A New York Pub Crawl

So here I sit, on a rocky, sleepy train from NYC back to DC. It's full of businessmen in for the day and heading back to who knows where. I am enjoying a Heineken. While it's not important why I made this trip, it is important what I did with the time here.

I came up this morning, waking at 7am, hitting snooze a few times before finally showering. It took me no time through the DC traffic to hit Union Station. Within two and a half hours, I was back in NYC. It was a mini release from the mundane life I have recently grown accustom to. On the way, I called three friends who were in the city and told them I was on the way. I took care of what I had to do and walked out to find the first friend waiting for me outside and we walked on down Spring Street.

We walked and talked and met the next friend at the Ear Inn, one of New York's oldest bars. My third friend met us and we enjoyed Palm beers, mussels and burgers. Let's face it, the Ear is a dump – full of tatted hipsters and wanna be gangsters and filled with ageing, nautical trinkets and posters. The Ear has been around since 1874 under various names. There is a plaque on the sidwalk outside the front door that marked the beginning of the New York waterfront in 1791 which was filled in during the late 1800s. I could only imagine sailors knocking back grog and casks of hooch back in the day. The original federal style house was built in 1817 for Captain James Brown, an African American aide to George Washington during the Revolutionary War. It turned to an Inn after Brown’s death in 1840 and went through many transformations from a bootlegging brewery, a brothel, and a speak easy during prohibition. After prohibition it became a private club for longshoremen called the “Green Door.” In 1970 it became the Ear Inn because the “B” in the neon sign outside broke, making the “B” look like an “E.” The funny thing was that I had been here a year and a half ago with a friend and didn't realize it until I had been there for 20 minutes.

We paid our check, left Soho, and headed down the cobblestones to the next stop: The White Horse. Filled with dated pictures, interesting white horse sculptures above the bar, mahogany walls, and scuffed hardwood flooring, we ordered some happy hour brews and engaged in conversation as rain fell outside. Established in 1880 in the West Village as a bar for longshoremen, the Horse has been said to be home to many famous writers and thespians of the Bohemian era of the 50’ in New York. Bob Dylan wrote music at a table in the corner, Dylan Thomas died after drinking there, Hunter S. Thompson ran amok through the narrow doorways, Jim Morrison downed Bushmills at the timber bar, and Jack Kerouac had been kicked out multiple times for writing his name on the bathroom wall (still there). We sat in this mecca of creativity – a Hall of Fame for the Alcoholic Creatives if you will – and I signed a copy of my book that a friend brought, while downing Stellas until the shots of GM started flowing. I felt surrounded by support as I had friends from many different parts of my life getting along...all drawn together by me.

Though the Horse is the historic local I needed, we ventured out into the late afternoon are to find something older. We piled in a cab and hit up McSorley’s Old Ale House on the East Side on 7^th which had opened in 1854...older than the Old Ebbitt Grill where I worked which opened in 1856. The floor was covered in saw dust, the waiters were the old style bar jackets, and the limited menu offers a simple plate of cheese, onions and a sleeve of Saltine crackers. We ordered a round of dark beer as you will find at this Ale House, you can only order Ale or Porter which they call “Light” or “Dark.” The beers are served in two 10-ounce mugs; equaling the European Pint of 20 ounces. There is no hard liquor (I tried) but only beer. We ate the “signature” dish (don't knock it till you try it). The room was lined with old newspapers and nothing had been removed since 1950 and it showed. Women were not allowed until 1970 and there wasn’t even a women’s bathroom for several years after. Famous patrons include John Lennon, the Kennedys, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Woody Guthrie, and poet E.E. Cummings.

We downed the pints and took a cab to the Old Town Bar open in 1892 between Park Avenue and Broadway. The neon sign outside was like a giant beacon in the dimming sunset. We took in the 55-foot mahogany and marble bar, the yellowing pictures in dusty frames, the soaring tin ceiling, the worn, tiled floors, and talked with locals ranging from college students to day traders from the stock market. We toasted to our day, one GM after another, and then a nail in the coffin...shots of Patron. The bar has been seen in movies form the “Devil’s Own” (with Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford) and “The Last Days of Disco”,  in the videos for “Jump Around” by House of Pain and Madonna’s “Bad Girl”  in the early 90’s, and featured on “Sexin the City.” It recently won the Esquire Magazine award for the best local bar in New York, barely beating out McSorley’s.

It was a whirlwind day, and the last thing I remember was an awkward cab ride attempt to get me on my 8:30pm train at 8:15pm from Penn Station which was not too far away. My friends, all from different walks of life, never knowing each other before today, stood at the top of the escalator, waiving me goodbye as I descended the escalator for my train to take me back home.

I think I've been Zwack(ed)

I have never been to Hungary, but I have tried many different herbal liqueurs. Many of us are familiar with Jagermeister, but in my study of Hungary, I found an interesting liqueur that I had never heard of and decided to do some more research.

Zwack (as it is called in the US) is an 80 proof (40% ABV) herbal liqueur made in Hungary with a secret blend of more than 40 different herbs and spices (Jager has 56). Some of the herbs and spices are distilled, some are macerated, then blended together and aged in oak casks at the factory in Budapest for over 6 months. This process gives Zwack liqueur its signature dark, amber color. It is a little known fact that Zwack is known as the National Shot of Hungary.

Unicum (as Zwack is labeled in Hungary) was created by Dr. József Zwack, the Royal Physician to the Habsburg Court, for Emperor Joseph II in 1790. It was not until 1840 that his 20-year-old son, Jozsef Zwack founded J. Zwack & Co., the first Hungarian liqueur manufacturer. By the early 1900s, the Zwack company had become one of the leading distilleries in central Europe, producing over 200 liqueurs and spirits, exported all over the world.

Budapest and the Zwack factory was destroyed during World War II. After the war, with the Communist regime, the factory was nationalized in 1948. The Zwack family fled the country, and migrated to the United States and after several months in Ellis Island’s refugee camp were granted US entry purely because they possessed the Zwack recipe. They later settled in the Bronx in 1949. It was in the US that Peter Zwack learned all the ins and outs of the spirits industry.

In 1988, just one year before the fall of Communism, Peter Zwack returned to Hungary and resumed production with the original Zwack formula. He repurchased his family business from the State in the summer of 1989, and by the spring of 1990, the original Zwack product was reintroduced to the Hungarian market. That same year, Peter was named Hungarian Ambassador to the United States.

The Zwack Company has since resumed its position as the leading distillery in Eastern Europe. In 2008, Peter Zwack handed over the company’s leadership to the family’s 6th generation, his own children, Sandor and Izabella Zwack, to continue the family tradition. One of their first initiatives was to launch Zwack in the US, a landmark in the history of the company and for any internationally revered brand.

Zwack is most often served ice-cold, straight up, as a shot. It is also commonly served as a cocktail dubbed the “Mad Hungarian” (an ice-cold Zwack shot dropped into a high-energy drink).