New York Serious Cocktail Bars

[Sneakeater]

With that said, new cocktail geeks have to come from somewhere.  I first got into serious cocktails in late 2003/early 2004.  I was already a gin drinker (I had somewhere gotten the idea that this was the retro thing to do) and heard about the atmosphere and theatrics of Milk & Honey.  so I went.  the light came on.  then I started going up to the Bemelman's Bar, etc.  but if it wasn't for the cachet of M&H I might never have been introduced to serious cocktails until quite a bit later.  I hardly think I was the only one.

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I was going to apologize for going off-topic with the following response, but thinking about it, it isn't really off-topic.

I find this account interesting. Let me contrast it with my own.

To hear current cocktail geeks talk, you'd think that prior to Dale's appointment at the Rainbow Bar, cocktails were a complete wasteland in America, and that everybody was thoughtlessly tossing back vodka martinis without any vermouth.

That's not the case.

As far back as the 80s, I decided for myself I preferred gin to vodka. Not because I thought gin was "retro", but because, as food-and-wine guy, I knew that I preferred ingredients that convey flavors over those that don't. You don't need someone to tell you that a chilled glass of straight vodka isn't a cocktail; anyone with a brain and an interest in food and drink can figure that out for himself. (It may surprise some of you to know that there was an anti-vodka school as far back as the 80s, if not before; it isn't some new invention of the current Cocktail Movement.)

Now maybe the period before the current Cocktail Revolution wasn't a great time for the invention of cocktails. But that doesn't mean there were no good cocktails to be had. The old standby classics -- Martinis, Manhattans, Sidecars, etc. -- were all available, and the better hotel bars -- places like the King Cole in the St. Regis or the bar at the Algonquin -- had seasoned bartenders who could prepare excellent renditions of them. Even then, people who had brains in their head and tastebuds in their mouth and who cared about the quality of what they ingested knew the difference between well-made cocktails and poorly-made ones, and knew where to get the good ones.

What I'm trying to say is that if you read my pal Nathan's post, it sounds like he was attracted to cocktails almost entirely as a matter of "scene". He drank gin because he thought it was "retro", and then was introduced to quality cocktails by the "cache" of M&H.

Well, I'm a lot older than Nathan and have been drinking and caring about cocktails a lot longer than him. And I kind of resent the "scenification" of cocktails. (That really is the large part of my whole resentment at not being able to get into the best cocktail bars anymore.) I -- and a lot of people like me -- didn't come to my appreciation of good cocktails as a "scene" thing. I came to them the same way as I came to my appreciation of good wine: as a culinary thing. And we resent the status-seekers who are making it difficult for us to enjoy something that ought to be easy.

Edited May 12, 2009 by Sneakeater (log)

[taion]

It's been a little while since I've been to PDT, but historically the cocktails there have been twelve dollars.  And I believe you must be mistaken about the price not being inclusive of tax.  This might be true for the food, but I doubt it.

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It was 12 – the spring menu posted on Grub Street lists 13, though, so I assume they bumped prices. I will double-check my last PDT receipt when I get home, unless someone knows offhand and will correct me.

If you think the obvious solution is moving to the East Village, I'm telling you it's not - I live there.  I never even try to go at peak times.  It is annoying to know that someone who doesn't give a shit about cocktails is taking my seat and tipping poorly, but that's just the way it is.  I've reached acceptance on this one.

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I'm young, live like 2 blocks from PDT, and still tend to only go to PDT for drinks before dinner, just because getting in is so hard at any other time, unless I want to hammer redial for half an hour to maybe get a reservation if I'm lucky. It's so frustrating, I swear, it's driving me to drink.

Getting back on topic, is it just coincidence that there's nowhere with a broader selection of drinks combined with M&H's door policy? Part of M&H's limited drink selection is surely a consequence of interior design as much as anything else! It's not clear to me, for example, that the M&H space could not have accommodated, for example, one less booth and instead had, say, 4 extra seats at the bar, along with the corresponding space on the back bar for extra shinies. Is it just the case that the "serious cocktail drinker" demographic is so limited that a second bar of that type can't be done profitably?

Edited May 12, 2009 by taion (log)

[Sneakeater]

Isn't it as simple as you need to do a lot of business to justify having that much inventory?

[taion]

Well, I'm a lot older than Nathan and have been drinking and caring about cocktails a lot longer than him.  And I kind of resent the "scenification" of cocktails.  (That really part of my whole resentment at not being able to get into the best cocktail bars.)  I -- and a lot of people like me -- didn't come to my appreciation of good cocktails as a "scene" thing.  I came to them the same way as I came to my appreciation of good wine:  as a culinary thing.  And we resent the status-seekers who are making it difficult for us to enjoy something that ought to be easy.

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But there are plenty of places with no scene that can serve up a perfectly fine Manhattan; it's just that the newest drinks, the most obsessive ice-heads, and that sort of stuff is associated with the new, "sceney" cocktail movement, no? These things are part and parcel of the move toward a real cocktail "scene" – it's not that you can't get what you used to be able to get, but getting the new things are more difficult... but isn't that always how it is with the "new"?

But at this point we are way off-topic from the question of whether vodka will come back.

Isn't it as simple as you need to do a lot of business to justify having that much inventory?

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Space really is a constraint at M&H – hence the sad little dinky half-bottles of Cointreau, Chartreuse, &c. Maybe doubling the bar area wouldn't double the available amount of stuff, just due to volumes, but I'd think that were M&H designed differently, it might be serving up substantially more house infused things. Edited May 12, 2009 by taion (log)

[slkinsey]

Of course, you could always confine most of your cocktailing to a place like Milk & Honey, if you're willing to pay the higher prices, put up with the hassle of needing to make a reservation, and okay with having to go Chinatown in the middle of the night to get a drink.

Just to elaborate, how is any of what you describe more of a burden than going to a bar in the East Village (where I don't live), getting told there's an hour wait, leaving, going to another bar in the East Village (where I still don't live), getting told there's an hour wait, leaving, going to a third bar in the East Village (haven't moved there yet), getting told there's an hour wait, and then either going over to the northern edge of Soho, where I know I'll be able to get in, or going home (which is what I usually do at that point)?

You mean like if you tried to go to Momofuku Ssam and it was an hour wait, and then you walked to Momofuku Noodle bar and that was a 45 minute wait, and then you walked to Redhead and that was a 45 minute wait and then you walked to Soba-ya and that was an hour wait? Same deal. But somehow we don't have the expectation that we'll be able to walk into Momofuku Ssam whenever we want.

Honestly, I never have a hard time getting into the EV cocktail bars because I either go at opening, or late at night. And I never try to go on Thursday, Friday or Saturday. If you want to get in there at 9 PM on Friday. . .

After-work cocktails are supposed to be relaxing, not a replay of the most annoying aspects of your workday.

Right. I get that. And I can understand your frustration, and even share it. Partly, I suppose your work schedule is to blame. If you aren't ready for that after-work drink until 7:30 or 8:00 most nights, you're behind the 8-Ball for getting in to most places. This is also trur with respect to getting into most small, popular restaurants at this hour. Me? If I'm going out for a cocktail after work, I can be there at 6:00 and get a seat. But it's certainly true that I'd go to these bars a lot more frequently if it weren't so cumbersome to get in for much of the evening -- which is a double-edged sword, because I want to see my friends, but I also want them to have success and to make money and sometimes these things are mutually incompatible. Along with the fact that Audrey is my cocktailian friend of longest standing and the fact that I think Del, Kenta and Scott are doing really great work right now, the fact that I can almost invariably get a comfortable seat with little hassle is another reason that I often find myself at Pegu Club for cocktails (or course, I don't try to go there at 8:00 on Thursday through Friday either).

[Sneakeater]

In the early years of our living together, my wife was working only part-time, and before that had spent her early adulthood working the kind of jobs, like yours, that let you out before 6. I, on the other hand, was working Major Firm Junior Associate hours. She used to get frustrated that I could only go to movies on Friday or Saturday nights. "Nobody goes to the movies then," she'd cry. "It's too crowded. Everybody knows that Monday and Tuesday are movie nights." I used to reply that she was being an aristocrat.

Funnily enough, when she got her first full-time law job, everything changed. Suddenly she never wanted to go out during the week anymore.

(ETA -- To clarify, I'm not a Junior Associate anymore and now can go out during the week. Just not before 8 or 9 or so.)

Edited May 12, 2009 by Sneakeater (log)

[slkinsey]

To hear current cocktail geeks talk, you'd think that prior to Dale's appointment at the Rainbow Bar, cocktails were a complete wasteland in America, and that everybody was thoughtlessly tossing back vodka martinis without any vermouth.

That's not the case.

As far back as the 80s, I decided for myself I preferred gin to vodka.

My preference for gin over vodka goes back to the early 80s as well, and legal drinking age was some ways in the future for me back then. This is because a bottle of vodka was unknown in our house, and yet all the grownups were Martini drinkers. Heck, I can go one better than that: I had my first taste of Fish House Punch in the mid-1970s, most likely long before Dave Wondrich had even heard of it. Later, as the 80s progressed, stealing from the family stash of FHP, which my parents aged in multiple gallons for a year before using it in their annual Xmas parties, became the standard way for all the Kinsey children to get illicit booze.

The point of all this is that, whule there were a few places that made a servicable if not particularly distinguished Sidecar, Old Fashioned or Manhattan back in the pre-revival days, they were not exactly thick on the ground. It is more or less accepted as fact that it was mostly, although not exlusively home bartenders who kept the craft of the cocktail alive between Prohibition and the revival. Is it any coincidence that the most important cocktail book written in this period was written by and for home bartenders?

Getting back on topic, is it just coincidence that there's nowhere with a broader selection of drinks combined with M&H's door policy? Part of M&H's limited drink selection is surely a consequence of interior design as much as anything else! It's not clear to me, for example, that the M&H space could not have accommodated, for example, one less booth and instead had, say, 4 extra seats at the bar, along with the corresponding space on the back bar for extra shinies. Is it just the case that the "serious cocktail drinker" demographic is so limited that a second bar of that type can't be done profitably?

What makes you think Milk & Honey is so profitable?

Isn't it as simple as you need to do a lot of business to justify having that much inventory?

Depth of inventory and breadth of inventory are two different things. Even if you don't go through all that much rye, you can still have 4 different brands. You just don't keep a case of each brand. M&H has a relatively narrow selection of brands because they just don't have all that much space to accommodate that many brands. So they pick the two gins that they like, and that's it -- they decide they can have dry white vermouth, but not Lillet. These are the compromises you have to make when working in a tiny space (which are compounded by not doing all that much volume).

This is why only the larger places such as Pegu Club are able to have 14 different kinds of gin.

Edited May 12, 2009 by slkinsey (log)

[taion]

Calling it now:

* Cranky eGulleters want vodka-drinking kids to stay away from their favorite serious cocktail bars. [eG]

[Sneakeater]

I had my first taste of Fish House Punch in the mid-1970s, most likely long before Dave Wondrich had even heard of it.  Later, as the 80s progressed, stealing from the family stash of FHP, which my parents aged in multiple gallons for a year before using it in their annual Xmas parties, became the standard way for all the Kinsey children to get illicit booze.

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You are very lucky.

Pretty much the totality of my parents' drink stash was a bottle of Slivovitz that one of their parents or grandparents had brought with them from the old country. It was aged, all right -- but I'm not sure aging did anything for it.

ETA -- Oh, and a bottle of Harvey's Bristol Cream. Also aging.

Edited May 12, 2009 by Sneakeater (log)

[Sneakeater]

Calling it now:

* Cranky eGulleters want vodka-drinking kids to stay away from their favorite serious cocktail bars. [eG]

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At least I know I can almost always get into the bar at Tailor.

Edited May 12, 2009 by Sneakeater (log)

[taion]

Getting back on topic, is it just coincidence that there's nowhere with a broader selection of drinks combined with M&H's door policy? Part of M&H's limited drink selection is surely a consequence of interior design as much as anything else! It's not clear to me, for example, that the M&H space could not have accommodated, for example, one less booth and instead had, say, 4 extra seats at the bar, along with the corresponding space on the back bar for extra shinies. Is it just the case that the "serious cocktail drinker" demographic is so limited that a second bar of that type can't be done profitably?

What makes you think Milk & Honey is so profitable?

Isn't it as simple as you need to do a lot of business to justify having that much inventory?

Depth of inventory and breadth of inventory are two different things. Even if you don't go through all that much rye, you can still have 4 different brands. You just don't keep a case of each brand. M&H has a relatively narrow selection of brands because they just don't have all that much space to accommodate that many brands. So they pick the two gins that they like, and that's it -- they decide they can have dry white vermouth, but not Lillet. These are the compromises you have to make when working in a tiny space (which are compounded by not doing all that much volume).

This is why only the larger places such as Pegu Club are able to have 14 different kinds of gin.

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"Profitably" was a poor choice of words there, my bad. I should have said "can't stay in business" rather than "can't be done profitably". It really doesn't seem to me that the size of M&H's bar area is purely due to the size of the space; M&H has 4 seats at the bar vs 24 seats at tables (more if some are used as 5-tops). I'm pretty sure this is the lowest ratio of any of the serious cocktail bars out there, and to me is actually a strike against them. And in part this contributes to their low volumes, since only one bartender can work at a time; this is especially a waste, since the person serving the drinks has always been, as far as I could tell, another bartender.

[Sneakeater]

You never got any of those cute women?

Edited May 12, 2009 by Sneakeater (log)

[taion]

You never got any of those cute women?

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My understanding of the M&H service model is that there's usually one bartender working at the bar, one bartender taking orders and serving drinks, one host/hostess handling the reservations and checks and maybe doing some of the serving, and on busy nights a separate dedicated barback. For a good chunk of the week, it's Sam and Mickey switching between mixing the drinks and serving them, at least as far as I can see... and certainly I'd be happy with either of them making my drinks. Given how ordering there works, you'd essentially need a good bartender taking the orders... Edited May 12, 2009 by taion (log)

[Sneakeater]

In at least the eariler days of my going to M&H, the hostess would also take orders. She'd constantly be shuttling between the bars and the tables, conveying patrons' requests and bartenders' recommendations -- although some of the hostesses had a pretty admirable knowledge of different cocktail possibilities themselves.

I agree that it makes more sense to have other bartenders doing this, as is now frequently the case.

[slkinsey]

In at least the eariler days of my going to M&H, the hostess would also take orders.  She'd constantly be shuttling between the bars and the tables, conveying patrons' requests and bartenders' recommendations -- although some of the hostesses had a pretty admirable knowledge of different cocktail possibilities themselves.

If she was Italian, then she was also a bartender.

[Sneakeater]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

[taion]

Also the Asian girl with the tattoos.

[Sneakeater]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

[Sneakeater]

It's embarrassing to have your sexist assumptions uncovered on the internet.

[slkinsey]

"Profitably" was a poor choice of words there, my bad. I should have said "can't stay in business" rather than "can't be done profitably".

Ultimately, people get into this business to make a profit -- not just to stay in business.

It really doesn't seem to me that the size of M&H's bar area is purely due to the size of the space; M&H has 4 seats at the bar vs 24 seats at tables (more if some are used as 5-tops). I'm pretty sure this is the lowest ratio of any of the serious cocktail bars out there, and to me is actually a strike against them. And in part this contributes to their low volumes, since only one bartender can work at a time; this is especially a waste, since the person serving the drinks has always been, as far as I could tell, another bartender.

I'm not sure if you're talking about the physical size of the space or the selection of booze. The latter is easy to figure out: It is a tiny space with serious storage constraints, and the liquor inventory and selection is curated accordingly.

As for the size of the bar area. . . It seems to me that a bar can take up quite a lot of room that could be occupied by paying customers. They don't really need any more bar space to serve 24 customers, and it strikes me as likely that there is no way they could have a larger bar without sacrificing capacity -- and they're already about as small as you can get and still make a buck.

I'm also not sure that the size of the bar are or the fact that one bartender is servicing 24 customers at capacity is the reason the volume is lower than it is in other places. Heck, at Flatiron Lounge on a Friday night, the bartenders are serviging a lot more than 24 customers each, and they do a ton of volume. Rather, I think that the very nature of Milk & Honey, the very things that make it a cool place to hang out (more quiet, more intimate, less frenetic, etc.) lend themselves to a slower pace of imbibing. And, of course, because of their reservations model, tables may go empty for as long as 30 minutes while they wait for the next people in line to arrive. These things all act to reduce volume.

[taion]

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Let me try to state my thesis coherently. My assertion is that the tradeoff between the selection of drinks available at M&H relative to its being quiet and easier to get a spot at is in some sense just poor luck:

1. Another M&H-style bar that is quiet but still does serious cocktails is probably not viable in New York right now.
   
2. The limited selection at M&H is partially due to the size of the bar area; there just isn't room for them to put more bottles on the back bar or accessible to the bartender.
   
3. The size of the bar area at M&H is an accident of design – it would have been possible to accommodate a larger bar area in place of an existing table, with the seats at the bar replacing the lost seats at the table.
   
4. Were the bar set up that way, it would have been possible for it to have had a wider selection of booze.
   

Really what I'm thinking is that it's not necessarily the case that a bar like M&H has to have a smaller selection of spirits, it's just that M&H was set up in a way that it could not have a larger such collection, and another bar in that style would not be viable.

[slkinsey]

taion, I don't know whether or not the size of the bar area is an "accident" or not (I suspect not), but what I think you don't understand is that the size of the bar area is not the reason there is not much breadth within individual spirit categories there. The reason there is much breadth within individual spirit categories there is because there is not very much storage space. Bars don't store their spirits in the bar, for the most part. That's just where they keep the bottles they're using (or perhaps as much as one additional bottle of each). Most bars have a big back room or a basement you never see, where they keep their inventory of spirits. The smaller your storeroom is, the smaller the inventory you can keep. The smaller your total inventory, the less breadth within individual spirit categories you can have, because you're using up all of your storage space just to have enough categories of spirits, nevermind breadth within them.

The reason it's unlikely that a bar so small would ever be able to have much breadth within individual spirit categories is that it becomes uneconomical to devote more than a certain percentage of your square footage to things like storage that aren't making you any money. Understanding that, we understand that a tiny bar will necessarily have a tiny (or perhaps almost nonexistent) storage area. Spirits, on the other hand, take up a fixed amount of space. Since cases of bottles are the same size whether you have a big storeroom or a small one, it's easy to understand how it is that tiny bars with tiny storerooms have their hands full just making sure they have enough room in there to stock a case each of a good brand for all the basic spirits and modifiers -- having 4 different kinds of rye is out of the question.

Edited May 13, 2009 by slkinsey (log)

[taion]

taion, I don't know whether or not the size of the bar area is an "accident" or not (I suspect not), but what I think you don't understand is that the size of the bar area is not the reason there is not much breadth within individual spirit categories there.  The reason there is  much breadth within individual spirit categories there is because there is not very much storage space.  Bars don't store their spirits in the bar, for the most part.  That's just where they keep the bottles they're using (or perhaps as much as one additional bottle of each).  Most bars have a big back room or a basement you never see, where they keep their inventory of spirits.  The smaller your storeroom is, the smaller the inventory you can keep.  The smaller your total inventory, the less breadth within individual spirit categories you can have, because you're using up all of your storage space just to have enough categories of spirits, nevermind breadth within them.

The reason it's unlikely that a bar so small would ever be able to have  much breadth within individual spirit categories is that it becomes uneconomical to devote more than a certain percentage of your square footage to things like storage that aren't making you any money.  Understanding that, we understand that a tiny bar will necessarily have a tiny (or perhaps almost nonexistent) storage area.  Spirits, on the other hand, take up a fixed amount of space.  Since cases of bottles are the same size whether you have a big storeroom or a small one, it's easy to understand how it is that tiny bars with tiny storerooms have their hands full just making sure they have enough room in there to stock a case each of a good brand for all the basic spirits and modifiers -- having 4 different kinds of rye is out of the question.

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D'oh. You are, of course, right – I'm just being dense. Although I wonder, then, if the proximity of White Star is of any benefit here.

[taion]

D'oh, just checked my receipts, too – you're right, PDT doesn't charge tax either. I must have been confused (or drunk) or something.

I guess part of the reason that M&H never struck me as being particularly expensive is that in large part for me, I often go there on nights where I might otherwise have gone clubbing, so my point of price comparison is more bottle service and drinks at the bar at clubs, rather than those at other serious cocktail bars. I didn't realize the premium was quite so extreme – ah well, it's a sunk cost now!