I recently embarked upon a 60 hour eating and drinking tour of the city. A girl’s weekend sprinkled with some site seeing, this trip had me full and well drunk all weekend. No, not drunk! Just full of well made drinks, silly!

Now I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on the cocktail scene of Manhattan, but what I saw was a definite “old timey” influence. Classic pre-prohibition era drinks with a twist; lots of Flips, Fizzes and fun takes on classic favorites. The “Blood and Sand”-a favorite and incidentally a drink upon which I was tested-showed up in the form of a Blood and Snow on a list at ‘Inoteca. This cocktail used a white whiskey in lieu of scotch. Yummy and refreshing! Also on their list was the “Foglie Morte”; a flip made with Mezcal, Blanco Tequila, Liqueur Strega, Cucumber Water, Lemon Juice, Egg White & a dash of seltzer water (featured photo). This was a lovely refreshing cocktail that started my evening on Friday night. Oh, and I was told that ‘Inoteca’s cocktail program was created by Tony Abou-Ganim. What luck to stumble upon this place just downstairs from our apartment!

Each eatery had a great list with unique choices that were well crafted and apropos to their establishment. At Bar Americain, I had the “Bronx Cocktail”; Gin, sweet & dry vermouth, orange juice and bitters, fun! At Prune, I sipped a “Junipero” Gibson with a house-made cocktail onion, lovely! And, as much as I hate to admit it, this gal even ate at a BBQ joint, Blue Smoke. There I enjoyed a “Blood Orange Margarita”. You could tell it was made with fresh blood orange juice. It was so delicious even my mom ordered 2, which she never does, not at lunch anyway!

We did stumble into a speakeasy, Angel’s Share, which was tucked behind an unassuming door in a sushi place, but it was a little too crowded, so we didn’t stay. Not that I wouldn’t go back, just that I wasn’t in the mood to wait a half hour for a drink. So, we found our way to karaoke at Sing Sing and drank some cheap Japanese beer. Hey, just trying to keep it real. All in all, the trip was worth every sip. Now it’s time to wrangle up some recipes and see if I can recreate these bad babies at home!