On Aug. 21, 2015, Sasha Petraske — the visionary bar proprietor who constructed the foundations of up to date cocktail tradition via seminal bars like Milk & Honey, Little Department, The Varnish, and Dutch Kills — unexpectedly handed on the far-too-young age of 42. A former Military ranger and the son of a Village Voice fact-checker, Petraske utilized the type, idealistic components of his Communist upbringing, his militaristic self-discipline, and a deep love of historical past to reintroduce correct cocktails as a classy type of each expression and expertise, codified by eight legendary guidelines. In doing so, he wrested the New York cocktail scene away from the mad clutches of overserved buffoons downing pre-mixed grog in loud, TV-addled watering holes, all whereas dressed like he stepped out of an F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscript.
I by no means met Petraske. He was gone from this world by the point my beat switched its focus from meals to cocktails and spirits. He’s nonetheless a gentle presence in my life regardless of this hole. He’s there at any time when I stroll right into a dimly lit bar stocked with well-behaved friends, or at any time when I’ve a grown-up dialog over a balanced Daiquiri, or when a cocktail’s washline rests slightly below the rim of a frozen coupe when strained after the rhythmic chukka-chukka-chukka of a shaker loaded with a single piece of large-format ice. On the similar time, I understand his religious presence is not any match for the flesh. It could be bizarre to say I miss a barkeep I by no means interacted with, however right here we’re.
This 12 months marks the tenth anniversary of his passing. It nonetheless hurts like hell for individuals who knew him, embraced his quirks, and keep it up his legacy at this time. These are the torch-bearers of who he was and what he meant to the business he helped form. Could the anecdotes and remembrances that observe amplify Sasha Petraske’s good title.
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The Tales
Once I interviewed folks for this piece, I started every session by asking them to recall their fondest Sasha story. This question was as a rule greeted with some type of wistful, greedy model of, “Oh, God,” adopted by “I’ve two.” These featured tales come from a pile of abundance.
Georgette Moger (“Concerning Cocktails” cocktail educator and founder, Concerning Oysters, NYC and Paris): “My fondest story is our first date. I had come into Milk & Honey on a blind date that was a comically dangerous match. Sasha and I had spent 10 years as passing ships, be it at his bars, within the subway the place he would tip his hat to me with a well mannered, ‘Good morning, Miss Moger,’ or in eating rooms as I used to be popping out and he was coming in, each of us with books tucked below our arms. (‘The duck is outstanding, Mr. Petraske!’) Whereas on my southward plunging date, I used to be reminded of Sasha’s heat as a number and the class he carried himself with. You don’t come throughout too many males that transfer with such grace or communicate to a patron like they’re the one particular person within the room. Or, possibly, simply possibly, that was how I made him really feel. My second cocktail gave me the braveness to slide into the lavatory and tear a web page from my Moleskine, asking him to affix me for tea a while. I tucked the be aware into my sleeve and prayed my date would want to make use of the amenities earlier than we left. If he hadn’t, I’d have by no means joined Sasha for breakfast later that Sunday. He would have by no means requested me how I’d be spending the stays of my day. ‘I like to deal with myself to a e book from the uncommon e book room of the Strand,’ I mentioned. He had run errands for his mom for years on the Strand and by no means knew that ground was accessible. ‘After all,’ I mentioned. ‘It’s essentially the most wonderful place to twist up with a e book in all of Manhattan! The truth is, if I have been ever to do one thing silly sufficient like getting married, I’d do it there!’ He may need by no means insisted we go to the room collectively on our second date, and we could have by no means been married in that room two years later.”
Eric Alperin (bar proprietor and ice manufacturing, Alperin Enterprises): “There was one evening when it was closing time on the bar, and the final particular person there was a girl that was actually drunk. Sasha obtained her a cab, introduced her outdoors, closed the bar, and went along with her to her house. He obtained her inside her place, obtained her a giant glass of water, and left her solely when he made certain she was secure. The kindness and style he confirmed with that story has caught with me. It was occasions like that the place he felt he had a duty to his fellow man.”
Lucinda Sterling (bartender/managing accomplice, Seaborne/Center Department): “I had simply pushed from Colorado to New York, and I finished into Milk & Honey and ordered a Soiled Martini — that’s what you probably did in Colorado earlier than you have been cool. He appeared dissatisfied in my order, however he made it for me anyway … and unintentionally spilled the drink on my shirt. He leaned into me and whispered, ‘Please don’t inform folks this occurred.’ For somebody who was at all times checked out as so critical and virtually God-like, it’s vital to keep in mind that he had a susceptible aspect.”
Dale DeGroff (bartending legend/co-creator, DeGroff Spirits): “Sasha requested me about ice, and I spoke concerning the cubes from Kold Draft Machines we had on the Rainbow Room, however the machine was most likely greater than he spent on the entire build-out [of Milk & Honey]. The following time I got here in, Sasha had these great huge chunks of ice and I used to be curious. He took me to the again room and confirmed me a $50 freezer — the kind you possibly can disguise a physique in. It was full of different- sized containers the place he was making ice of all sizes. Sasha was an issue solver.”
Richard Boccato (managing accomplice, Dutch Kills/proprietor and operator, Hundredweight Ice): “One evening in 2007 in the course of a bar shift, Sasha requested me if I wished to open a bar with him in Lengthy Island Metropolis. I by no means actually had any aspirations to open a bar, however I instinctively mentioned sure. He knew that I had ties to the neighborhood going means again to the early Nineteen Nineties after I ran round on the prepare tracks with my misfit crew of miscreant youngsters. Simply as he did with Milk & Honey on Eldridge Avenue, Sasha had a prescient consciousness {that a} stylish cocktail bar may flourish on the market as the town streets modified throughout it. By the top of that evening there was a verify for $175,000 within the tip jar from an aspiring rapper with my title on it. The rapper was a man that Sasha knew. It was a buddy of a colleague that wished to spend money on Sasha’s bar.”
Chris Bostick (co-founder, Half Step): “I bear in mind the primary time I picked up Sasha from the prepare station. He was coming into Austin from San Antonio, and all he had was a plastic bag of stuff and a toothbrush. He mentioned he was simply on the town for a few days. After I picked him up, all we did was speak concerning the philosophy of operating a bar. Each time I’d choose him up, that’s what we’d speak about. There was one thing so endearing about choosing him up when he got here to city. He consistently appeared like he was stepping out of a Thirties film, however that was simply him. He was quirky. However he at all times made me really feel like a enterprise accomplice.”
TJ Siegal (server/barback/supervisor, Milk & Honey): “Sasha was not good at telling jokes. He’d inform actually silly jokes again and again. He’d even take another person’s humorous joke, add phrases to it, and make it unfunny. However he had a foolish aspect and he cherished to chortle. He would chortle uncontrollably at some surprising issues. I bear in mind a couple of folks making enjoyable of him for laughing out loud on the film ‘Kung Fu Panda.’”
Julie Reiner (artistic director, Clover Membership/Milady’s): “He was clearly smitten with Georgette. She labored at my bar, Flatiron Lounge, as a hostess. He began to drop in usually. We knew one another — I’d run into him on the road at random fairly a bit — however I assumed it was good that he was coming by my bar. However then he began asking me questions on Georgette, so I discovered why he was coming by so usually! Nonetheless, I obtained to spend some high quality time and have nice conversations with him.”
Karin Stanley (beverage director, Lincoln Heart): “Sasha would present up at Little Department generally carrying a cat in his arms. He’d put down the cat and have a drink with the cat operating round. He was the craziest cat woman! He’d feed his cats with sashimi-grade tuna with chopsticks. He’d additionally sing them this little tune. As an alternative of singing ‘This Lady Is on Hearth’ just like the Alicia Keys tune, he’d sing ‘This cat desires its kibble!’ I nonetheless hear that in my head after I feed my very own cats. He was a weirdo! However he was an genuine one.”
The Guidelines
Petraske’s Guidelines at Milk & Honey have been initially supposed to maintain noise ranges down to meet a promise he made to the constructing’s proprietor. They concurrently established a tradition of respectful behaviors and decorum, making it potential to get pleasure from a consuming expertise unmarred by drunkenness, misogyny, or belligerence — a novel idea when Milk & Honey opened on New Yr’s Eve, 1999. Right now, The Guidelines can present a measuring stick with gauge how the issues he completed, innovated, and guided nonetheless matter.
Rule 1: No name-dropping, No star f*cking
Petraske’s work and subsequent legend arguably paved the best way for an oddly self-referential star-f*cking period, the place road-tripping pop-ups and activations stuff bars three deep with friends looking for a drink from a well-known barkeep. Sasha’s legacy paved the best way for such bartending notoriety to be potential, no matter whether or not he would have embraced such trendy stardom.
Simon Ford (founder, Fords Gin): “Sasha definitely helped trigger bartenders to be identified like cooks. It will be absurd to disclaim it. However I don’t assume it was his intention. Movie star wasn’t his factor.”
Boccato: “It was not his intention to be a star like a chef. He was quoted instantly one time as saying: ‘We’re not cooks, and we’re definitely not movie star cooks. We’re not right here to make work ostentatious.’ However he did admire being acknowledged by the work we did.”
Sterling: “He didn’t do branding. He’d help manufacturers by having them on his cabinets. Elijah Craig may have most likely thanked [his bar] Center Department for bringing in a lot of their bourbon.”
Philip Duff (spirits educator and model builder): “He hated being a commodity. It simply was not in him. He created the system the place bartenders may develop into stars, however he didn’t wish to be a part of it.”
Jim Meehan (creator, “The Bartender’s Pantry”; founder, PDT): “When he was on the bar, he was partaking along with his service. Away from the bar, he was an actual reclusive, personal particular person. I solely grew to become the ‘voice’ of speakeasies as a result of Sasha didn’t do interviews. However with out Sasha’s Milk & Honey, PDT wouldn’t have existed, full cease.”
Sam Ross (proprietor/operator, Attaboy): “He was OK with bartenders ‘getting their bag,’ so to talk, but it surely was not for him. Nevertheless, he’d take part in metropolis charity occasions closely. You’d see Sasha entrance and heart at these forms of occasions. Being concerned with them made him a lot happier than being profitable.”
Bostick: “He’d have a couple of issues to say about folks on a quest for recognition and awards and ‘taking part in the sport.’ All of that’s antithetical to every part Sasha taught.”
Joseph Schwartz (founder, Raised Spirits Consulting; Petraske’s former enterprise accomplice): “Sasha would have completely balked at bartenders being stars. He would wonder if a chef must be a star, not to mention a bartender. It’s a little bit foolish, however then once more, what fame isn’t a little bit foolish?”
Rule 2: No hooting, hollering, shouting, or different loud conduct
Subdued environments have been as soon as the hallmark of the craft cocktail motion. This has shifted within the post-pandemic period, leading to a scene that’s a little bit looser and never as strict on the hoot or the holler. Would Petraske have pushed again or gone with the stream?
Sother Teague (beverage director, Amor y Amargo): “He’d be completely high quality with the scene the best way it’s now. Sasha understood the business is formed by pendulum swings, and he obtained concerned on the far finish of an excessive swing. That’s actually why the bartenders again then all had suspenders and mustache wax and acted all holier than thou. We would have liked to as a way to earn respect. Now that we have now respect, that stuff is switched off. We are able to now put on Hawaiian shirts and denims whereas we have now enjoyable nerding out on trivialities on the bar.”
Robert Simonson (author, creator, “The Combine With Robert Simonson”): “Right now’s bartenders are usually not mastering the classics earlier than shifting on to creating new drinks. Sasha wouldn’t like that.”
Sterling: “Sasha would have met the demand of the N/A cocktail motion if there was a requirement for them in his bars. His drinks would have nonetheless sparked curiosity no matter whether or not they had alcohol or not.”
Stanley: “I’d be curious to see what his response and recreation plan would have been to the pandemic. There would have been some powerful selections he would have needed to make.”
Schwartz: “He wouldn’t be doing obtuse drinks that includes six-plus components, and he could or could not have preferred consuming these drinks. However he would a minimum of admire what the bars making these forms of drinks have been doing.”
Rule 3: No preventing, no play preventing, no speaking about preventing
By specializing in the cocktail, Petraske demonstrated how the act of consuming might be a classy, elevated expertise and never some base exercise conducive to potential rabble-rousing. He additional punctuated the artwork, science, and great thing about the cocktail via his mentorship and improvements, equivalent to his pioneering ice program.
Ross: “When he opened Milk & Honey, he wished to open the antithesis of the New York bar scene. On the time, the scene was outlined by loud music, dangerous ice, and being unsafe for ladies. It was a very shitty surroundings. Sasha wished to construct a pleasing place the place folks have been well-behaved and didn’t harangue different friends.”
Ford: “Sasha would be the most influential character in trendy cocktail tradition as a result of he broke the foundations and rewrote them. It was virtually like he had this previous life and he was capable of attain again into it.”
Simonson: “He singlehandedly introduced again cocktail bars. He gave the consuming public another choice, which was a seismic change. Earlier than Sasha, the bar supplied this monolithic model of ‘enjoyable.’ Sasha got here in and provided his thought of enjoyable.”
Teague: “He was not the tip of the spear, so to talk. That was Angel’s Share, which extremely influenced him. However he was on the leading edge.”
Schwartz: “At some point, he described to me what would develop into the Milk & Honey methodology of freezing water in pans and slicing ice for various drinks. After the outline, I advised him: ‘You’re loopy. I’m undecided that may work, but it surely’s your bar.’ He rolled it out the next week, and it was roughly how the ice program ended up being. I’ve by no means been extra happy to be mistaken.”
Charlotte Voisey (government director, Tales of the Cocktail Basis): “With Sasha, schooling and coaching at all times began with mastering the classics via precision and approach. True mastery got here from repetition and self-discipline.”
Duff: “Sasha’s stint as an Military ranger is a key a part of his legacy as a result of he was so disciplined. To him, being a bartender was a matter of character.”
Stanley: “There was no compromise in what he did, however that doesn’t imply he wasn’t curious to determine how issues labored. I bear in mind there have been occasions the place we’d be tasting juices that had been squeezed at totally different occasions simply to see what timing produced the perfect tasting juice.”
DeGroff: “Sasha created the bar group! The primary group at Milk & Honey labored like a group. He would at all times tackle them collectively, which created a way of interactive collaboration. You didn’t see something like that earlier than.”
Doug Tirola (director, “Hey Bartender” and “Bernstein’s Wall”): “My favourite Sasha quote didn’t make it into the film. It’s not verbatim, however right here’s what he advised me about what makes an excellent bartender. ‘It’s virtually 2 a.m., near closing. Somebody is available in and orders a drink that requires a calming glass. The bartender opens the cooler. As a result of we’re at all times cleansing the glassware, the primary glass will seemingly be heat. A bartender ought to have the intuition to succeed in again to the sixth glass, which is colder. These inches separating the 2 glasses are every part.’”
Rule 4: Gents will take away their hats. Hooks are supplied.
Eradicating hats inside a constructing reiterates old-school manners — becoming for an area run by an individual obsessive about the “Nice Gatsby” period of fashion, grace, and wardrobe choice. The hooks present a tangible instance of Petraske’s deep want to offer holistic hospitality and kindness towards friends and his workers, which he cared about most above all else.
Simonson: “Nothing he did was phony. These after him, with the old-timey facial hair and the armband, what they did might be a put-on. However not Sasha. He believed in every part he did, from how he dressed to his selection of jazz.”
Reiner: “It was humorous. I’d run into him within the West Village when he was doing his laundry, and he can be sporting basketball shorts and a T-shirt. It was like he was bare.”
Tirola: “There was a kindness and empathy with Sasha. In case you noticed him, noticed his clothes, noticed his hair, he gave off the impression of being aloof. However if you obtained to know him, it grew to become clear simply how a lot he cared about his friends and others.”
Teague: “If I shook a e book out and Sasha fell out of it, the e book can be about manners. He lived via his manners. That’s who he was. If Sasha occurred to open a tire retailer, then he would have been the nicest tire salesperson on the market.”
Boccato: “There was a lot extra about Sasha than how critical he was concerning the craft. He was at all times laughing and smiling, even in the course of the darkest days of his enterprise woes. He was at all times optimistic and by no means misplaced his composure. He would at all times see the silver lining in every part.”
DeGroff: “He constructed a household. His workers have been household to him. That didn’t exist earlier than him.”
Stanley: “He unwittingly influenced the scene with out making an attempt to affect the scene. That’s simply who he was as an individual.”
Rule 5: Gents won’t introduce themselves to women. Girls, be at liberty to begin a dialog or ask the bartender to introduce you. If a person you don’t know speaks to you, please elevate your chin barely and ignore him.
Petraske’s adamant stance towards lecherous male conduct towards girls in bars was revolutionary in a scene marked by misogyny. His help on either side of the stick empowered girls to be answerable for their bar expertise and profession path throughout the business, even when his intentions have been extra altruistic than deliberate.
Reiner: “He was an actual champion of girls. His guidelines protected them. Due to the rule, girls weren’t harassed.”
Ford: “A few of his earliest bartenders at Milk & Honey have been folks like Karin Stanley and Lucinda Sterling — girls bartenders in what was a person’s world on the time. Was he doing this deliberately? No. Was he doing it due to their shared values? Sure. If we’d have adopted his values by way of fairness, we could not have been in a number of the messes the business is in now.”
Sterling: “His work helped enhance confidence in girls within the bar business. You possibly can see that confidence via different organizations at this time like Velocity Rack.”
Duff: “He employed a big variety of girls when no person else was. It wasn’t something like what we could consider now as a DEI initiative for him. He didn’t care who you have been so long as you have been insane like him. And it labored!”
Voisey: “Sasha set his girls bartenders up for achievement. Any girl that labored at Milk & Honey and had that on their resume had Sasha’s stamp of approval. That stamp confirmed they have been a extremely motivated and extremely expert bartender, and it spoke volumes.”
Alperin: “I’m certain his help of girls in bartending roles helped their development within the business. Within the 15 years that The Varnish was open, there have been extra girls than males working behind that little bar. However he didn’t have any predilection for working with girls. His system was constructed on equality, and he simply wished to deal with everybody as equal.”
Stanley: “I felt very comfy advocating for myself working at his bars. At Little Department, I or anybody else by no means tolerated dangerous conduct. There was one thing comforting about being in a world the place I knew that my boss would have my again. That doesn’t occur on a regular basis somewhere else.”
Rule 6: Don’t linger outdoors the entrance door.
Petraske’s legacy didn’t keep in New York Metropolis. His hand in creating bars like The Varnish in Los Angeles, Half-Step in Austin, and The Everleigh in Melbourne, Australia, together with occasions just like the San Antonio Cocktail Convention pushed his ethos worldwide. Right now the work of his bartending acolytes helps lengthen his legacy previous the scene’s first technology of expertise.
Bostick: “The purpose was to not make as a lot cash as we may. The purpose was to only be tapped into the group.”
Ross: “He’d be fairly satisfied at how the ideas of his little house at 134 Eldridge Avenue hold popping up everywhere in the world.”
Simonson: “It’s crucial to recollect his work outdoors of New York. Locations like The Varnish have been beacons. With out them, his perspective and the teachings realized from his faculty of hospitality wouldn’t have unfold out prefer it did.”
Boccato: “I take into consideration my time visiting The Varnish, and I felt Sasha within the room as a result of the people who labored there upheld his legacy. They actually took his instructing to coronary heart. I felt a way of satisfaction reverberating from 3,000 miles from the place it got here.”
Reiner: “His work outdoors New York is a vital a part of cocktail historical past. It’s notably vital for younger folks from throughout to find out about Sasha and his work in New York and past.”
Teague: “There are most likely younger bartenders on the market who don’t know who Sasha is and should not ever know. That’s why it’s vital for us that knew him to maintain his legacy on the market and share his legacy with others.”
Schwartz: “In case you requested him, he’d say his work being on the market was much more vital than remembering who he was.”
Rule 7: Don’t convey anybody until you would depart that particular person alone in your house. You might be answerable for the conduct of your friends.
Petraske’s work targeted on constructing comfy, partaking experiences as a lot because it did on creating excellent cocktails. This helped reframe the bar’s intention — not as a spot to get smashed, however as a secure, community-building third place.
Boccato: “His holistic method to the bar was paramount. The cocktails in some ways manifested the house. For Milk & Honey, the bar’s ambiance was equally vital, if no more so.”
Duff: “He actually constructed a secure house, and his guidelines on behaviors prolonged this secure house even after the visitor left. It was revolutionary, and was very a lot wanted.”
Reiner: “He modified the bar group as a result of he made certain Milk & Honey was extra of a grown-up expertise. At his bars, it was extra concerning the firm you saved, the conversations you had, and the expertise you created as a substitute of simply partying.”
Sterling: “The principles have been vital. In case you mocked the foundations, chances are high you weren’t coming again. They weeded out these forms of friends and introduced in like-minded folks.”
Stanley: “The Guidelines weren’t as critical as they appeared. They have been there to permit friends to have enjoyable in a secure surroundings.”
Schwartz: “The principles by at this time’s requirements could also be a bit a lot, however they have been vital again then. It impacted tradition on that aspect of the bar as a lot because the cocktail applications.”
Tirola: “He left an affect on the world usually. He additionally confirmed that bartending was extra than simply making drinks.”
Meehan: “I don’t know if Sasha premeditated the idea of his bars being ‘the third house.’ However the acutely aware bar group that exists now could be forestry for the bushes he planted.”
Rule 8: Exit the bar briskly and silently. Individuals are making an attempt to sleep throughout the road. Please make all of your journey plans and say all farewells earlier than leaving the bar.
Petraske’s sudden, untimely exit from this world nonetheless hurts 10 years on. But the lasting legacy of his work and the indelible affect of who he was as a unusual, sort, and upstanding human being can nonetheless ship brilliant flashes of pleasure amid ache’s darkish shroud.
Siegal: “I don’t go to bars anymore. They make me unhappy. I miss my buddy an excessive amount of.”
Reiner: “It’s so impossibly unhappy. We had all simply gone to his marriage ceremony, and it was this magical occasion. He cherished Georgette.”
Boccato: “I used to be married on New Yr’s Eve, 2015, a couple of months after Sasha handed away. As I danced with my bride I wore the identical black patent leather-based sneakers that he wore at his marriage ceremony. Large sneakers to fill. To today I gotta placed on an additional pair of socks simply to make them match. When my spouse and I stepped out into the chilly winter air of a New Yr and a brand new life as man and spouse in Brooklyn, I additionally wore the identical leather-based jacket that I had on my again the primary evening that I held the door for Sasha at Little Department in 2005. The person modified the course of my life in additional methods than one. His mentorship didn’t simply lead me to embrace a selected profession or undertake a way of life. He gave me a path to offer for my household.”
Alperin: “Individuals sit at your counsel, and Sasha sat at mine. After all I get unhappy as a human. I miss him as a buddy. However I’m not ‘unhappy’ anymore. I’m nonetheless impressed by his legacy, and it’s my obligation to maintain pushing alongside.”
Sterling: “In a means, he’s not lifeless. He nonetheless lives on via the alliances he created.”
Ford: “For me, I really feel his presence very often. I could be wherever on the planet, and if I’m having fun with a drink of a sure fashion or in a bar with a sure surroundings, I consider him as a result of I do know the place that drink or surroundings initially got here from.”
DeGroff: “Each time you go to a tertiary metropolis and discover a craft bar, or a gin palace, or a speakeasy, you see Sasha. The truth that you may get an excellent drink in locations like Terre Haute, Ind., or Madison, Wis., is f*cking wonderful.”
Reiner: “He’s nonetheless on the core of this business. He occupied such a pivotal place on this business. He won’t ever go away.”
Voisey: “Step again and go searching. You’ll see that his title will likely be a part of the legacy of cocktails, 10 years on and forevermore.”
Final Name
It’s not stunning that somebody as iconoclastic as Sasha Petraske was additionally eloquent. It due to this fact feels applicable to let him have the final phrase right here, notably since what he needed to say captured moderately brilliantly who he was and why he mattered to so many individuals.
“We’re craftsmen. We’re not artists, nor ‘mixologists’, nor Bar Cooks. Simply bartenders, doing one thing that, though fairly easy, few bars can handle to do. We make cocktails in addition to could be made, and that shouldn’t be such a giant deal. At Milk & Honey our customary is offhand excellence. It’s essential to take every shift as one other alternative to enhance your craft, one other alternative to lose your self-consciousness regardless that you’re performing your duties in entrance of an viewers. It could be unattainable to have an ideal shift, however every evening we strive anyway.”
-Sasha Petraske
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