It’s kind of appropriate that the Pod39 Hotel is housed in a former, landmarked Salvation Army building, because hanging out on its open-to-the-public rooftop cocktail lounge on a beautiful day (or night) is the kind of open-air rescue that a New Yorker needs every now and again.
Best Sips
Now in its fourth year, the Manhattan Cocktail Classic is like a Davos for distillers and drink makers.
For 26 years, innovation has been the water of life for Aquavit.
For those who decry, “Vodka has no personality! Meh!” the good folks at Prohibition Distillery beg to differ, and have the proof (80%) in their pretty, retro-botanical, stamped glass bottle.
Giants have a funny ability (or, perhaps, curse?) for becoming oddly invisible–or, at least, not considered closely. Especially if that giant is a well-known, massively distributed spirit in a land where the trend is that the tinier in production and more homespun the story, the more imbibers want to sip it and hear the tale told. But everybody starts somewhere, and when you know the story of Bacardi – a name synonymous with Puerto Rican rum – it might surprise you to learn that it began on a different island entirely.
When Eleanor and Albert Leger left behind careers in software and teaching chemistry, respectively, they bought a farm in Vermont and discovered something special: the apples of the North Country.
Trying to describe Red Hook, Brooklyn’s Cacao Prieto is a tricky task – is it a distillery? A chocolate making wonderland with a heavenly shop full of organic confectionery treats? A science lab and farming-innovation think tank?
El Buho Mezcal is pretty easy to love–a little like drinking bottled smoke, but with a sweetness and earthy quality laced in that balances the whole act in your mouth.
The mash bill of this young whiskey (its aging is all of 18 minutes) combines local corn, spelt, and malted wheat, and it’s meant to be a receptacle of a spirit – for whiskey lovers who don’t dig vodka, it’s the equivalent of a base-spirit blank canvas. It’s soft, fruity, and creamy in your mouth, with just a little bit of sweetness that lingers subtly on your tongue from the corn.
Legally, he can’t refer to the buckwheat spirit as a whiskey, but damn if it doesn’t taste like a very fine and complex one.
It’s no easy feat to be a show-stopper on a crowded liquor store shelf, be it boutique or big box. But then again, there really isn’t anything else like Jack from Brooklyn’s Sorel liqueur.
Before you even decide what cocktail you want to make and before you even open the bottle, there’s something about Caledonia’s Barr Hill Gin that you can’t help but notice. And not just with your eyes. It’s the aroma.
