Alphabet City cocktails from a Bartender of the Year

"The speakeasy is dead. There were funeral services, but seeing as how they were behind an unmarked door, no one attended." So say the owners of Pouring Ribbons from Alchemy Consulting, who -- if they're half as good at making cocktails as jokes -- must be doing some pretty serious work in a deco-rec-room clubhouse boasting arched windows overlooking Ave B, a pledge to put guests on a "pedestal of equal importance as the cocktails", and Joaquín Simó, Tales of the Cocktail 2012 American Bartender of the Year.An intensive prep process includes "large format ice" shaped specifically for the glassware (stout cylinders for a rocks glass, shards for Collins, cubes from the door of the fridge for wine if you're a classless housewife...), fresh pressed juices, and housemade bitters. The resulting 'tails span from classics like Sazeracs and Mai Tais to 15 "gradually rotating" (two to three times a season) originals like the Surabaya Sling w/ rum, lemon, Cocchi di Torino, Spice Trader Syrup, and root beer bitters, and the Weller 107 featuring bourbon, Aveze & Salers Gentiane Liqueurs, and Galliano In Spades, enough of which will make you nice and flush.So you don't have to smuggle in Chocodiles like usual, they'll be plating small bites from Seattle/Flatiron's Beecher's Cheese, including hummus, cheese, pate, and charcuterie -- further evidence that the speakeasy is dead, since it's hard to talk with all that food in your mouth.