New York Tough: These 4 Local Brands Launched in a Pandemic
photo by Shannon Sturgis
Can a pandemic stop the launch of these NYC-born products? Fuhgeddaboudit!
One of the emerging themes of 2020 is perseverance. It’s Murphy’s Year: everything that could go wrong has, and in unpredictable ways. Oh, you had other plans, did you? Well, you’re not the only one. In New York City alone, four brands created by local cocktail industry veterans—Social Hour RTD Cocktails, Proteau mixers, Faccia Brutto amari, and Good Vodka—were already in the works for 2020 launches.
There were going to be launch parties!
There were going to be bar crawls to sell product!
There were going to be adequate purchase budgets!
People who make and appreciate delicious things bottling delicious things—it’s a total no-brainer!
Then the world shut down.
Well, what is one supposed to do when you’re sitting on pallets of product? These are New Yorkers. These are bar people. They are masters of the work-around.
Brooklyn mixologists enter the RTD game
Nearly two years in the making, Social Hour Cocktails is a collaboration between Brooklyn’s Clover Club cocktail bar owner Julie Reiner and Beverage Director Tom Macy. The liquid for the Gin & Tonic and Whiskey Mule comes from local distillery New York Distilling Co.--using the Perry’s Tot Navy Strength gin (11.5% ABV) and Ragtime Rye whiskey (10.5%)—and there is also a Pacific Spritz (8% ABV) made with Fingerlakes, NY rosé wine with an essence of grapefruit and passionfruit, a nod to Reiner’s Hawaii upbringing. Reiner tells me it took the pair many months of tasting ingredient combinations before arriving at final products that have the right flavor kick, and don’t need much zhuzhing to serve—i.e. they’re meant to be savored straight from the can without the need for more than a chill and maybe, but necessarily, a bit of citrus. This was an important distinction that cocktail service background co-founders set out to make.
“Our cocktails are spirit-based, not malt-based,” explains Macy. “They are the proper cocktail serving size at about 8 oz instead of 12, with proper cocktail proof and ratios. For example our Gin & Tonic has a ratio of one part gin to three parts tonic, which is roughly two ounces of gin and six ounces of tonic. Compare this to other canned G&Ts that are in 12 oz cans and 5-7% ABV: that’s 2 ounces of gin and 10 ounces of tonic!”
Why these three products and not, say, a canned Clover Club? “Early on we knew any cocktail with fresh juice was off the table. To put it in a can it would have to be pasteurized and that changes the flavor entirely, additionally juice doesn’t hold carbonation all that well,” explains Macy. He also maintains that highball style cocktails and spritzes with no fresh ingredients are best suited to RTD styles with spirits, the breakout category of the year, which is up 140% in sales according to an August report from Nielsen.
Finally, a zero proof you can enjoy on its own, or not
If you’re still one of the people, like me, who appreciates a well-made RTD but still likes to tinker with cocktails at home, then Proteau, the brainchild of former PDT bartender and drinks writer John deBary, author of the aptly titled Drink What You Want , may be for you. Proteau is a line of zero proof botanical beverages that not only work well as mixers, with or without alcohol, but are one of the very few I’ve tried that actually taste good chilled right out of the bottle. Another plus is the two flavors—Ludlow Red (blackberry, chrysanthemum, black pepper and dandelion) and Rivington Spritz (hibiscus, chamomile, Chinese rhubarb, gentian, strawberries and a touch of artisanal vinegar) have no added sugar, and are only 30 and 20 calories a serving each respectively. These highly drinkable flavors are very adult, even if they are completely G rated in presentation. I’ve added a little tequila or gin to them as a spritz (thumbs way up), or sipped them simply with a splash of seltzer, no need for additional citrus. They drink kind of like a shrub, with the fizz and flavor balance of a good kombucha.
“Proteau came about because of my deeply nerdy passion for all things botanical like vermouth and amaro coupled with my desire to create something that could give people more options in their drinking,” says deBary. “Working for a restaurant group [Momofuku] kept me focused on how to create food-friendly cocktails, and the particular challenge of making those drinks without alcohol. I was also inspired by the rich culinary traditions in the Lower East Side and the amazing access to ingredients we have in NYC to combine ingredients like Chinese rhubarb, gentian, black pepper, licorice, and artisan vinegars to create Rivington Spritz and Ludlow Red’s unique flavor profiles.”
photo by John Paradiso
Amari with chef appeal
With the same penchant for the less sweet, I remember tasting early prototypes of Faccia Brutto Fernet as an after dinner digestivo—and really digging them—while sitting at the bar at Rucola restaurant, where its then head chef Patrick Miller kept some behind the bar for staff and curious customers. In 2019, Miller took the leap to leave the restaurant and work on commercially developing the Fernet Pianta and an aperitivo called Gorini, both named for his native Italian grandparents.
Miller tapped his chef experience to create meticulously balanced flavors in both spirits. “A lot of [modern, New World interpretations] out there taste like they have too much of one thing, and not enough of another,” he says. With the aperitivo in particular, he uses hibiscus for subtle floral notes, and the natural color comes from cochineal (yes, this one has the bugs!), which is a traditional, authentic ingredient in classic styles. It has already won a gold medal in the 2020 NY International Spirits Competition. Miller says his goal was to release a product that is delicious and simple enough to become part of a “regular ritual”, explaining that he was partially inspired by his longtime partner, who drinks a spritz almost every day. He says she would be “very upset if we ran out of aperitivo, or oranges.”
Vodka may not be good for you, but this one is good for the earth
Too much of another kind of fruit is what inspired the owners of Good Vodka—spirits writer Mark Byrne and NYC bartender Tristan Willey. Years ago, Willey was in Guatemala on a coffee tour and discovered that piles and piles of spent coffee fruit are dumped every year, polluting local water sources with carbon and methane gases. What if that perfectly good fruit could be distilled and the waters be left cleaner?
Good Vodka is made from that discarded fruit, sourced in collaboration with Féderacion Nacionel de Cafeteros, a non-profit that works with Columbia coffee producers, and then distilled at Finger Lakes Distilling. Because the FNC works directly with the coffee producers, the purchase of the coffee fruit scraps to make the vodka creates additional income streams for the farmers. Willey and Byrne recently told Grub Street that their goal was to bring an eco-conscious spirit to market in a category “that sells a lot” because of its mass function (vodka sodas, Bloody Marys) and appeal. It helps that apparently each bottle saves the carbon emission equivalent of about 40 gallons from a gas-powered vehicle. The brand has the approval of bar and restaurant industry sustainability maven, Claire Sprouse, owner of Brooklyn’s Hunky Dory bar, who was among the first to embrace the product, which is now available in NY and CA.
How to find these products
As if this year wasn’t challenging enough already, owning an indie beverage brand means navigating the ever-changing, complex world of local liquor laws and dealing with less visibility on popular liquor delivery apps. But here is how to support these newcomers, (and with craft brands in general facing catastrophic losses in revenue because of bar closures and lack of tasting room traffic, I highly recommend taking the extra steps to find others like them and support them, whether they launched this year or 10 or more years ago, just as you would contact a bar/restaurant directly to order takeout instead of using an app) :
Social Hour Cocktails are sold in NY and NJ for now, in packs of four 8.4 oz cans at $19.95.
Proteau is $27 per 750 mL bottle, click here for more info, including where to order.
Faccia Brutto Fernet Pianta ($40/750 mL) and Aperitivo ($35/750 mL) are available at select restaurants and wine shops in NYC. Click here for more info.
Good Vodka is $30 per 750 mL bottle and is available (via Park Street distribution) at liquor stores in NY and CA for now.