Address: 207 2nd Avenue (entrance on 13th Street), New York, NY 10003, USA
Address: 344 Bowery, New York, NY 10012, USA
Tel: +1 (212) 388-0148
www.thewrennyc.com
Hours: Hours here
Type: Cocktail bar
The Wren is a cavernous gastropub on the Bowery, but one that emphasizes its cocktail programme alongside its good selections of beers and straight spirits. The big long room is divided into several bays, all with high ceilings, making an airy space lit by Edison bulbs and decorated with bunches of willow branches in wall niches. I camped out at the long bar in the front (there is a second bar downstairs), in between beautiful people on dates and shaggy hipster types discussing digital photography. The leather-bound menu has just seven house cocktails on it, but they're trying to hit several bases and please the crowd: the vodka drink with St. Germain and citrus, the applejack highball with cider, the spin on the Old-Fashioned with cherry liqueur, the tequila drink with pepper and homemade grenadine. Many of the drinks have sweet or fruity sides, with berries or jam often finding their way into the shaker.
The "Great Jones" (Famous Grouse Scotch, black walnut bitters, and maple syrup) demonstrates an interesting use of walnut bitters and a good combination of flavours, but also decidedly on the sweet side. We followed up with a smoky take on a Manhattan, using equal parts rye and bourbon with an Ardbeg Scotch rinse, which was a pleasant variation on a familiar theme. The Wren is a pretty good gastropub (with decent fish and chips) with a decent cocktail programme, though you might say the focus is on the food. 3/5
Address: 700 E. 9th Street (entrance on Avenue C) New York, NY 10009, USA
Tel: +1 (212) 777-7022
www.thewaylandnyc.com
Hours: Hours here
Type: Cocktail bar
The Wayland's a friendly, inviting place in Alphabet City in the far East Village. It's not too big - if it were a touch smaller it'd be downright cozy - and the board floors, zigzag marble-topped bar, long tables, and upright piano in the corner all contribute to a warm feeling without giving you the sense that it's trying too hard or taking itself too seriously. The kitchen and bar both focus on fresh ingredients and flavours. The cocktail list is arranged by base spirit, with several drinks exhibiting some unconventional flavour combinations. A long ingredient roster in a drink can sometimes be a warning sign that it's going to devolve into a mess, but our bartender managed to keep all the plates spinning and all the elements in balance with one another.
An odd-looking signature drink is the Garden-Variety Margarita, which takes the fresh-ingredient mantra to heart with the addition of ginger and kale juices. I'm not sure if a cocktail could ever really be considered "healthy" or "nutritious", but this drink has as good a claim to those titles as any - turns out the kitchen and the bar often share ingredients back and forth. Other unconventional flavour combinations are cumin with Scotch, and bourbon with chipotle pepper, apricot jam, and Angostura bitters. The bar also makes its own cola. It serves it on tap with Fernet Branca in the "San Fran Spout", which is what a Cuba Libre wants to be when it grows up. This could be dangerous in the summertime. 4.5/5
Address: 79 Richardson Street, Brooklyn, NY 11222, USA
Tel: +1 718-878-3579
www.nydistilling.com/the-shanty
Hours: Hours here
Type: Cocktail bar
Tucked into a warehouse on an almost-deserted street in Williamsburg, The Shanty is different from other New York cocktail bars. For one thing, if you make your way past the tables and look to your right, you'll see a large plate-glass window set into the exposed-brick, and beyond it you'll see a still. For The Shanty is the retail operation of the New York Distilling Company, which makes two kinds of gin. (Rye is on the way, when it finishes aging, and Rock & Rye may come soon as well.) Distillery tours usually offer you a taste, to be sure, but how often do you have a full bar and the opportunity to drink gin twenty feet from where it's made?
It's a comfortable, dark space, lit by candles, Edison bulbs, and terra-cotta light fixtures designed to look like old-style liquor bottles. The selections aren't limited to the house-made gins; the back bar boasts a truly impressive array of spirits, arranged around an antique still (which dispenses remarkably good Pink Gin on request, made with Angostura bitters and a touch of Campari, and served with a can of Brooklyn Lager for $8.) If you go in-house, there's a wide array of cocktails made with the two varieties of gin. Dorothy Parker American Gin is fruity and floral, with hibiscus and elderberries in the botanical mix ("It tastes like perfume," our bartender opined. I'd wager it tastes better.) Or, head in a spicier direction with the Perry's Tot Navy Strength, which brings nutmeg, pepper, cinnamon, and honey, and wraps it all up in a hot 114-proof gin. The classically-inspired drink menu is designed to show off the best attributes of their products, and also spotlights other Brooklyn and New York State producers; ingredients such as Q Tonic and Bittermens Amer Sauvage. 4/5
Address: 668 10th Avenue, New York, NY 10036, USA
Tel: +1 (212) 920-4770
www.anejonyc.com
Hours: Hours here
Type: Cocktail bar
Mexican-inspired drinks, peppers, and mezcal-based concoctions seem to be all the rage in New York at the moment, and Añejo has thrown its hat into this particular ring. The bar and restaurant in Hell's Kitchen has a great selection of tequilas and mezcals, as you'd expect, but is also one of the only places where I've seen sotol on the menu. Sotol has been described as "tequila's northern cousin" - most of it is from Chihuahua - and it's a spirit distilled from the Desert Spoon plant, a kind of wild agave. The reposado we tried was sweet, light, and very smooth, with nutty molasses, herb, and citrus notes. It would probably disappear in a cocktail, but is a very interesting tipple on its own.
Añejo is dark, reasonably noisy, and convivial on the Tuesday night that I visited; its comfortably wide bar pleasingly cluttered with candles, flowers in small pots, and copies of the cocktail menu in small ornate gilt frames. Exposed brick walls lit by Edison bulbs (apparently required in most if not all new NYC bars) clash amusingly with lurid paintings on the back wall depicting agave plants at sunset.
The bar serves its wide array of tequilas and mezcals straight, accompanied by a lime, a small snack, and a shot of homemade sangrita. The bar also makes its own mole bitters, as well as batching and kegging its margaritas so they can be dispensed them from a tap. One interestingly creative drink was the El Diablo Ahumado, with joven mezcal, crème de cassis, jalapeño, lemon, and ginger beer: a marvel of balance. The Blood and Smoke was also notable for its incredibly intense mezcal and sherry-based spin on a Blood and Sand. 3.5/5
Address: 11 Doyers Street, New York, NY 10013, USA
Tel: +1 (212) 227-3099
www.pulquerianyc.com
Hours: Hours here
Type: Cocktail bar
Run by Christopher and Heather Tierney of Apothéke next door, Pulqueria occupies a dim basement in Chinatown, accessed by an unmarked stairwell. The lack of way-finding doesn't keep the scene-y crowd out, and the bar is often packed with people shimmying to live Mexican music, with standing-room even a challenge. The dark space is interesting, with candles and ceramic tile softening the concrete-block and brick walls, the ceiling lined with woven mats, and stainless-steel tables ringed with the kind of chairs you'd expect to see at European pavement cafes.
Pulqueria is named for - and its drinks are built around - pulque, an Aztec beverage made from the fermented sap of the maguey (or agave) plant. It's a light, mildly-alcoholic translucent green drink, and you can get it by itself in a "pulque classico" on the rocks for $6. The flavour's mild as well, smooth and vegetal, with a faint fermented beer-like tang at the finish. The menu features other Mexican drinks such as micheladas and several tequila and mezcal cocktails, and you can also get "curados de pulque", pulque-based drinks fortified with mezcal and flavoured with either jicama, tomatillo, or corn. The tomatillo version was fresh and light, not terribly potent, and didn't seem to be worth the $12 charged. I had better luck with a cilantro-focused mezcal cocktail with cucumbers and habanero, which was balanced. Ultimately, the garden flavours weren't too exciting, though they went along well with my tacos and beans with pulque sauce. 2.5/5
