Before developers had their way, the Hamptons were known as much for their potato fields as for their beaches.
Perhaps that’s why a Long Island Spirits company is making a splash with a new potato-based vodka.
Long Island Spirits’ LiV Vodka, which won a gold medal in this year’s New York International Spirits Competition — beating 43 different vodkas from around the world — just hired Michael Della Femina and Della Femina Advertising to tout its brand.
“Potato vodka is much cleaner and far superior to grain-based vodka,” Della Femina said, adding that LiV Vodka is now in about 600 stores, mainly on the East Coast.
“Potato has a far more elegant taste. It is the most sought-after of all the vodkas, fermenting at a lower level with more sweetness and aroma,” said Richard Stabile, president of LiV Vodka, which sells for around $26 a bottle.
Not to mention harder to make: it takes 20 to 25 pounds of potatoes to make up one liter of vodka.
Long Island Spirits is also introducing a new group of liqueurs — Sorbetta, which uses individually hand-peeled and macerated fresh fruits, such as lemon, orange and strawberry — to naturally infuse the vodkas, Stabile said.
*
Latin music producer Ralph Mercado III is opening a new restaurant in the Bronx, named Babalu, after his late father’s restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen, along with his father’s former partner, Jeff Lavino, and Alex Garcia, the executive chef at the original Babalu.
Garcia is currently head chef at Calle Ocho and the new Copacabana Supper Club in Midtown.
The new Babalu, at 3233 East Tremont Ave., will be 3,000 square feet with 80 seats. It will feature Latin cuisine along with live music, poetry readings and off-Broadway shows.
Babalu was the name of Ricky Ricardo’s club in the original “I Love Lucy” TV series. Mercado plans to launch a new record label next year and also produces Latin concerts in New York.
*
WE HEAR … that Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, which we were the first to report on, is open on West 86th Street and Amsterdam. It hopes to open five to eight additional “hot” spots in Manhattan next year.