The Magazine: January-February 2011
Grist for the Mill:
Grist for the Mill
A few words from editor Gabrielle Langholtz.
Notable Edibles:
A Liqueur that’s Loco for Local Plums
Scott Krahn already was quite familiar with gin. After all, he’s the Krahn in DH Krahn, a small-batch label that’s been in the New York City market since 2006.
But he was flummoxed when a bartender friend suggested he turn…
Notable Edibles:
Pipe Dreams Keeps Taps and Tubes Squeaky Clean
The big secret behind the city’s best draft beer isn’t clandestine kegs of small-batch suds delivered by a local brewer, or some celeb bartender who knows the proper way to pour. Instead it’s the plumbing—thanks to a humble draft beer…
Notable Edibles:
Move over Brew: At the Breslin, Wine’s on Tap
If you place a drink order at the bar at the Breslin by pointing to a tap, don’t assume you’re getting a beer.
The Breslin has four draft lines dedicated to wines on tap. That’s right—wine. They change seasonally, but…
Back of the House:
Freemans
The light at the end of the alley.
If you zig and then zag off Bowery onto Rivington Street, you’ll happen upon a pavement path that you could easily mistake for a delivery driveway, or miss entirely in a single…
Aftertaste:
The Truth about Speakeasies
New York has always been a thirsty city. Before we secured a safe supply of drinking water, beer surpassed both coffee and tea as the breakfast beverage of choice. The successive waves of immigrants who shaped the city’s history enriched…
Stills on the Move:
Creating a Buzz
A former banker transforms honey into award-winning gin and vodka.
Thirty minutes north of Manhattan, the commuter town of Port Chester is home to a new-ish Batali-Bastianich outpost offering city-style pizza and pasta to the suburban masses. But last summer,…
Op-Edible:
The Spirit of 76
Never mind the tea party—it’s time New York staged a hard-cider revolution.
Much fuss was made in 2005 when a Gallup poll found that wine had overtaken beer as America’s alcohol of choice. Slate called the news “an astonishing development,…
Behind the Bottle:
Label of Love
A line of wines you can judge by the cover.
Wine labels are like book covers: Few admit to considering the design—but everyone does. (The 22 members of the Facebook group “I choose wine based solely on a quirky name…
The Locavore Pour:
From Spuds, a Spirit
In the heart of Long Island wine country, one distillery is turning a potato crop into vodka.
The second-floor balcony of the Long Island Spirits distillery looks due north over 100 acres of potatoes. The fields were first tilled in…
Beer Here:
Hop Happy
A brewer for two boroughs.
For a while there, it was too easy for Kelly Taylor to get tipsy on beer. This was a peculiar problem for Taylor, given his profession. As Heartland Brewery’s brewmaster, Taylor spent his days concocting…
Liquid Assets:
Sweet on Bitters
Mixologists make their own.
For Louis Smeby, it all started because he didn’t want junk in his drinks.
“It seems like a small thing, and it is,” he allows of the aromatic, highly alcoholic liquids called bitters, typically added by…
In the Kitchen With:
Dale DeGroff
Mixing with a master.
Dale DeGroff is the undisputed patriarch of the recent cocktail renaissance. Author of The Craft of the Cocktail and The Essential Cocktail; founder of the Museum of the American Cocktail in New Orleans and consultant to…
Melting Pot:
Mezcal, Meet Manhattan
City drinkers summon up an ancient Oaxacan spirit.
“It’s going to blow up like tequila did 10 years ago,” says Guillermo Olguin. We’re sitting in Casa Mezcal, the Oaxacan restaurant and cultural center he opened last spring on Orchard Street,…
Indigenous Industry:
Morrell Authority
One of the first in the crush of NY wine bars.
Last October, a wine bar called V-Note opened on the Upper East Side. It was trumpeted as a “vegan wine bar,” and offers biodynamic, organic and sustainable wines to…
Stomping Grounds:
A Glassful of Flowers
An Upper East Side forager captures summer in a bottle.
My lifetime’s longing to drink wine made from flowers was recently fulfilled. The preposterous wish to pluck the season’s most redolent blooms and preserve summer forever is ably, amply achieved…
Bottle Shop:
Wine That’s Off the Record
Vinyl Wine brings new tastes and tunes to East Harlem.
Axl Rose and his glass of wine hold court on one whitewashed brick wall, a record player in the corner plays Sharon Jones then Arcade Fire, the cash register sits…
The Way We Were:
Old-School Barstool
Today’s clever cocktails wouldn’t fly in yesteryear’s newsman bars.
The present-day craft cocktail craze doesn’t just make it difficult to get a seat at a good bar on a Thursday night. It’s also made many a long-forgotten mixologist a part…
Notable Edibles:
How Thirsty Locavores Survive the Winter
For five years Michael Cecconi managed the bar at locavore temple Savoy, where he applied owner Peter Hoffman’s market sensibilities to the contents of cocktails. Here he waxes poetic on a drink to get you through the dark days when…