Each week I send a lot of emails to BB subscribers that I’ve never met face-to-face. So I’ve come up with a way to fix that: The Cocktail Club.

Technically (if you’re reading this in your inbox) you’re already a member. And as a member, you’re invited to sample cocktails with your fellow BB readers once a month, at bars throughout Brooklyn — starting next week!

This roving party begins Wednesday night, Feb. 27, from 6:30-8:30, at one of my favorite bars, Huckleberry Bar, the swank lounge in Williamsburg that sparked Brooklyn’s cocktail craze — or “chaos,” as Stephanie Schneider puts it. Last fall, she and partner Andrew Boggs gave their neighborhood the kind of bar I wish would open in mine. Both veterans of Danny Meyer restaurants like Blue Smoke, they thought of everything: stellar cocktails, fine wine, good beer, great food, an outdoor space, even a DJ booth (which will be put to good use on Wednesday by the multitalented Michaela Drapes and Shannon Robertson).

Since it’s so freakin’ cold out, I decided to kick off the cocktail club with the spirit that says summer — rum — and not just any rum, but 10 Cane, a light, smooth Trinidadian rum extracted from the first pressing of virgin sugar cane and aged in French oak barrels. Both partners developed their own cocktails based upon it — Boggs created a Cuba Libre-like drink, using Galliano and other original twists like whiskey-aged bitters in place of the cola, and Schneider made a frothy cocktail with fresh blood orange juice and an herbaceous, Italian vermouth called Punt e Mes.

“We really try to use things that are not used everywhere else,” she explains.

You could try Schneider’s delicious drink, named for the 1800s engineer who surveyed Williamsburg, at home — the recipe’s here — but it will be way more fun for you to sample Huckleberry’s serious mixology skills in person. Plus, if you come, you can purchase our $5 Cocktail Club Card, which you can flash to get a dollar off drinks at participating bars on specific nights of the week. Huckleberry, for instance, will offer card-carrying members the discount on Tuesdays, Rustik Tavern in Bed-Stuy will honor it Tuesdays and Wednesdays, reBar in Dumbo on Tuesdays, and Barrette in Prospect Heights on Wednesdays. (More are being added each day, and if you tell me your local haunt, I’ll try to add them to the list!)

If you can make it — and I hope you will — reply with your RSVP so Huckleberry can prepare accordingly.

Cheers!

Deets: Brooklyn Based Cocktail Club, Wednesday night, Feb. 27, from 6:30-8:3o, Huckleberry Bar, 718-218-8555, 588 Grand St. near Lorimer, close to the Lorimer stop on the L, and the Metropolitan on the G.

Sent by Nicole
Cocktail photo by Michael Harlan Turkell.