10 Years After His Passing, Sasha Petraske Still Lives On
On Aug. 21, 2015, Sasha Petraske — the visionary bar owner who built the foundations of contemporary cocktail culture through seminal bars like Milk & Honey, Little Branch, The Varnish, and Dutch Kills — unexpectedly passed at the far-too-young age of 42. A former Army ranger and the son of a Village Voice fact-checker, Petraske applied the kind, idealistic parts of his Communist upbringing, his militaristic discipline, and a deep love of history to reintroduce proper cocktails as a sophisticated form of both expression and experience, codified by eight legendary rules. In doing so, he wrested the New York cocktail scene away from the mad clutches of overserved buffoons downing pre-mixed grog in loud, TV-addled watering holes, all while dressed like he stepped out of an F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscript.
I never met Petraske. He was gone from this world by the time my beat switched its focus from food to cocktails and spirits. He’s still a steady presence in my life despite this gap. He’s there whenever I walk into a dimly lit bar stocked with well-behaved guests, or whenever I have a grown-up conversation over a balanced Daiquiri, or when a cocktail’s washline rests just below the rim of a frozen coupe when strained after the rhythmic chukka-chukka-chukka of a shaker loaded with a single piece of large-format ice. At the same time, I realize his spiritual presence is no match for the flesh. It might be weird to say I miss a barkeep I never interacted with, but here we are.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of his passing. It still hurts like hell for those who knew him, embraced his quirks, and carry on his legacy today. These are the torch-bearers of who he was and what he meant to the industry he helped shape. May the anecdotes and remembrances that follow amplify Sasha Petraske’s good name.
The Stories
When I interviewed people for this piece, I began each session by asking them to recall their fondest Sasha story. This query was more often than not greeted with some sort of wistful, grasping version of, “Oh, God,” followed by “I have two.” These featured tales come from a pile of abundance.
Georgette Moger (“Regarding Cocktails” cocktail educator and founder, Regarding Oysters, NYC and Paris): “My fondest story is our first date. I had come into Milk & Honey on a blind date that was a comically bad fit. Sasha and I had spent 10 years as passing ships, be it at his bars, in the subway where he would tip his hat to me with a polite, ‘Good morning, Miss Moger,’ or in dining rooms as I was coming out and he was coming in, both of us with books tucked under our arms. (‘The duck is exceptional, Mr. Petraske!’) While on my southward plunging date, I was reminded of Sasha’s warmth as a host and the elegance he carried himself with. You don’t come across too many men that move with such grace or speak to a patron like they are the only person in the room. Or, maybe, just maybe, that was how I made him feel. My second cocktail gave me the courage to slip into the bathroom and tear a page from my Moleskine, asking him to join me for tea some time. I tucked the note into my sleeve and prayed my date would need to use the facilities before we left. If he hadn’t, I would have never joined Sasha for breakfast later that Sunday. He would have never asked me how I would be spending the remains of my day. ‘I love to treat myself to a book from the rare book room of the Strand,’ I said. He had run errands for his mother for years at the Strand and never knew that floor was accessible. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘It’s the most glorious place to curl up with a book in all of Manhattan! In fact, if I were ever to do something stupid enough like getting married, I would do it there!’ He might have never insisted we visit the room together on our second date, and we may have never been married in that room two years later.”
Eric Alperin (bar owner and ice production, Alperin Enterprises): “There was one night when it was closing time at the bar, and the last person there was a woman that was really drunk. Sasha got her a cab, brought her outside, closed the bar, and went with her to her apartment. He got her inside her place, got her a big glass of water, and left her only when he made sure she was safe. The kindness and grace he showed with that story has stuck with me. It was times like that where he felt he had a responsibility to his fellow man.”
Lucinda Sterling (bartender/managing partner, Seaborne/Little Branch): “I had just driven from Colorado to New York, and I stopped into Milk & Honey and ordered a Dirty Martini — that’s what you did in Colorado before you were cool. He looked disappointed in my order, but he made it for me anyway … and accidentally spilled the drink on my shirt. He leaned into me and whispered, ‘Please don’t tell people this happened.’ For someone who was always looked at as so serious and almost God-like, it’s important to remember that he had a vulnerable side.”
Dale DeGroff (bartending legend/co-creator, DeGroff Spirits): “Sasha asked me about ice, and I spoke about the cubes from Kold Draft Machines we had at the Rainbow Room, but the machine was probably more than he spent on the whole build-out [of Milk & Honey]. The next time I came in, Sasha had these wonderful big chunks of ice and I was curious. He took me to the back room and showed me a $50 freezer — the sort you could hide a body in. It was filled with different- sized containers where he was making ice of all sizes. Sasha was a problem solver.”
Richard Boccato (managing partner, Dutch Kills/owner and operator, Hundredweight Ice): “One night in 2007 in the middle of a bar shift, Sasha asked me if I wanted to open a bar with him in Long Island City. I never really had any aspirations to open a bar, but I instinctively said yes. He knew that I had ties to the neighborhood going way back to the early 1990s when I ran around on the train tracks with my misfit crew of miscreant teenagers. Just as he did with Milk & Honey on Eldridge Street, Sasha had a prescient awareness that a classy cocktail bar could flourish out there as the city streets changed all around it. By the end of that night there was a check for $175,000 in the tip jar from an aspiring rapper with my name on it. The rapper was a guy that Sasha knew. It was a friend of a colleague that wanted to invest in Sasha’s bar.”
Chris Bostick (co-founder, Half Step): “I remember the first time I picked up Sasha from the train station. He was coming into Austin from San Antonio, and all he had was a plastic bag of stuff and a toothbrush. He said he was just in town for a couple of days. After I picked him up, all we did was talk about the philosophy of running a bar. Every time I would pick him up, that’s what we’d talk about. There was something so endearing about picking him up when he came to town. He constantly looked like he was stepping out of a 1930s movie, but that was just him. He was quirky. But he always made me feel like a business partner.”
TJ Siegal (server/barback/manager, Milk & Honey): “Sasha was not good at telling jokes. He’d tell really stupid jokes over and over again. He’d even take someone else’s funny joke, add words to it, and make it unfunny. But he had a silly side and he loved to laugh. He would laugh uncontrollably at some unexpected things. I remember a few people making fun of him for laughing out loud at the movie ‘Kung Fu Panda.’”
Julie Reiner (creative director, Clover Club/Milady’s): “He was obviously smitten with Georgette. She worked at my bar, Flatiron Lounge, as a hostess. He started to drop in often. We knew each other — I would run into him on the street at random quite a bit — but I thought it was nice that he was coming by my bar. But then he started asking me questions about Georgette, so I figured out why he was coming by so often! Still, I got to spend some quality time and have great conversations with him.”
Karin Stanley (beverage director, Lincoln Center): “Sasha would show up at Little Branch sometimes carrying a cat in his arms. He’d put down the cat and have a drink with the cat running around. He was the craziest cat lady! He’d feed his cats with sashimi-grade tuna with chopsticks. He’d also sing them this little song. Instead of singing ‘This Girl Is on Fire’ like the Alicia Keys song, he’d sing ‘This cat wants its kibble!’ I still hear that in my head when I feed my own cats. He was a weirdo! But he was an authentic one.”
The Rules
Petraske’s Rules at Milk & Honey were initially intended to keep noise levels down to fulfill a promise he made to the building’s owner. They concurrently established a culture of respectful behaviors and decorum, making it possible to enjoy a drinking experience unmarred by drunkenness, misogyny, or belligerence — a novel concept when Milk & Honey opened on New Year’s Eve, 1999. Today, The Rules can provide a measuring stick to gauge how the things he accomplished, innovated, and guided still matter.
Credit: YouTube
Rule 1: No name-dropping, No star f*cking
Petraske’s work and subsequent legend arguably paved the way for an oddly self-referential star-f*cking era, where road-tripping pop-ups and activations stuff bars three deep with guests seeking a drink from a famous barkeep. Sasha’s legacy paved the way for such bartending notoriety to be possible, regardless of whether he would have embraced such modern stardom.
Simon Ford (founder, Fords Gin): “Sasha certainly helped cause bartenders to be known like chefs. It would be absurd to deny it. But I don’t think it was his intention. Celebrity wasn’t his thing.”
Boccato: “It was not his intention to be a celebrity like a chef. He was quoted directly one time as saying: ‘We’re not chefs, and we’re certainly not celebrity chefs. We’re not here to make work ostentatious.’ But he did appreciate being recognized by the work we did.”
Sterling: “He didn’t do branding. He’d support brands by having them on his shelves. Elijah Craig could have probably thanked [his bar] Middle Branch for bringing in so much of their bourbon.”
Philip Duff (spirits educator and brand builder): “He hated being a commodity. It just was not in him. He created the system where bartenders could become stars, but he didn’t want to be part of it.”
Jim Meehan (author, “The Bartender’s Pantry”; founder, PDT): “When he was at the bar, he was engaging with his service. Away from the bar, he was a real reclusive, private person. I only became the ‘voice’ of speakeasies because Sasha didn’t do interviews. But without Sasha’s Milk & Honey, PDT would not have existed, full stop.”
Sam Ross (owner/operator, Attaboy): “He was OK with bartenders ‘getting their bag,’ so to speak, but it was not for him. However, he’d participate in city charity events heavily. You’d see Sasha front and center at those types of events. Being involved with them made him so much happier than making money.”
Bostick: “He’d have a few things to say about people on a quest for recognition and awards and ‘playing the game.’ All of that is antithetical to everything Sasha taught.”
Joseph Schwartz (founder, Raised Spirits Consulting; Petraske’s former business partner): “Sasha would have absolutely balked at bartenders being stars. He would wonder whether a chef should be a star, let alone a bartender. It’s a little silly, but then again, what fame isn’t a little silly?”
Rule 2: No hooting, hollering, shouting, or other loud behavior
Subdued environments were once the hallmark of the craft cocktail movement. This has shifted in the post-pandemic era, resulting in a scene that’s a little looser and not as strict on the hoot or the holler. Would Petraske have pushed back or gone with the flow?
Sother Teague (beverage director, Amor y Amargo): “He’d be perfectly fine with the scene the way it is now. Sasha understood the industry is shaped by pendulum swings, and he got involved at the far end of an extreme swing. That’s really why the bartenders back then all had suspenders and mustache wax and acted all holier than thou. We needed to in order to earn respect. Now that we have respect, that stuff is switched off. We can now wear Hawaiian shirts and jeans while we have fun nerding out on minutiae at the bar.”
Robert Simonson (writer, author, “The Mix With Robert Simonson”): “Today’s bartenders are not mastering the classics before moving on to creating new drinks. Sasha wouldn’t like that.”
Sterling: “Sasha would have met the demand of the N/A cocktail movement if there was a demand for them in his bars. His drinks would have still sparked curiosity regardless of whether they had alcohol or not.”
Stanley: “I would be curious to see what his reaction and game plan would have been to the pandemic. There would have been some tough decisions he would have had to make.”
Schwartz: “He wouldn’t be doing obtuse drinks featuring six-plus ingredients, and he may or may not have liked drinking those drinks. But he would at least appreciate what the bars making those types of drinks were doing.”
Credit: Yelp
Rule 3: No fighting, no play fighting, no talking about fighting
By focusing on the cocktail, Petraske demonstrated how the act of drinking could be a sophisticated, elevated experience and not some base activity conducive to potential rabble-rousing. He further punctuated the art, science, and beauty of the cocktail through his mentorship and innovations, such as his pioneering ice program.
Ross: “When he opened Milk & Honey, he wanted to open the antithesis of the New York bar scene. At the time, the scene was defined by loud music, bad ice, and being unsafe for women. It was a really shitty environment. Sasha wanted to build a pleasant place where people were well-behaved and didn’t harangue other guests.”
Ford: “Sasha may be the most influential character in modern cocktail culture because he broke the rules and rewrote them. It was almost like he had this past life and he was able to reach back into it.”
Simonson: “He singlehandedly brought back cocktail bars. He gave the drinking public another option, which was a seismic change. Before Sasha, the bar provided this monolithic version of ‘fun.’ Sasha came in and offered his idea of fun.”
Teague: “He was not the tip of the spear, so to speak. That was Angel’s Share, which highly influenced him. But he was on the cutting edge.”
Schwartz: “One day, he described to me what would become the Milk & Honey method of freezing water in pans and cutting ice for different drinks. After the description, I told him: ‘You’re crazy. I’m not sure that would work, but it’s your bar.’ He rolled it out the following week, and it was more or less how the ice program ended up being. I’ve never been more pleased to be mistaken.”
Charlotte Voisey (executive director, Tales of the Cocktail Foundation): “With Sasha, education and training always started with mastering the classics through precision and technique. True mastery came from repetition and discipline.”
Duff: “Sasha’s stint as an Army ranger is a key part of his legacy because he was so disciplined. To him, being a bartender was a matter of character.”
Stanley: “There was no compromise in what he did, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t curious to figure out how things worked. I remember there were times where we would be tasting juices that had been squeezed at different times just to see what timing produced the best tasting juice.”
DeGroff: “Sasha created the bar team! The first group at Milk & Honey worked like a team. He would always address them together, which created a sense of interactive collaboration. You didn’t see anything like that before.”
Doug Tirola (director, “Hey Bartender” and “Bernstein’s Wall”): “My favorite Sasha quote didn’t make it into the movie. It’s not verbatim, but here’s what he told me about what makes a great bartender. ‘It’s almost 2 a.m., close to closing. Someone comes in and orders a drink that requires a chilled glass. The bartender opens the cooler. Because we’re always cleaning the glassware, the first glass will likely be warm. A bartender should have the instinct to reach back to the sixth glass, which is colder. Those inches separating the two glasses are everything.’”
Rule 4: Gentlemen will remove their hats. Hooks are provided.
Removing hats inside a building reiterates old-school manners — fitting for a space run by a person obsessed with the “Great Gatsby” era of style, grace, and wardrobe selection. The hooks provide a tangible example of Petraske’s deep desire to provide holistic hospitality and kindness toward guests and his staff, which he cared about most above all else.
Simonson: “Nothing he did was phony. Those after him, with the old-timey facial hair and the armband, what they did could be a put-on. But not Sasha. He believed in everything he did, from how he dressed to his choice of jazz.”
Reiner: “It was funny. I’d run into him in the West Village when he was doing his laundry, and he would be wearing basketball shorts and a T-shirt. It was like he was naked.”
Tirola: “There was a kindness and empathy with Sasha. If you saw him, saw his clothing, saw his hair, he gave off the impression of being aloof. But when you got to know him, it became clear just how much he cared about his peers and others.”
Teague: “If I shook a book out and Sasha fell out of it, the book would be about manners. He lived through his manners. That’s who he was. If Sasha happened to open a tire store, then he would have been the nicest tire salesperson out there.”
Boccato: “There was so much more about Sasha than how serious he was about the craft. He was always laughing and smiling, even during the darkest days of his business woes. He was always optimistic and never lost his composure. He would always see the silver lining in everything.”
DeGroff: “He built a family. His employees were family to him. That didn’t exist before him.”
Stanley: “He unwittingly influenced the scene without trying to influence the scene. That’s just who he was as a person.”
Rule 5: Gentlemen will not introduce themselves to ladies. Ladies, feel free to start a conversation or ask the bartender to introduce you. If a man you don’t know speaks to you, please lift your chin slightly and ignore him.
Petraske’s adamant stance against lecherous male behavior toward women in bars was revolutionary in a scene marked by misogyny. His support on both sides of the stick empowered women to be in control of their bar experience and career path within the industry, even if his intentions were more altruistic than deliberate.
Reiner: “He was a real champion of women. His rules protected them. Because of the rule, women were not harassed.”
Ford: “Some of his earliest bartenders at Milk & Honey were people like Karin Stanley and Lucinda Sterling — women bartenders in what was a man’s world at the time. Was he doing this intentionally? No. Was he doing it because of their shared values? Yes. If we would have followed his values in terms of equity, we may not have been in some of the messes the industry is in now.”
Sterling: “His work helped boost confidence in women in the bar industry. You can see that confidence through other organizations today like Speed Rack.”
Duff: “He hired a significant number of women when nobody else was. It wasn’t anything like what we may think of now as a DEI initiative for him. He didn’t care who you were as long as you were insane like him. And it worked!”
Voisey: “Sasha set his women bartenders up for success. Any woman that worked at Milk & Honey and had that on their resume had Sasha’s stamp of approval. That stamp showed they were a highly motivated and highly skilled bartender, and it spoke volumes.”
Alperin: “I’m sure his support of women in bartending roles helped their growth in the industry. In the 15 years that The Varnish was open, there were more women than men working behind that little bar. But he didn’t have any predilection for working with women. His system was built on equality, and he just wanted to treat everyone as equal.”
Stanley: “I felt very comfortable advocating for myself working at his bars. At Little Branch, I or anyone else never tolerated bad behavior. There was something comforting about being in a world where I knew that my boss would have my back. That does not happen all the time in other places.”
Credit: Georgette Moger
Rule 6: Do not linger outside the front door.
Petraske’s legacy did not stay in New York City. His hand in creating bars like The Varnish in Los Angeles, Half-Step in Austin, and The Everleigh in Melbourne, Australia, along with events like the San Antonio Cocktail Conference pushed his ethos worldwide. Today the work of his bartending acolytes helps extend his legacy past the scene’s first generation of talent.
Bostick: “The goal was to not make as much money as we could. The goal was to just be tapped into the community.”
Ross: “He’d be quite chuffed at how the principles of his little space at 134 Eldridge Street keep popping up all over the world.”
Simonson: “It’s very important to remember his work outside of New York. Places like The Varnish were beacons. Without them, his perspective and the lessons learned from his school of hospitality would not have spread out like it did.”
Boccato: “I think about my time visiting The Varnish, and I felt Sasha in the room because the people that worked there upheld his legacy. They really took his teaching to heart. I felt a sense of pride reverberating from 3,000 miles from where it came.”
Reiner: “His work outside New York is a very important part of cocktail history. It’s particularly important for young people from all over to learn about Sasha and his work in New York and beyond.”
Teague: “There are probably young bartenders out there who don’t know who Sasha is and may not ever know. That’s why it’s important for us that knew him to keep his legacy out there and share his legacy with others.”
Schwartz: “If you asked him, he’d say his work being out there was far more important than remembering who he was.”
Rule 7: Do not bring anyone unless you would leave that person alone in your home. You are responsible for the behavior of your guests.
Petraske’s work focused on building comfortable, engaging experiences as much as it did on creating perfect cocktails. This helped reframe the bar’s intention — not as a place to get smashed, but as a safe, community-building third place.
Boccato: “His holistic approach to the bar was paramount. The cocktails in many ways manifested the space. For Milk & Honey, the bar’s atmosphere was equally important, if not more so.”
Duff: “He literally built a safe space, and his rules on behaviors extended this safe space even after the guest left. It was revolutionary, and was very much needed.”
Reiner: “He changed the bar community because he made sure Milk & Honey was more of a grown-up experience. At his bars, it was more about the company you kept, the conversations you had, and the experience you created instead of just partying.”
Sterling: “The rules were important. If you mocked the rules, chances are you weren’t coming back. They weeded out those types of guests and brought in like-minded people.”
Stanley: “The Rules were not as serious as they seemed. They were there to allow guests to have fun in a safe environment.”
Schwartz: “The rules by today’s standards may be a bit much, but they were important back then. It impacted culture on that side of the bar as much as the cocktail programs.”
Tirola: “He left an impact on the world in general. He also showed that bartending was more than just making drinks.”
Meehan: “I don’t know if Sasha premeditated the concept of his bars being ‘the third space.’ But the conscious bar community that exists now is forestry for the trees he planted.”
Rule 8: Exit the bar briskly and silently. People are trying to sleep across the street. Please make all your travel plans and say all farewells before leaving the bar.
Petraske’s sudden, premature exit from this world still hurts 10 years on. Yet the lasting legacy of his work and the indelible impact of who he was as a quirky, kind, and upstanding human being can still deliver bright flashes of joy amid pain’s dark shroud.
Siegal: “I don’t go to bars anymore. They make me sad. I miss my friend too much.”
Reiner: “It’s so impossibly sad. We had all just gone to his wedding, and it was this magical event. He loved Georgette.”
Boccato: “I was married on New Year’s Eve, 2015, a few months after Sasha passed away. As I danced with my bride I wore the same black patent leather shoes that he wore at his wedding. Big shoes to fill. To this day I gotta put on an extra pair of socks just to make them fit. When my wife and I stepped out into the cold winter air of a New Year and a new life as man and wife in Brooklyn, I also wore the same leather jacket that I had on my back the first night that I held the door for Sasha at Little Branch in 2005. The man changed the course of my life in more ways than one. His mentorship didn’t just lead me to embrace a particular career or adopt a lifestyle. He gave me a path to provide for my family.”
Alperin: “People sit at your counsel, and Sasha sat at mine. Of course I get sad as a human. I miss him as a friend. But I’m not ‘sad’ anymore. I’m still inspired by his legacy, and it is my duty to keep pushing along.”
Sterling: “In a way, he’s not dead. He still lives on through the alliances he created.”
Ford: “For me, I feel his presence quite often. I can be anywhere in the world, and if I’m enjoying a drink of a certain style or in a bar with a certain environment, I think of him because I know where that drink or environment originally came from.”
DeGroff: “Every time you go to a tertiary city and find a craft bar, or a gin palace, or a speakeasy, you see Sasha. The fact that you can get a great drink in places like Terre Haute, Ind., or Madison, Wis., is f*cking amazing.”
Reiner: “He’s still at the core of this industry. He occupied such a pivotal place in this industry. He will never go away.”
Voisey: “Step back and look around. You’ll see that his name will be part of the legacy of cocktails, 10 years on and forevermore.”
Last Call
Credit: Hey Bartender – Facebook
It is not surprising that someone as iconoclastic as Sasha Petraske was also eloquent. It therefore feels appropriate to let him have the last word here, particularly since what he had to say captured rather brilliantly who he was and why he mattered to so many people.
“We are craftsmen. We are not artists, nor ‘mixologists’, nor Bar Chefs. Just bartenders, doing something that, although quite simple, few bars can manage to do. We make cocktails as well as can be made, and that should not be such a big deal. At Milk & Honey our standard is offhand excellence. You must take each shift as another opportunity to improve your craft, another opportunity to lose your self-consciousness even though you are performing your tasks in front of an audience. It may be impossible to have a perfect shift, but each night we try anyway.”
-Sasha Petraske
The article 10 Years After His Passing, Sasha Petraske Still Lives On appeared first on VinePair.