Admittedly, I’ve always had a much easier time coming up with cocktails than coming up with names for cocktails. But every now and then, after concocting something I consider worthy of sharing with you all (you should see the pile of cocktail recipes that didn’t make the cut), a fitting name reveals itself without too […]
Author Archives: Payman Bahmani
June 23, 2010
Happy Hour: Vermouth Perucchi
 For a long time I’ve been hounding my local wine merchant, T.B. Ackerson, to stock some vermouths in order to save me the constant pilgrimage to Manhattan’s Astor Wines, which is one of the few places that stocks a variety of quality vermouths–and I go through a fair amount of vermouth rather quickly. My neighborhood is sort of up and coming (though […]
June 2, 2010
Happy Hour: Handful of Moonshine
 The adorable face you see above is the reason why Happy Hour is dry this week. Everyone, say hello to Moonshine, an 11 week old Border Collie-Retreiver mix we picked up this past Sunday from the North Shore Animal League, which happens to be one of the largest no-kill shelters in the universe or […]
May 26, 2010
Happy Hour: Aperitif Competition at the Empire Room
The New York City cocktail landscape is an everchanging one. The proliferation of watering holes devoted to the craft of the cocktail doesn’t seem to be slowing down one bit, something I’m quite thankful for. Just in the last month bars like Painkiller (tiki meets 70s NY punk), Cienfuegos (specializing in rum based punches), Casa Mezcal […]
May 19, 2010
Happy Hour: MCC Wrapup/Liver Rehab
Last night NYC said goodbye to the Manhattan Cocktail Classic, a five day festival of all things related to the craft of the cocktail, and the first of its kind to bless our city. The cocktail world had been buzzing in anticipation about this for quite some time, and now that it’s over a few of […]
May 12, 2010
Happy Hour: Chinese Bootlegger Punch
New York has always been a great city, but this week its greatness gets bumped up a notch, as the first annual Manhattan Cocktail Classic rolls into town, along with some of the country’s best and brightest mixological minds. Accurately described as “part fête, part conference, part cocktail party,” it will be a balls-to-the-wall 5-day orgy […]
May 5, 2010
Happy Hour: Cinco de Drinko!
 It’s that time of year again folks! That’s right, it’s Cinco de Mayo, or as some call it, “Cinco de Drinko,†which is Americans’ favorite Mexican holiday that most Mexicans don’t celebrate. Contrary to popular belief, Cinco de Mayo is not the day of Mexican independence. That would be September 16. Rather, Cinco de […]
April 28, 2010
Happy Hour: The Stranger
 Every few years or so it seems the brains of the folks down in Arizona (aka God’s underwear chafe) burst with a brilliant idea that seems to justify the rest of the world’s perception of them as backwards ass, gun-toting, cactus-chewing clodhoppers. In the early 90s they decided they’d rather not recognize the Martin Luther King, […]
April 14, 2010
Happy Hour: Caipirinha
 I have yet to come across a cocktail that epitomizes the adjective rustic like the Caipirinha does. Derived from the Brazilian Portuguese word caipira (meaning “country peopleâ€), even the drink’s name references its rustic nature. Some refer to the Caipirinha as the cousin of the Mojito. My liquor-warped brain sees it slightly differently. To me […]