mad Men" art department keeps dragging out. The booze, however, quickly runs out, and the executives ask office manager Joan Holloway what stores lie in the supply closet. Actually, they ask, "What do we have too much of?" She replies, "Rum, Creme de Menthe."

Eeesh. Well, they take what they can get and it all goes into a water cooler dispensing vile green elixir.

It's no surprise that there's a lot of rum left in the supply closet. The tiki drink craze was still in full force in 1960 (though waning), so rum would be around, but the Sterling Cooper men are basically either Martini or Whiskey drinkers, with the lightweights going for beer and sometimes vodka. They don't go for Navy Grogs or Zombies.

At one point, copywriter Paul says he has a bottle of absinthe stashed in his office. It's acknowledged that it's illegal by one character. Still, it's highly unlikely that Paul would have gotten his hands of some absinthe, 45 years after it was banned in the U.S. In fact, it's doubtful that anyone in the office would have even remembered what it was, any more than they would have been going around ordering Old Tom Gin and Brandy Crustas. This could be chalked up to the fact that Paul is a would-be writer and more than a little pretentious. Or—my guess—the writers of "Mad Men" had been reading too much about the absinthe rebirth and were desperate to sneak in a reference to the old alcohol.

One last note: In Episode 10, Roger Sterling mentions an offer to take mistress Joan to The Colony. I love how dedicated "Mad Men" is to evoking the glory restaurants of New York's past (place both still living and dead). So far, characters have made visits to the Four Seasons, Rattazzi's, P.J. Clarke's and Toots Shor. So far, no one's mentioned The Stork Club, which is probably for the best; the famed nitespot was past its prime by 1960.

Red Heering

I took my recent interest in Cherry Heering and wrote a small item for Time Out New York about it. The research gave me a good excuse to go around town and try some of the new libations folks are making with the stuff.

Red Heering
By Robert Simonson

The cocktail revolution—with its backward-looking sensibility and obsession with arcane ingredients—has helped to blow the dust off various old booze brands that for decades had marked time on the back shelves of liquor stores. One such revitalized product is Cherry Heering, the brandy-based cherry liqueur that was invented by Dane Peter F. Heering, and is one of Denmark’s biggest contributions to the bar. Today’s barkeeps are exhuming classic Heering drinks, such as the 1920s-era Blood and Sand (Scotch, Heering, sweet vermouth and orange juice), while also creating fresh concoctions. “Heering is hot,” says Jonathan Pagosh, who uses the liqueur in his fruity Johnny Appleseed (cognac, Heering, muddled Fuji apple and lemon juice), $13.50 at Bookmarks Lounge at the Library Hotel (299 Madison Ave at 41st St, 14th floor; 212-204-5498). Phil Ward of Death & Company (433 E 6th St between First Ave and Ave A, 212-388-0882) pairs Heering with rum, cream, egg yolk and bitters in his Le Gigot Flip, an adult cherry-vanilla shake ($13). But Heering central may be Clover Club (210 Smith St between Baltic and Butler Sts, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn; 718-855-7939), which boasts not only the Curtain Call punch (Heering, applejack, Grand Marnier, red wine, lemon and orange juices, and figs; $45 serves 4–6), but also the timeless Singapore sling and Remember the Maine (both $11). While the sling is Heering’s greatest claim to fame, a case can be made that the more obscure Maine is the best use Heering has ever been put to. A cross between a manhattan and a Sazerec, the mix of rye, Punt y Mes vermouth, Heering and absinthe is a sipping drink of remarkable depth and texture.

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.

An Unlikely Success

This recipe stopped me in my tracks as I was paging through my Beverage Alcohol Resource manual, and not just because the name of the drink is The Dreamy Dorini Smoky Martini—though that name is enough to give one pause.

I was surprised to find it, one, because it's a vodka cocktail and B.A.R. chieftains are not known for their endorsement of vodka, and, two, it's the creation of Pegu Club's Audrey Saunders, another non-vodka lover. With those twin endorsements, I felt I had to give it a spin. Here's the formula:

1/2 oz. Laphroaig 10-year Scotch or other peaty Scotch
2 oz. Vodka
2-3 drops Pernod.

Shake well over ice. Serve up in Martini glass with lemon twist.

Mighty particular on her scotch, isn't Audrey? Well, I didn't happen to have Laphroaig on hand. Truth to tell, I usually don't have more than two single malt scotches on hand at any given time. A bar, I ain't. So I used one of my favorites, Cragganmore, which is a Speyside, not an Islay like Laphroaig. So sue me. And, since the B.A.R. guide was published before there were so many absinthes on the market, I used Pernod's absinthe.

Anyway, I think Audrey has something here. You can impose any flavor on vodka, of course, and the mistake most mixologists make with the spirit is to smother it in flavors, usually fruit flavors, until you're not aware that they's liquor in the drink at all. That is not the case here. The scotch and Pernod accent the vodka, both in color and flavor. The drink is still clear, so you don't forget you have a white spirit in your hand. And the scotch and Pernod are in small enough amounts that the only suggest themselves, like a fog creeping in along the edges of an otherwise clear night.

Cooling and Chilling Just Like a Snowman

I first saw the super-geeky Japanese Ice Presses in London, at Nick Strangeway's restaurant Hawksmoor. He has been sent, gratis, one of the expensive contraptions, which turn a block of ice into a perfect sphere. These huge round ice "cubes" look mighty impressive as the single cooling agent in a rocks glass. All and sundry gathered around to watch the thing, agog.

I next saw the golden magic machine a couple weeks ago at PDT, James Meehan's place in the East Village. James was introduced to the spheres by Johnny Iuzzini, who also came up with the drink, the East Village Globe Trotter, that will first feature the special ice. He has ordered a few presses and plans to wow the Gotham cocktail populace with by plopping the icy orbs into cocktails. I suspect he will wow them. I wrote a quick item about the phenom for Time Out New York's drink blog. Here is is:

Anyone who knows cocktail wonks knows they are obsessed with ice. The frozen water found in mixed drinks must be the right size and the right shape. It must be fresh and carry no odors. You must not skimp on the crushed ice in a Derby and the numerous tiny chunks in a proper Cobbler must be the approximate size of a ball bearing.

Well, sheriff, there’s a new ice cube in town. It’s big, it’s round, and you only need one.

In the next couple weeks, Jim Meehan of the East Village neo-speakeasy, PDT will introduce the latest in cocktail coolers: a perfectly spherical piece of ice about the size of a decent snowball. They are made with a costly Japanese ice press. Just place a large chunk of ice between two gold metal cylinders, each with a half-sphere cavity in the center. As the ice melts, the press closes in on itself, creating the ball of ice inside. The process is slow, taking a couple of minutes to produce each globe.

Meehan plans to showcase the ice in a new drink, fittingly called the East Village Globe Trotter. The drink, made of rye, cognac, sweet vermouth and Benedictine, is a riff on a famous New Orleans nip called a Vieux Carre. He expects the ice ball to catch eyes and catch on. Or, in other words, what comes round, goes around.—Robert Simonson

"Mad Men" and Drinking, Part III

Episodes 7, 8 and 9 of "Mad Men" are not as thrilling as the previous six, in regards to the drinking on display, and its historical interest. But, as usual, there are bottles and glasses and bars worth commenting on.

There is more and more vodka turning up on the series. I find myself wondering if this is accurate. Certainly, vodka burst onto the American scene after World War II, but was it so widely enjoyed by 1960, the year "Mad Men" takes place? In episode 7, the character Roger Sterling babies his ulcer with a glass of milk laced with Smirnoff. And later in the episode, he and main character Don Draper finish off two bottles of generic vodka. That's a lot of flavorless booze.

Well, could be. I just came across this ad for Smirnoff from 1961. It talks of how "American by the millions prefer" vodka. Also, ad men would be on the cutting edge of things; they would have been among the first to jump on the vodka bandwagon. And here's another ad from 1960, pushing Smirnoff as a choice for Martinis. "Wherever men and Martinis are extra dry." OK, so "Mad Men" has it right.

Nonetheless, Martinis are enjoyed with gin during a long lunch later in the episode. (I'm assuming it's gin; there are olives and no mention of vodka is made.) "Easy on the vermouth, says Sterling, typical of Martini drinkers of that era who liked their drink as dry as possible. Draper also makes a funny comment at the table: "Drinking milk. I never liked it. I hate cows."

Many restaurant references in this batch of shows, including Four Seasons, then in its first flower of fame, Chumley's and P.J. Clarke's. A long scene in Episode 8 takes place at Clarke's, and it pissed me off that the show, which is filmed in L.A., didn't go to the bother of setting the shot in the real Clarke's. The bar is still there adn looks very much like it did in the 1960s, and the filming could have been set up easily. The set they constructed instead looks nothing like Clarke's. (That's an erroneous image from the scene above.) The characters drink beer while they're there.

Also mentioned is Rattazzi's, a haunt at 9 E. 48th Street which is almost forgotten today. It was named after owner Dick Rattazzi, opened in 1956, and was popular with ad men of the day.

There's also a scene in episode 8 where the closeted gay art director played by Bryan Batt drink Sambuca con le Mosca ("Sambuca with flies"). It's a traditional Italian drink with three espresso beans floating in the drink. The scene takes place in the Hotel Roosevelt near Grand Central, apparently a virtual den of iniquity back in those days.

NOTE: as a history geek, I must point out an major anachronism in these episodes. Sterling Cooper, the ad firm, is working with the Nixon campaign. In episode 7, at a meeting, it is mentioned that Kennedy has not yet been selected as the Democratic nominee. In the next episode, which takes place soon after, the characters dance to Chubby Checker's hit "The Twist." The Democratic convention was July 11-15, 1960, placing the episodes sometime before then. Checker's "The Twist" was released on Aug. 1, 1960.