Bartender extraordinaire Dale DeGroff made his name at the legendary Rainbow Room, where his classic cocktail menu marked a departure from the highball era of the ’80s and helped to usher in the gourmet-driven drinks of today. The author of “The Craft of the Cocktail” and “The Essential Cocktail,” DeGroff came to the city in 1969, when “post-Prohibition bar life” was being pushed aside by drug-driven hippie culture. “I understood pretty quickly that all the neighborhood bars and grills and fancy cocktail lounges [here] were sort of like the redwoods in California — a natural resource of the city — and I was just drawn to it,” says DeGroff, 63. His new show, “On the Town: A Salute to Saloons, Neighborhood Bars and Legendary Cocktail Palaces,” hits Macao Trading Co. on Dec. 12 with an evening of classic cocktails, music and stories (for tickets, go to kingcocktail.com). This is his boozy New York.
1 La Fonda Del Sol, Time-Life Building, 1271 Sixth Ave., between 50th and 51st streets
“The original La Fonda Del Sol was extraordinary [the name has since been revived for a Spanish restaurant in the MetLife Building]. It was a celebration of the foods of South America, Central America and Mexico. In 1959 its menu had a margarita, a pisco sour, sangria with vodka and two mezcal drinks. They actually had to import pisco, mezcal and tequila because they were not available here at the time.”
2 Pegu Club, 77 W. Houston St., at LaGuardia Place
“The best bar [right now] drink-wise and for all-around classiness is Pegu Club. They have nibbles that are wonderful — curry deviled eggs — and extraordinarily good cocktails from Audrey Saunders [like the La Fleur de Paradis, below]. They don’t just do strong, stirred drinks that are intensely flavored and high in alcohol. They also do tall, refreshing coolers and fruitier, brighter-style cocktails that appeal to a broader audience. That’s what sets them apart. ”
3 ‘21’ Club, 21 W. 52nd St., between Fifth and Sixth avenues
“ ‘21’ evolved from a cup joint at West Fourth Street called the Redhead — it was a speakeasy that sold an ounce of booze in a ceramic tea cup for a dollar. The local precinct made them close at 1 o’clock, which is hilarious because it’s a speakeasy — it’s illegal! They later moved uptown into the footprint of the GE Building with the Puncheon Grotto. When their customers walked into the final party there on New Year’s Eve 1929, they were given a pickaxe and at midnight they laid into the walls of this place. Then they trooped up Sixth Avenue in their gowns and tuxedos with a police escort, into the front door of 21 W. 52nd St., and were surprised to find this place waiting for them.”
4 The Rainbow Room, GE Building, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, 49th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues
“We wanted to do a cocktail menu that would reflect all of the old supper clubs — like the Stork Club, the Copa. We served a Ramos Gin Fizz, a Between the Sheets, Sidecars, Sazeracs — people hadn’t seen these things on a menu in decades and decades. Before we opened in 1987, there weren’t any cocktail menus in New York. The only two places that had them were the Oak Bar at the Plaza Hotel and the Bull & Bear at the Waldorf. And they kept them in the drawer behind the bar.”
5 McSorley’s, 15 E. Seventh St., between Second and Third avenues
“I will go here till the day I die. It was ridiculous when the health department made [owner] Matthew Maher clean the wishbones [back in April]. The wishbones have been there since before the first world war, and they literally had stalactites of dust hanging off them. As Maher tells it to me, ‘When the fellas in the neighborhood were going off to war, they would hang one of them wishbones up there, and when they came back they would break it with the bartender for good luck. Those [belong to] the fellas that didn’t come back.’ People always ask me what makes a great bar. I say surroundings of substance. And this is surroundings of substance at the highest level.”
6 Macao Trading Co., 311 Church St., between Lispenard and Walker streets
“Dushan [Zaric] and Jay [Kosmas] — who also own Employees Only — are [doing cocktail places] where you don’t need reservations, but they’re still making great drinks. They’re bringing together the new, modern drink styles and a little bit of what P.J. Clarke’s is — it’s boisterous and fun. It cuts through two eras.”
7 The Half Note, 289 Hudson St. at Spring Street
“It was a legendary jazz place. There was a high shelf behind the bar, and on the other side of the shelf was the dining room, and the band played on that shelf.
If you ever heard the old Fats Waller tune [“Ain’t Misbehavin’”] — ‘No one to talk to, all by myself/No one to walk with, but I’m happy on the shelf’ — well, he was singing about the shelf where the band used to play. When I got to town, I made a beeline down to the Half Note to see [trumpet player]
Roy Eldridge (inset) We just hooted and hollered and screamed and yelled. The singer was Jimmy Rushing — they called him ‘Mr. Five-by-Five’ because he was literally 5 feet tall and 5 feet wide.”
8 P.J. Clarke’s, 915 Third Ave., at 55th Street
“I’ve been going here since I was 18 years old. But I never made it into the back room until the ’80s, because it was simply off-limits unless you had a lot of money or you were somebody. Sinatra had his own little private entrance. It was just another world back there. Everybody went for a nightcap because they never closed the doors till 4 a.m., and they were open 365 days a year. I think the best bartender in Manhattan right now is Doug Quinn. He’s created a whole new community of young people — the place is still four-deep constantly.”
Mixologist Dale DeGroff behind the bar. (WireImage)
Dale Degroff behind the bar. (WireImage)
PJ Clarke’s (Astrid Stawiarz)