Drink 38: The Curse of the Oyster Bar (Part II)

The Name: The Curse of the Oyster Bar                                                                                 

The Bar: On the Rocks (696 10th Ave., NYC)

The Story Behind The Name: A seafood restaurant called Dock's has brought nothing but bad luck to me and my family. And that bad luck continued when I got rejected by a bar when I first tried to order this drink! You can read about that experience, and about the horrible things that happened every time my family tried to eat at Dock's, in Part I here.

Ordering The Drink: A few days after I was at Death & Co., I met some more friends for drinks in Times Square. After first stopping at The Rum House, where I've had a great drink before, we left in search of a less expensive option, and settled on On The Rocks, which I'd never heard of before. Things in the theatre district tend to be a mixture of tourist traps and then great New York institutions. On The Rocks fits firmly in the latter category--it's a small place with a vast whiskey collection that has a very local and quiet feel. It's one of the few Times Square bars that really has a neighborhood feel. Plus, we discovered that they offer a 20% off discount for members of Actor's Equity, which not only made my wallet happy, but also reinforced that they are supportive of the locals (read: struggling and not struggling artists). I finished off an impeccable whiskey sour, and decided to see if I could finally get a drink called The Curse of the Oyster Bar.

The bartender--and I think the only person working in the entire bar--was a friendly and dapperly-dressed guy named Josh. I told him I had a weird request for him. "I doubt it's THAT weird," he said. "You say that NOW..." I replied and told him my request. After I gave him the name The Curse of the Oyster Bar, he was silent for a long time and lost in thought.

"I'm going to do something weird," he said.

"Great! I told you it was a weird request," I said. Soon, a drink was placed before me.

The Drink:

The Curse of the Oyster Bar

Tequila

Lemon Juice

Sugar

Frost Bitters

Whiskey float 

Assessment of Drink: As soon as Josh set this drink down, he apologized. "I made something awesome," he said, "but then I tried to add a whiskey float to it and I think I ruined it. If you don't like it, I'll make another one without the float."

But I tried it, and I liked it a lot! My friends Christa and James tasted it too and also thought it was great. Josh seemed surprised. "I guess I just know what it HAD tasted like and I liked that better. But I'm glad you like it," he said

The secret ingredient here are the frost bitters. Frost bitters, a variety of bitter I was not aware of, have a unique taste that's a bit reminiscent of menthol. It's almost medicinal but in a good way, and has a briney taste like old-fashioned licorice. Josh let me smell the bitters and it's evident that this is a very strong ingredient, and probably a difficult one to use as it would threaten to overpower any other flavor in the drink. And while it's certainly a prominent taste in The Curse of the Oyster Bar, it didn't feel like it overpowered anything. Probably due to the sugar, which softened some of the abrasiveness of the frost bitters. The sugar also tempered the lemon, highlighting its sweetness as opposed to the sour or bitter flavors. It made this a remarkably easy drink to sip. Considering that it had both whiskey and tequila, it could have easily felt too strong for most casual drinkers, but it went down very easily. The tequila and whiskey were both prominent flavors, but the combination of the frost bitters, lemon, and sugar, served well to temper the strength while still preserving the flavor. I really liked it!

But, I was curious about how disappointed Josh was with his effort. He clearly thought this drink was better without the whiskey float (a technique where the drink is layered--in this case, the whiskey was sitting on the top of the drink rather than being mixed in with the rest of it). I asked if he'd be willing to make me the same drink but without the whiskey float and he happily obliged.

The drinks look almost exactly alike.

The drinks are very different, to be sure. Despite the only difference being the whiskey, it was amazing how different these two drinks tasted. But while I liked both drinks, I didn't find this one to be so clearly superior as Josh did. I actually liked the whiskey on top--since it's not incorporated into the rest of the drink, it comes in as a bit of an aftertaste, which adds a bit more dimension to the drink I think.

But I can also understand why Josh liked the second drink better--without the whiskey in there, the tequila came through much clearer. Considering that this bar is called On The Rocks, its emphasis is less on mixed drinks and more on highlighting the quality of the spirit. And that's something that the non-whiskey version managed to do better. The various ingredients were used to enhance the tequila--the whiskey competes with it. More serious drinkers would probably agree with Josh and like the second drink more. For me, I still liked the kick of whiskey at the end--it was a nice little surprise.

Does It Live Up To The Name: My first thought is that the frost bitters make this drink fit the name. They had a slightly briny flavor that could arguably put one in mind of the sea. It's a loose connection, but it's one that I made as I considered why this drink might be called The Curse of the Oyster Bar.

But I wasn't completely sold. The connection to oysters was tenuous. But even more lacking was the actual "curse" part. There was nothing sinister about this drink--nothing to imply a curse. So, I ultimately didn't really think it lived up to the name too much. Especially since Josh already used a layering technique by floating the whiskey, it might have been cool if there had been a floating of something like absinthe, or some sort of red mixer that could have made a big impression and maybe implied some sort of curse. When I think of curses, I don't usually think of lemons.

That being said, I bet that Josh had a reason for assigning this drink to the given name. He put a lot of thought into it and crafted this drink with much precision. So I have a feeling that if I had inquired as to why he came up with this drink, he might have had a good explanation.

I'll definitely be returning to On The Rocks--and not just for the Equity member discount! It's a Times Square bar that doesn't feel like a Times Square bar. That might be because it's technically in Hell's Kitchen, not Midtown, but you say tomato and I say tomato. It has a great selection of whiskey and beer, and is a nice quiet oasis from the hustle and bustle of one of NYC's busiest areas. The drinks were good enough that they might have shaken the curse of Dock's off of me for good. And, after being rejected the first time I tried to order this drink, it was great to find a place that made me TWO drinks instead of just one.

Drink 38: The Curse of the Oyster Bar (Part I)

The Name: The Curse of the Oyster Bar                                                                                

The Bar: Death & Co. (433 E. 6th Street, NYC)

The Story Behind The Name: I'm not a superstitious person by any means. I believe that most of the more mysterious things in the world can be explained, either through logic or plain chance. But even I have to admit that sometimes some weird things happen. Last year, for Halloween, I talked about one such weird thing: my mom's cat who seemingly came back from the dead. This year, my Halloween drink is about another odd occurrence: a seafood restaurant that seemed to have a specific curse targeting my family.

Near the apartment where I grew up, there used to be a restaurant called Dock's Oyster Bar and Seafood Grill. That particular restaurant closed a few years ago but they do have another location in the city. The food is very good, especially if you like seafood. But when it closed, my parents and I rejoiced. Because it seemed like every time we went to Dock's something terrible happened.

And I don't mean little things, like we'd lose a lucky penny or something. I mean big things. Really major, horrible things. And they would happen typically within a day and a half of us going to Dock's.

The curse began before I was born. While my mom was pregnant with me, my parents moved into a bigger apartment in expectation of baby Miles. To celebrate their new apartment, they decided to go to Dock's as they'd heard it was supposed be a good, slightly more upscale neighborhood place. The next morning, less than 24 hours after their first time at Dock's, they did a walk-through of their new place, and my mom slipped and broke her shoulder. 

 A few years later, one of my mother's cousins was visiting New York City with his family. My mom and this particular cousin had always been close, and my parents were more than happy to host them. They decided to go to Dock's. While there, my mom and her cousin got into a huge argument that completely ended their friendship. They haven't spoken since. 

A few years later, we went to Dock's again. The next day, my dad was fired from his job unexpectedly.

It was around this point that we started to feel there might be a trend. The meal at Dock's was always perfectly fine, but it just seemed like trouble followed us whenever we left the restaurant. And it's not like we went to Dock's a lot and sometimes bad things happened, bad things happened to our family EVERY SINGLE TIME  WE WENT. Almost like clockwork. After my dad lost his job, I think we really became aware of just how worrying this trend was. We started piecing together the various horrendous occurrences that seemed to accompany every meal. There were more, by the way, the ones I've mentioned here are just the ones that immediately come to mind. I'm not sure, but I think that one time we went, and the next day learned that a relative had died. The whole thing became a joke to us. We'd walk by Dock's and go, "We're never going THERE again" and we'd laugh because obviously the restaurant couldn't REALLY have been cursed...could it?

One year, when I was in middle school, my parents, my grandma, and I were going to go out to dinner on Valentine's Day. We decided to throw caution to the wind and try Dock's again. "Hopefully nothing bad will happen, haha!" we said. My mom called and made a reservation. This was on February 12th.

The next day, February 13th, I broke my leg in gym class.

With my freshly broken leg, I was in a tremendous amount of pain, but I didn't want to ruin the evening's plans, so on the 14th we went to Dock's. My parents wheeled me over on my grandma's walker. They were doing construction work on the streets so the streets were particularly bumpy. My leg throbbed in pain at every bump in the road. We had a nice meal at Dock's, even though I could hardly eat anything because the pain was too distracting. We joked that at least this time, the horrible thing that usually accompanied our Dock's meals had already happened!

Two days later, my grandma had a stroke and had to be admitted to the hospital.

We never went to Dock's again.

This grey awning haunts my nightmares.

It is worth noting that the food there is great. And if you are worried about the curse somehow following you, you should know that the curse never seemed to affect anyone else. We know multiple people who would eat there with no negative side effects, so if there was some sort of supernatural hex associated with Dock's Oyster Bar and Seafood Grill, it was very specifically trained on my parents and I. And the curse seems to have ended once Dock's closed and changed locations. My mom has been to the restaurant that now occupies the space multiple times for lunch and we've never observed anything happening. Still, the curse of Dock's remains ever-present in our family. It was simply too reliable to just be a coincidence. Truly horrendous things happened to us every single time we went there. The oyster bar must have been cursed. Like a particularly bad Final Destination movie.

Ordering The Drink: I met my good friend Arun, who has accompanied me for several drinks in the past, at a bar called Death & Co. I've wanted to go here for a while. I've heard consistently amazing things about this bar, and have often been tempted to be their signature cocktail cookbook which is often considered one of the best guides for the budding home mixologist. Plus, with a name like Death & Co., I figured this would be the perfect place for a spooky Halloween drink.

Death & Co. is very sleek and sophisticated and cool. The suspenders-clad bartenders clearly know what their doing, and the drink menu is superbly laid out. It's divided by spirit--the whiskey drinks, the tequila drinks, the gin drinks, etc., and also designated which drinks are shaken and stirred. The sheer number of cool cocktails is staggering, but they make it easy to navigate, and easy to actually figure out what you want since everything sounds so delicious. Plus, the menu is decorated with various famous quotes about drinking, and some cute illustrations.

I arrived before Arun, and ordered a drink called The Waning Moon. Every drink I had at Death & Co. was wonderful, but this one was by far my favorite. The bartender called it "fall in a glass," and it had lovely flavors of apple and maple and lemon and whiskey and, most intriguingly, pine. As the bar wasn't too hectic, the bartender talked to me a bit about how they got the pine flavor in--using a pine tree brandy called Eaux de Vie Douglas Fir. It was really neat, and both this drink and the entire menu made me really excited to see what he would come up with for my custom drink. All in all, Arun and I were having a really great time at Death & Co. Especially when we got some truly delicious truffle mac and cheese.

After two drinks, we decided to go for the custom drink. There were two guys working the bar, and the one who had been making drinks for us was helping someone else, so the second guy came up to us and asked if we were ready. I launched into my usual spiel when I order drinks for this blog. "I have a bit of a weird request, and you can feel free to say no if you want to and I'll order something else. But I was hoping you could make me a drink based on the name of a cocktail. So, the cocktail doesn't exist yet, and you can put anything in it that you want as long as you think it would fit that name. Would you be willing to do it?"

When I finished, he was glaring at me slightly, shaking his head no, and said, "No. Order something off the menu."

"You're not going to do it?" I asked.

"Absolutely not."

I thought back to the other bartender, who had been very friendly and had talked to me about the Waning Moon and the pine.

"Can I ask him?" I asked.

"You can try, but he's going to say the same thing I did."

I decided to not risk pissing both of the bartenders off, so I ordered another cocktail off the menu--called the Blood & Thunder--which ended up being absolutely delicious. The bartender was incredibly friendly and polite for the entire evening.

So, I got rejected. After 38 drinks and almost two years, this is only my third time being rejected (I haven't written about one of the rejections yet--soon though--but you can read about my first drink rejection here) so getting rejected is a pretty rare occurrence. I have to say I was quite surprised. Sometimes I go to order the drink and think, "They might really not be into this...," but not at Death & Co. I not only thought that they would make the drink, but I was expecting one of the best drinks I'd ever get for this blog, considering their clear passion for cocktails. The reason I find this blog fun--and the reason it seems other bartenders have had a lot of fun with the premise--is because it's meant to be a celebration of cocktails. It's a fun little challenge where the bartender is encouraged to be inspired and to play. It's clear from the craftsmanship of the cocktails that the bartenders were up to the challenge, and it's clear from the menu that this is a place that thinks outside the box when it comes to classic cocktails. My weird little game seemed like it should have been right up their alley.

  

But it wasn't. And I can't blame them for that. I always say right at the outset that they can say no if they want to, and he was quite ready to use that out. I didn't push him for an explanation for why he was saying no, but my guess is that this cocktail menu has been carefully crafted and that by ordering from off the menu he felt like it was a slap in the face. Almost as if I was saying "I know you have an award-winning cocktail menu, but I think you can do better."And I hope he didn't take it as an insult because, of course, it wasn't meant in that way.

If I had asked the other bartender, maybe he would have done it. I don't know. I was certainly disappointed that Death & Co. didn't want to participate in What's That Drink, but I understand. And every drink that Arun and I had was quite incredible (we closed out the night by each getting a vintage egg nog prepared in the classic style, which were pretty excellent). I certainly recommend Death & Co. as a great bar in the city...just don't try and order off the menu. But, with a menu as great as theirs, you have more than enough options.

It seemed like the curse of Dock's was following me for one last time and preventing me from getting my custom drink! Luckily, a couple night later, I had another chance to try The Curse of the Oyster Bar, and this time I was able to get a drink. Read part II here!