Your Temporary Home Base :: The Duck Pond

The rougey seductive glow of a dimly lit bar. The delightful chatter of the friendly patrons, lubricated by whatever will loosen the joints. New research into beat science, ninja classes, and a daytime slip n’ slide to name a few other bonus features. At the Duck Pond, good friends are made and even better friendships are nourished with whatever is on tap, brought over, or perhaps some lovingly provided Glenlivet if you’re lucky and you know someone that resides there. The service or offerings don't really matter here, this place where sparkling mermaids and angels, pleather and lace, wings, fishnets, and finger puppets/Fun Dip are the tray passed hand-outs. It feels more like an ether where shamanic glowing moonstones are rustled out of backpacks and find their way into your hand, and headlamps and alkaline dust are donned into the wee hours. Please, feel free to splay yourself on a couch or dance ‘til it hurts, it makes no difference here. And be sure to depart at some indefinite time to find yourself more of the same or different. Repeat. Repeat until your dancing exhaustion, comedown, a warm body, or the sun puts you to sleep.

The Duck Pond :: 9:00 and Edsel, open only during the last week of August.

The Caipirinha

We’re getting excited here in the middle of the country - football is here, tomatoes are backyard-garden fresh and a couple times a day you catch that breeze that just starts to smell like fall.

But I’m still holding on to my summer cocktail: The Caipirinha.

It’s not a summer-only drink, though I had many of them on a crowded, all-inclusive beach in Mexico this year. It was felt like a true drink then, after too many Rum Runners and "Coco Locos." Like anything with lots of citrus, sugar and ice, the Caipirinha calls sun and heat to mind. But don’t lump this cocktail in with the standard summery counterparts, your margaritas, your mojitos.

While those drinks are best known for their prominent liquors and shiny garnishes, the Caipirinha is made with a strong muddle, out of which comes the strangely familiar, not too sweet, a little bit earthy taste of a sugar cane alcohol, cachaça.

Both the drink and its star liquor are Brazilian. The Caipirinha is Brazil’s national cocktail, but cachaça was created by Portuguese settlers in the 16th century, reserved as a liquor for the slaves and lower classes.

The name itself is a diminutive version of the word “Caipira,” a Portuguese term for someone from the countryside -– almost the exact equivalent, says Wikipedia, of the American “hillbilly.”

Now, of course, it’s Brazil’s trendy new export, with good cachaça brands making their way into American bars. The Brazilian government’s even tried to capitalize on the rise of the former peasant drink, writing presidential decrees and fighting with the WTO to trademark cachaça and distinguish it from rum.

The last Caipirinha I had was far after vacation, in a bar just blocks away from my downtown Cincinnati apartment and made by a bartender/law student named Brad. He made the first one well, with an entire lime crushed into the small glass and the sugar mostly, but not entirely, dissolved in the bottom.

Brad also tried to serve us the “Brad Caipirinha” which he promised free if we didn’t like it. His version substituted raspberry vodka for the cachaça, which–sorry, Brad—confused the blend with its call for fruity attention.

But the failed cocktail highlighted what makes a good Caipirinha for me: A new liquor and dependable garnishes muddled to the point of delicious ambiguity, simple ingredients creating a drink just beyond the familiar.

THE CAIPIRINHA

1 2/3 oz. cachaça
1/2 fresh lime cut into 4 wedges
2 tsp. white cane sugar

place lime and sugar in an old fashioned glass and muddle
fill glass with crushed ice and add the cachaça
garnish with lime

When Jury Duty Drives You to Drink :: Whiskey Tavern

Whiskey Tavern, in the bowels of side-street Chinatown and steps away from the courthouses, is slick on the outside but thoughtfully and thoroughly weathered at its core. Its snappy black-and-gold façade masks the army of battered bar stools, distressed wooden booths and sleepy colored-glass lamps inside, where the lack of pretension is comforting yet vaguely spooky, suggesting the eerie shadow of taverns past.



Although Whiskey Tavern, mere weeks old, is just a spring chicken in this neighborhood of ancient justice and timeless Chinese eateries, the Tavern’s address has been home to bars since the second World War. Not long ago, the spot was known as the Baxter Pub—a straightforward semi-dive with the primary perk of being across the street from a cluster of bail bond businesses. Location, location, location.



Whiskey Tavern—79 Baxter Street in its current incarnation—is strong proof that brothers George and Justin Ruotolo aren’t new to this business. The two also own Whiskey Town, off the Bowery at East Third Street, and they—along with Tavern’s third owner, Rob Magill—are clearly familiar with the essentials of a successful neighborhood bar: beer, nice bartenders and a laid-back vibe.



Whiskey Tavern repeats the formula but adds an outdoor garden (open until 11 p.m. on weekdays and midnight on weekends), suds-soaking food (see below) and an extensive list of, yes, whiskeys, including Black Maple Hill ($10), Pappy Van Winkel ($15) and The Famous Grouse ($9), as well as bourbons and whiskey-based cocktails like the Manhattan-esque Traveling Secretary ($10 for a very generous pour). If, by chance, the hard stuff doesn’t appeal, there’s a decent variety of draft (Guinness is $6) and bottled beer (but please don’t get an Amstel, $6). While the wines are listed by color only, one can still celebrate a "not guilty" verdict with a bottle of Moet White Star ($125). Hooray! That’s less than the bail bonds across the street.



You can eat at Whiskey Tavern, too. Their burger ($8) is a thick oval of meat slapped onto a crusty hunk of French bread and served with pleasantly crispy fries; a nominally daintier option is the blue cheese, bacon and avocado-laden Cobb Salad ($12). Slightly out of keeping with the bar’s boozehound appeal, Whiskey Tavern also offers a two-egg sandwich for $5 (as if beer were not the breakfast of champions!), dressed with roasted garlic mayo on a club roll. 



Whiskey Tavern opens at 11 a.m. daily, and, if you feel like surviving five hours of firewater, you can catch happy hour (4–7 p.m.), when Miller Lite drafts and Miller High Life bottles are $3, Buds and Bud Lites are $4, well drinks are $6, and (why not?) cosmos and apple martinis are $6, too.



Digs: Snazzy on the outside, worn on the inside, with a loved and lived-in feel. From the old wooden barstools to the tiny amber votives, it’s good-looking but not uptight, comfy but not sloppy. 


Vibe: A neighborhood bar that aimed for the local drunks but got the local drinkers. Smart, friendly, outgoing and, above all, unpretentious.



Music: A great mix of Motown classics segues into punk and rock at night. The piano player is a highlight on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (from 6–9 p.m.); with a mix of ‘70s rock and pop, it’s an update on old-timey that fits the bar well.



Bottom line: For patrons transient and not, Whiskey Tavern feels like some kind of home—or at least one that’s saturated with alcohol and goodwill. In other words, what you need on your one-hour jury duty lunch break.

WHISKEY TAVERN:: 79 Baxter St. between Bayard and Walker Sts. 
212-374-9119