Best High-End Drinks for Low-End Prices New York 2010 -
The Red Hook waterfront doesn't much resemble New Orleans, although Erie Basin can exude a rather Bayou-esque scent and Fairway will supply you with everything you need to create a splendid oyster po'boy. But since last year, one local bar, Fort Defiance, has been making the Big Apple feel that much Big Easier. After stints as a food writer, bartender, and Jedi-level backyard barbecuer, St. John Frizell opened the Southern-spiked watering hole. There's a food menu, and our critics assure us that the eats are more than palatable. But we've been racing up Columbia Street and bellying up to the bar for some of the most gorgeous, innovative, and potent cocktails at prices that would barely buy you a tonic water at most of New York's mixology palaces. A recent trip yielded a $9 Manhattan better than any Brooklyn bar has a right to concoct; the Cloister, an $8 assemblage of gin, grapefruit, lemon, and chartreuse; and the $11 Sumo Collins, 24 ounces of the best use for a cucumber that anyone has yet invented.
