When Naren Young pulls the tap at the popular bar at new Bowery steakhouse Saxon & Parole, it’s known to stop conversations.
Instead of a pint glass, Young pours an amber elixir over rocks into a hand-cut crystal decanter.
“I’ll see this puzzled look on people’s faces, like ‘What is that coming out of the tap?’ ”
He proceeds to add a few dashes of leather-infused bitters, gives the whole thing a quick stir, then strains the resulting drink into a dainty martini glass. The remainder is poured into a small flask set over a bed of crushed ice that’s been stabbed with a pair of skewered garnishes — an orange twist and brandied cherries. And voilà! The $15 Manhattan on draught is ready to serve.
“On a busy night, we’ll go through an entire gallon keg — an obscene amount,” says Young, a bar manager at Saxon & Parole who introduced the mix of Evan Williams single-barrel bourbon and Cocchi Vermouth di Torino to his taps in November.
“We measure everything perfectly, so it comes out consistently, it comes out cold — you don’t have to stir it for very long. It’s really easy to do.”
The Manhattan isn’t the only tipple on tap at NYC bars. At brand-new watering hole the Wayland and year-old Amor y Amargo, both in the East Village, you’ll find the $7 San Fran Spout (Fernet Branca and cola) and the $12 Americano (sweet vermouth, Campari, soda), respectively. Others will soon be flowing: When Gin Palace opens in early April, it plans to serve both a Negroni and a gin-and-tonic on tap.
“It’s pretty cool. I’m not going to pretend that wasn’t a factor,” says Young. “We’ve been seeing wine on tap and, I thought, there’s no reason we can’t do that with a cocktail.”
But the innovation goes beyond mere effect: Amor y Amargo beverage director Mayur Subbarao wanted to improve upon the classic highball drink — basically any mix of spirit and soda — when he introduced NYC to the cocktail-on-tap concept last year at the now-shuttered El Cobre restaurant.
“You can make a drink that’s very well-integrated — that isn’t super-concentrated at the bottom and light at the top,” explains Subbarao, noting one of the inherent problems with soda-topped drinks.
And since bartenders just have to pull a tap, prices can be cheaper — and pours larger.
“[At El Cobre] we were able to offer [the Dark & Stormy and Cuba Libre] at a lower price than the rest of our cocktails,” he says. “In the case of the Americano here, it’s the same price as the rest of our cocktails, but it’s a bigger pour.”
For Subbarao, there was also a surprise bonus: “Much like a beer or a wine, you can actually give people tastes of the cocktail.”
Instead of pouring the San Fran Spout from a keg, Wayland co-owner Jason Mendenhall uses a soda gun to serve Fernet Branca — the bitter Italian digestif that’s a bartender cult favorite — and cola he makes himself.
“I wanted to showcase these great sodas we’re making, and I thought this was an interesting way to do it,” says Mendenhall, who is toying with the idea of introducing a fountain Paloma (mescal and grapefruit soda) in the spring.
Besides, says Mendenhall, there’s a mystique that goes along with tending bar the old-fashioned way.
“You won’t see me doing a Sazerac on tap,” he explains.
But in an era when bartenders can easily get overwhelmed chipping ice and muddling fruit, some don’t see the time-saving technique as a romantic buzz kill.
As Young puts it: “If they had to choose, I think most people would rather get their drink more quickly.”