A good friend and I occasionally go for drinks-- and we have been to some great places: The Campbell Apartment, Bohemian Hall...even his kitchen for some Jameson 18-year-old whiskey. Since this will be one of our last chances for drinks together, he was buying (woohoo!) and he asked that we go somewhere I hadn't ever been. I had heard a bit about Milk & Honey and thought that sounded great! The more I read about it, the more I liked. It is a speakeasy-style bar known for very good cocktails and reviving old recipes from the first half of the 20th-century. I also liked the emphasis placed on this being a bar for conversation between friends over a good drink, rather than the typical bar scene. No loud music and so packed with people that you come out of the place with ringing ears. This bar wants to be a civilized place to drink and when something becomes trendy and popular in the city, it is constantly packed full of scenesters and never a pleasant place to be (in my opinion anyway).
Because M&H wants to be different, it is difficult to get into. The phone number and email is unpublished. I tried a few different numbers I found on the internet: none of them worked. There is also a Milk & Honey in London. From the website I used one of the London emails and someone emailed me the next day with the reservations email for NYC location! Aha! I was in. I felt like I really accomplished something.
So this is what it was like. There is no storefront, just a nondescript metal door with some stick-on letters that read "M&H". Push the buzzer at the front door and pull it open. There are two rows of thick, dark velvet curtains to get through and then it is so dark inside the bar that it takes a few moments for your eyes to adjust. I think the whole place is lit only by candlelight! The place is empty as we had the earliest reservation. We are greeted by the waiter and shown our table. There are 8 tables and all circular booths. So we really had a cozy little nook. There is a crumbling gilded tin ceiling and the same tin paneling running half way up the walls. Very much how you would imagine a speakeasy!
There is no menu. The waiter tells us what is fresh for the day: fresh-squeezed lemon and lime juice, cucumber and mint. We give him our preferences. I say I like gin and nothing too sweet. My friend requests something with whiskey. It was so great to just have something personally created for you! My drink (unfortunately I didn't catch the name) was in a tall glass over ice with lemon juice and gin. Very refreshing, but not what I would typically order. Mark got something with whiskey and apple brandy and orange with a chunk of ice in it. (Did I mention that they don't use cubes, but break it by hand from a block?) For the second round, I requested something up with bourbon. What came back was a drink called "The Grandfather". Bourbon, apply brandy, and sweet vermouth in one of the old fashioned martini glasses--like what Ginger Rogers would have used in "Top Hat"! I really liked this one. Not too sweet and very, very smooth!
It really was a lovely experience and just what I dream of in a bar--well, maybe some snacks beyond pretzels would be nice. Around 9pm all the tables were full and there was someone sitting at the bar, but we could still talk in normal voices. M&H is primarily a private club now, but keeps a couple tables open for reservations. If I were staying in town, I would seriously consider a membership. To have a place like this to go to when I was in the mood for a cocktail--without having to deal with the crowds and "scene" of a place would be wonderful! And it is a total NYC experience. I don't know if there is anywhere else that you would have to jump through so many hurdles to get in...and also nowhere else that would put so much effort into providing obscure cocktails for a discerning clientele.
Definitely another great NYC memory this week! I am going to try to remember to start documenting some of this stuff with photographs--just not in the habit yet.
