Posts tagged New York

I recently blogged about the incredible renaissance of American beer brewing going on right now, but there’s another concoction that’s also enjoying a resurgence of intoxicating creativity and quality - yes, crack - but I’m referring to the cocktail.

While the origins of the word cocktail are murkier than a politician’s soul, some say the first printed use of the word is in The Farmer’s Cabinet on April 28, 1803.  Jared Brown of Mixellany argues however, that there was an earlier printed mention. Brown says in 1798 the Morning Post and Gazetteer reported that a London pub owner, on winning a lottery prize erased all his customers’ debts:

A publican, in Downing-street, who had a share of the 20,000l. prize, rubbed out all his scores, in a transport of joy: This was an humble imitation of his neighbour, who, when he drew the highest prize in the State Lottery, not only rubbed out, but actually broke scores with his old customers, and entirely forgot them.

The next week, on 20 March, 1798 the Morning Post and Gazetteer satirically listed the details of seventeen politicians’ pub debts, including the following:

Mr. Pitt, two petit vers of “L’huile de Venus”                        0   1   0

Ditto, one of “perfeit amour”                                            0   0   7

Ditto, “cock-tail” (vulgarly called ginger)                      0   0   0  3/4

William Pitt the Younger was Prime Minister at the time, whose tenure was marked by the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars. Implying he was drinking French beverages was akin to calling him a cheese-eating surrender monkey, but also suggests the word cocktail may have been a French loan word.

No doubt people had been drinking cocktails for many, many years prior to their making it into print. A cocktail was originally described as any concoction composed of a spirit (or spirits), water, sugar, and bitters (the ingredients of an Old Fashioned). At the time, bitters were a key constituent that differentiated a cocktail from Slings, Sours, Punches, Flips, Toddies, and a variety of other mixed drinks. The distinction has since largely evaporated.

An Old Fashioned

While America’s experiment with alcohol Prohibition from 1920-1933 was a truly fantastic failure, it did have a couple of serendipitous side effects. In the speakeasies that sprang up to serve illegal, home-brewed alcohol, women were able to socialize with men for the first time. Up until prohibition the only place a woman could publicly enjoy a tipple without social censure was in hotel bars - if she was a guest, as the wild west nature of the saloons were no place for a lady.

This ability for the sexes to mingle in public sexually charged the atmosphere of America, and also had an effect on the drinks served. Partly because it became almost impossible to find quality, unadulterated beer, and partly no doubt, due to the tastes of women, mixing and watering down the likes of rum and gin* became increasingly popular. By the end of prohibition on December 5th 1933, cocktails had become part of the American fabric.

Fast forward to the onset of the late 60’s, and other recreational drugs had become more freely available: weed, acid and coke chief amongst them, and cocktails found it hard to compete with the novelty of that sort of buzz. They fell out of favor, and it wasn’t until the 80’s that cocktails came back into fashion, as popularized by the 1988 Tom Cruise movie Cocktail.

Cocktails: they keep you young and gay

Like much of the pop culture of the time however, these were often terribly garish, syrupy, fruity concoctions, lacking in depth and subtlety. What most people equate with a Mai Tai for example, usually has little in common with its origins, which featured multiple rums and “fresh lime juice, given an ineffable twist with a dash of almond-flavored orgeat” (a syrup made from almonds, prepared with sugar and extract of orange flowers). The focus was less on the drinks - as flavorless vodkas came to replace gin, than on the ‘scene’ associated with them.

This started to change around the turn of the millennium. Taking off in the 90’s, there began a real shift from mass production and consumption towards smaller, natural, ‘authentic’ and local goods and services, particularly in food and drink. Traditional cocktails and gin began to make a come-back. One of the leaders of this new wave in cocktail making was an ambitious young New Yorker named Sasha Petraske. Aged 26, he opened a new bar called Milk & Honey in January 2000, situated at 134 Eldridge Street in New York’s Lower East Side; a formerly run-down, shabby neighborhood right on the cusp of being up and coming.

Getting away from the hoi polloi at Milk & Honey

With no signage, a reservation number that changed regularly, seating for less than 25, dim lighting, and most importantly - classic drinks hand-made with lots of love, Milk & Honey was a new type of establishment. It quickly racked up awards and featured on the World’s Best Bars. In the process Milk & Honey single-handedly redefined the term speakeasy from referring to an illegal Prohibition-era bar serving bootlegged or adulterated hooch, to a legal, modern bar with no street signage that served artisanal cocktails in a refined environment.

It was the first modern speakeasy.

Petraske attracted a lot of attention for various controversial measures, such as not taking walk-ins, disallowing standing, and the house rules:

1. No name-dropping, no star fucking.

2. No hooting, hollering, shouting or other loud behaviour.

3. No fighting, play fighting, no talking about fighting.

4. Gentlemen will remove their hats. Hooks are provided.

5. Gentlemen will not introduce themselves to ladies.
Ladies, feel free to start a conversation or ask the bartender to introduce you. If a man you don’t know speaks to you, please lift your chin slightly and ignore him.

6. Do not linger outside the front door.

7. Do not bring anyone unless you would leave that person alone in your home. You are responsible for the behaviour of your guests.

8. Exit the bar briskly and silently. People are trying to sleep across the street. Please make all your travel plans and say all farewells before leaving the bar.

While they appear overly anal to many, these rules were made for specific reason. Petraske’s landlord/friend lives directly above the bar, and he “only agreed to lease the space to Milk and Honey if Petraske would promise to maintain pin drop silence”. Petraske wanted clientele who knew “how to drink and remain polite, to each other and the residents of Eldridge Street.” It didn’t matter how famous you were - or weren’t, you couldn’t bribe your way in. You just needed to be referred by a friend, make a reservation, not be a dick - and you were in.

Petraske’s rules made the atmosphere much more relaxed - like being in a friend’s living room, than if you were being jostled and stood over by other patrons, and meant you could actually converse with your friends without having to shout. Tres civilized and egalitarian.

Milk & Honey’s success and influence caused variations of these rules to be adopted by several of Manhattan’s top speakeasies, such as PDT - short for Please Don’t Tell, accessible via a phone booth in the side of a hot dog joint in the East Village.

Mind your head at Please Don’t Tell

All this would be moot, falling into the realm of lame gimmickry, and Milk & Honey and PDT would have closed long ago - were it not for their serving cocktails that taste like freshly milked angel juice. But they are just two of many bars where mixologists construct elegant concoctions based on the classics, utilize locally-grown and seasonal produce, and make their own infusions, tinctures and bitters.

So enough history. What’s happening right now? Current cocktail trends include an explosion in artisanal and home-made bitters; the rediscovery of rum punches and consequent resurgence of tiki bars; ice sculpted to fit the glass they’re served in (not a gimmick: large, circular ice melts more slowly, keeping your drink cold without watering it down); speakeasies and bars that specialize exclusively in whiskey, tequila, or rum; savory drinks featuring food like bacon; molecular mixology; multiple types of absinthe coming back in a big way; and the rise of pulque, a Mexican fermented beverage made from the juice of the agave or maguey plant.

Today’s mixologists aren’t doing this part-time while they wait for their real life to kick in - they’re lifetime professionals, dedicated to their craft, constantly creating new levels of deliciousness that can be personalized directly to your tastes. (And when you’re spending $13+ for a drink, don’t be afraid to send it back if it’s not to your taste; they would rather you were a satisfied, repeat customer). Modern speakeasies are a great place to take a date, pontificate after dinner, or find out more about the always intriguing history of alcohol in an environment where boorish behavior is left at the door.

Bonus Time: Thirsty? Want to find the best speakeasies and cocktail lounges in New York City - spiritual home of the cocktail? I’ve painstakingly constructed a Google Map that’s taken countless hours of research to personally verify each venue’s worthiness. Enjoy…

View New York’s Finest Cocktail Joints in a larger map

*What we know today as gin is the English version of a 16th century Dutch liquor called Genever (which used to outsell gin six to one in the US before Prohibition, and is another vintage spirit that’s making a comeback). Genever began as a type of malt wine infused with juniper berries to mask the flavor, and is where we get the term ‘dutch courage’ from.

Now in easy to read PDF format with nice big pictures. 

Last week I took an express train off the reservation, and landed in Coney Island. It only takes about an hour from downtown Manhattan.

Coney Island’s main foreshore area

Located on the far eastern tip of Brooklyn, naturally Coney Island is not actually an island but a peninsular, although many lifetimes ago (up until the late 30’s) it was semi-separated from the mainland by a tidal flats creek.

For some fashion conscious New Yorkers, black is always chic

Today visiting the peninsular really is a trip down the rabbithole where you land in hotdog heaven/hell - otherwise known as Nathan’s, famous both as a hotdog brand in America and the home of the world* hotdog eating championships. The ninety-fourth(!) annual contest was held on July 4 last year. Six-time champion Takeru “Tsunami” Kobayashi from Japan was back to battle two-time defending California-based champ Joey Chestnut; Chestnut prevailed with a new world record of 68 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes. Kobayashi was close with 64½.

(*In the same sense that America’s baseball league is a ‘world’ championship)

“Welcome to our office”

Needless to say, the native population of this exotic locale are a free-spirited, somewhat disheveled, eccentric bunch who perfectly match their surrounds. Walking down the main boardwalk, all the concession stands look like they’ve been untouched since Eisenhower was president; it’s a visual swansong of warm, faded charms.

Coney Island’s natives are largely comprised of retirees, African Americans and whites in similar numbers, with a substantial Russian immigrant population, and Latinos. The median household income last decade was $21,281. This makes it a kind of fabulous Atlantic ghetto with a magnificent white sand beach where its latitude and longitude mean it gets the sun all day long, the people are friendly, and you can drink beer on the boardwalk on a weekday morning. And there’s the New York Aquarium too.

A 50’s fairground by the sea, complete with fresh lemonade, funnel cake, & 6 piece chicken in the basket

It really is fun for the whole family too, in a vaguely acid trippy, digestive-system-abusing sort of way. While the dominant culinary theme is of the if-it-moves-deep-fry-it aesthetic, there are even fresh salads and tacos for the girlfriends, moms and more fashion conscious more health aware.

“Live entertainment for the hole (sic) family”

We went on a balmy spring weekday, before the amusement parks open at the official beginning of summer/June, and before the crowds have turned the boardwalk and beach into a human dodgems game, so many of the attractions were not yet open or at full capacity. We were also reassured by locals that it’s not nearly as fun a locale in the bitter cold of a winter lashed by Atlantic storms.

Lola Star’s Dream Land Roller Rink

However, one of the cooler looking buildings I’ve seen in all of New York so far was the dilapidated grandeur reeking from this old skating rink overlooking the sea. I’m looking forward to exploring this, and more of the island’s doomed charms again soon, this summer, before (the inevitable-in-New-York) developers and gentrification shortly snatch this candy-colored time capsule away and turn it into another page of the city’s storied history.

So the temperature had been plummeting all day (it’s amazing the temperature variations between days here, sometimes 15’ Celsius) and in the afternoon it started snowing. Well I’ve been in snow before - on a mountain, which seems like the natural place for it - but seeing snow swirling down in a kaleidoscope of wind driven patterns against a backdrop of skyscrapers and five-story high apartment buildings was quite different, especially at night as it’s all back-lit by the high ambient light levels. It was fun! And made the air taste so fresh and sweet; especially compared to normal city air.

New Yorkers are all ‘Yeah it’s pretty at first but after a couple of months you’ll want to slit your wrists’ though, but that still couldn’t take away from the feeling. It reminded me to go out and buy some Christmas cards post haste. What sort of white mischief were you expecting?

Unexpected extra piece of New York action


The apartment building opposite ours clearly didn’t treat their smoke alarm with the appropriate respect (we disable ours when cooking)

There are sirens going all the time (some of them, I think the ambulance ones, sound like Muslim women keening and wailing as they slowly die of a gut wound; which is a bit disconcerting), and plenty down our road, so at first I didn’t realize that some fire trucks had pulled up outside our apartment. Shit! What’s going on?! We haven’t heard any alarms going off! But lo, it turns out it was for the building on the other side of the street to ours. We jumped out onto our fire escape to observe the action as fire-fighters shot their extendable ladder right to the top floor and had a guy up there on the roof within about two minutes. My girl exclaimed a little too loudly “I want to see flames! I want to see flames”, as she jumped up and down on our thin landing (it was very exciting) which apparently wasn’t quite the appropriate reaction according to the five firefighters pow-wowing on the street below who began glaring in our direction.

Tip: Firemen don’t always appreciate the sentiment behind the phrase “I want to see flames”

Luckily, there were no flames, or even much in the way of smoke, and it was all over in the space of ten minutes. Still, shit goes down in New York…

Less exciting, but no less stimulating

I also had the pleasure of attending the Museum of Modern Art once again, this time with a couple of friends, as we waited in line to check out the Tim Burton exhibition. I love this place - it’s so stimulating and inspiring, although it can get a bit overwhelming after you’ve been in there for a few hours. Anyway, an amazing exhibition, made up mainly of Burton’s elaborately twisted world as expressed through his drawings, some simple, some incredibly intricate, along with props and costumes from his movies.


MoMA main entrance hall with Tim Burton accessory

Not long after me and the same two miscreants made our way to Madison Square Garden to see the New York Knicks basketball team (sucking really hard all season, in the middle of ‘rebuilding’) take on the Orlando Phoenix Suns (edit, team mix-up - hat tip: Damian). I’m sure there’s piles of much more purple prose than mine describing the place but golly, that’s a cool venue. One of my teenage guitar heroes Steve Vai came out and kicked out the Star Spangled Banner to start things off which was most epic. Then the Knicks managed to take it to the Phoenix for the first two quarters, but fell off in the third and it was practically all over by the fourth.


It’s true, there really isn’t a bad seat in the house

Finally for Thanksgiving, which is as big as - if not bigger than - Christmas, I thought I’d check out the annual Macy’s Parade, which winds it’s way from the edge of Central Park down to the Macy’s department store in midtown. Some of the balloons for this are around four or five stories high and the floats are pretty off the hook too. There was an official crowd of around two million people there last year, but I’ve no idea how many were there this year.


A smurf looks hungrily over Times Square

After three weeks here I’m finally starting to feel a little less like a tourist gimp from nowheresville. Our new apartment is a pre-war building in Hell’s Kitchen on a picturesque, tree-lined one way street in Hell’s Kitchen, a couple of blocks from Times Square in the Theatre District.


Times Square is truly spectacular at night, no matter how often you visit

Hell’s Kitchen is so-called because until quite recently it was run by Irish and Italian gangs (the latter of which incidentally, apparently run all the garbage collection for Manhattan). These days it’s better described as a pretty Soddom & Gomorrah, given the prevalent gay population recently ejected upwards from Chelsea and the Meatpacking District by increasingly turgid housing costs.

Our apartment building, Fall 2009

I have so far collected the take-out menus of around 40 different restaurants within a couple of blocks, and I doubt that’s half the joints. There’s heaps of pizza and Mexican of course (praise the gods), including Ethiopian, Indonesian, Turkish, Chinese, Thai, Korean, Italian, French, Japanese, Greek, Dominican, Spanish, Brazilian and more. Incidentally, this week I happened across a tiny Mexican grocery / bodega called Tehuitzingo that reviewers have raved about as serving “the best tacos in Manhattan”. Rest easy that I’ll investigate this claim further for you. All the restaurants deliver for free, including the convenience stores, and almost everyone has lunch specials for less than 10 bucks.


Our entire apartment is the size of an average living room. Comfy though.

In bleak news for my liver, the mom & pop convenience stores on every corner (they’re called Delis here) usually carry a better beer selection than specialty liquor stores back home, and often make custom sandwiches of every description a la Subway, only so much better.


Twilight in Hell’s Kitchen

I’ve also landed next to not one but two phenomenal brewpubs. The Irish pub House of Brews on 46th Street (also known as Restaurant Row) boasts a selection of 80 different craft beers both local and from around the world, while Pony Bar on 10th Avenue has a fairly unique shtick: there’s 20 different American craft beers on tap, and every time a keg runs dry they replace it with a different beer, so the beer menu changes daily. Did I mention that I love American craft beer? Americans have been leading the world in craft beer for a while now so I am busy having nerdgasms every day.


(Pony Bar image www.NYbarfly.com)

To top off this awesomeness there’s also an amazing beer and cheese craft store on the end of my block. Beer. Cheese. Together!

I am so unsophisticated.

I think the thing I love most about Manhattan at the moment is just walking the streets. There are literally people from everywhere here, and from every socioeconomic level. I find the amount of homeless people quite unnerving, but then I also think, ‘hey, you’re a homeless guy in the greatest city in the world. Better than being homeless in Wanganui.’ And because it’s so flat and compact everyone walks, so there’s always a certain frisson. And incredible architecture. It’s a buzz.

I’m also loving the street art and advertising, which is everywhere, and has high production values and / or incredible originality.


Poster hoarding ads for a $1 New York lottery had a certain Kiwi ring


Street art in Greenwich Village

You can do amazing things for free, like go to a live taping of The Daily Show (only a few blocks from chez Mitch), so that’s what I did with a kiwi photographer friend who’s married to a New Yorker. Bit of a fluke as it’s usually booked out a year ahead. You have to queue for about 2 hours and go through pretty heavy airport-style security, but it’s quite fun once you’re in. The only way it could be more fun is if there was free beer. Serena Williams was the guest (full episode here) and Jon Stewart was quite taken with her charms. I’m off to a Colbert Report taping in January after being smiled upon by the ticket reservation gods once again.


Spot the guy who likes beer & cheese outside the Daily Show studio

Incidentally I also had a lot more fun during Halloween than I usually do back home, owing to 4 out 5 New Yorkers dressing up for it, and virtually every store getting into the theme of it as well - it really adds to the atmosphere on the streets. It was incredibly hot and sticky, real sub-tropical weather, and I went as Patrick Bateman from American Psycho. Economically I only bought a fake butcher’s knife and some fake blood for my suit to round out the package before setting off for Brooklyn and Queens for a couple of parties; good times.

Needless to say, I highly recommend New York. For everything.

As I’m off to New York City from May 6 to June 5 where I’m staying right in the thick of it in lower Manhatten, I’ll be posting about my experiences right here - with pictures from my trusty Nokia N95.

I’ll be getting a new sim card while I’m there for anyone who needs to contact me directly, and will have access to Skype occasionally as well.

I was hoping to make it to the Tribeca Film Festival (started by Robert DeNiro) but wouldn’t you know it - the festival finishes just as we arrive. Doh.


(With a bit of luck I’ll get some pics as good as this)

I’m also planning on heading to Washington D.C. for a night or two to check out the seat of power in the western world, built on the backs of thousands of slaves. The sheer scale of it looks pretty impressive.

Other than that the thing I think I’m most looking forward to is checking out the food. Truely the path to a man’s heart is (a motorway) through his stomach.

If anyone has any tips on how to eat well and cheaply, please feel free to let me know in the comments. I’d also appreciate a heads up on good places to shop for clothes, sunglasses, and music. Flea markets anyyone?

Other than the tickets I’ve booked for the world famous Blue Note Jazz Club, I imagine I may find my way to the odd discotheque or two as well  : )

Here’s hoping the reputation American airports have is undeserved. I like all my cavities just how they are.