The Cocktails from NYC’s Milk & Honey That Changed Bars Forever

Gold Rush

This honeyed Whiskey Sour twist was invented shortly after the bar opened, in 2000. But it wasn’t the creation of a bartender. As Robert Simonson has reported, T.J. Siegal, a patron and childhood friend of Petraske’s, asked for honey syrup in his usual Bourbon Sour instead of simple syrup. Siegal even named the drink, which soon became a favored “bartender’s choice” for whiskey drinkers. If you want to try one as it was made at Milk & Honey, use the house bourbon, Elijah Craig 12-Year-Old. 

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Red Hook

Milk & Honey may have been located in Manhattan, but many of its signature cocktails were inspired by another borough and its namesake drink: the Brooklyn, essentially a Manhattan-meets-Martinez with rye whiskey, dry vermouth, maraschino liqueur, and the bittersweet French aperitif Amer Picon. 

The first of the Brooklyn riffs, the Red Hook was created in 2003 by Vincenzo Errico, now the owner of L’Arteffato on the Italian island of Ischia. Errico swapped in the distinctly bittersweet Italian sweet vermouth Punt e Mes for the typical dry vermouth and tough-to-source Amer Picon. 

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Penicillin

Created in 2005, this spicy and smoky twist on the Gold Rush eventually usurped the original in popularity. Then a new Milk & Honey bartender and today the co-owner of renowned New York City bars including Attaboy and Temple Bar, Sam Ross used a recent shipment of Compass Box blended scotch as the base of the drink, replacing bourbon, along with honey-ginger syrup and lemon juice. The finishing touch: a float of smoky single-malt Islay scotch.

The cocktail is still a staple at Attaboy, where Ross famously serves it without a straw so drinkers can enjoy the beguiling aromas with each sip.

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Paper Plane

Ross created this Last Word riff for the menu of Chicago’s The Violet Hour (helmed by another Milk & Honey alum, Toby Maloney) in 2008, inspired by the popular M.I.A. song “Paper Planes.” He’d originally conceived a drink of equal parts bourbon, Campari, Amaro Nonino Quintessentia, and fresh lemon juice, but found the results to be unbalanced. When he swapped the Campari for its gentler sibling, Aperol, he knew he had a hit. Ross took the bittersweet and herbaceous drink back to Milk & Honey, where it quickly became a staple.  

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Bensonhurst

This Brooklyn riff was invented by legendary bartender and then-Bensonhurst resident Chad Solomon, in 2006, who split his time behind the stick of Milk & Honey and another pioneering New York City bar, Pegu Club. Of all the variations on the classic, this one is perhaps the most faithful to the original. It includes the usual rye whiskey, dry vermouth, and maraschino liqueur, with a teaspoon of herbaceous amaro Cynar taking the place of Amer Picon.

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Kentucky Maid

Akin to the Mint Julep, this refreshing bourbon cocktail was part of a “Maid” category of drinks at Milk & Honey that featured a base spirit, citrus, and muddled cucumbers. Ross first served a drink called the London Maid to bar legend Lynnette Marrero at another Petraske bar, East Side Company, with a base of gin. In 2005 he created this bourbon version with Elijah Craig’s Small Batch expression, lime juice, simple syrup, and muddled cucumbers and mint. 

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Greenpoint

Created by Attaboy and Temple Bar co-founder Michael McIlroy in 2006, this Brooklyn riff employs a base of rye whiskey but calls for sweet vermouth instead of dry and swaps the maraschino and Amer Picon for the herbal liqueur Yellow Chartreuse. Dashes of orange and Angostura bitters round out the drink, lending additional structure and flavor. The result is gently herbaceous and slightly sweeter than most of the Brooklyn drinks family.  

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Left Hand

On paper, this bittersweet bourbon drink looks like a Boulevardier with the addition of chocolate bitters, and that’s not exactly incorrect. But at the time, Ross says he didn’t know of the classic cocktail’s existence. Instead, he created the Left Hand as the “love child of a Negroni and a Manhattan” to celebrate the launch of Bittermen’s newly-released chocolate bitters.

Like the Negroni, the drink combines a spirit with Campari and sweet vermouth. Similar to a Manhattan, it follows a 2:1 ratio of whiskey to sweet vermouth, plus bitters. The drink was also part of an early “Hand” series of drinks at the bar that included Campari, vermouth, and chocolate bitters, writes Ross in Petraske’s 2016 book Regarding Cocktails. Among these were the Right Hand (aged rum), Tres Hands (mezcal and tequila), and Smoking Hand (scotch). 

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50/50 Martini

The 50/50 Martini wasn’t a Milk & Honey creation. Martinis made with equal parts gin and dry vermouth date to the turn of the century, and legendary bartender Audrey Saunders was widely influential in helping to bring the drink back to popularity when she started serving “Fitty-Fitty Martinis” at Pegu Club in 2005. However, Petraske was an early vermouth advocate and was especially fond of serving equal-parts Martinis at Milk & Honey. This promotion of the more classic, vermouth-heavy style of Martini went a long way in countering the decades of ever-drier Martinis that preceded it, and put quality vermouth back in popular tastes.

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