BOOZE CRUISE
Movers and cocktail shakers sip to-go martinis
They’ll have one for the road. New York night owls are begging to take their martinis to go, and bars and restaurants are catering to the demand with covert paper cups, specials for in-the-know customers and even hotel martini carts.
“It’s a friends and family to-go deal. It’s not on the menu. We don’t do delivery,” Richard Wheeler, partner at 9 Jones, told The Post of the Greenwich Village supper club’s informal martini takeout.
In recent months, he’s taken to keeping a few dozen Greek deli coffee cups behind the bar for VIPs.
In the wee hours of New Year’s Day, a group of revelers spilled out onto the street with blue and white paper cups frothing with the restaurant’s viral Aston Martini — a $19 riff on the espresso martini.
“It’s not for everyone, only the people who ask,” Wheeler said. “It came about almost by accident — we have clients that are booking the regular private room and they wanted to continue the party and take it home with them.”
The trend seems to be in part inspired by Robert De Niro. In a court case last November, a former assistant accused the actor of subjecting her to a toxic work environment. One intriguing detail was that he’d demanded the assistant Uber him late-night martinis from Nobu.
Enjoying the ‘Ritual’
The Portrait Bar at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in NoMad offers a more elegant solution for those staying at the hotel. In December, the bar started offering what it calls “The Martini Ritual.”
For $22, between the hours of 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., hotel guests can summon a mixologist to their room to shake up their martini variation, the Cartagena — gin, Colombian Aguardiliquor, ente passion fruit, sherry, dry vermouth, cherry bark and vanilla bitters — on demand.
It’s been surprispopular. ingly
“We thought requests for the Martini Ritual would be every once in a while, but it happens quite frequently,” Darryl Chan, bar director and head bartender at The Portrait Bar, as well as the hotel’s Café Carmellini, told The Post.
“A lot of guests like to experience it because it’s unique to have a bartender come up to your room,” Chan said. “[And they] want a martini before dinner while they are getting ready for their evening.”
New York City has strict guidelines about selling alcoholic beverages to go: They must be packaged in a container with a secure lid or seal, and they must come with a substantial food item.
But some establishare ments finding workarounds.
At Shinji’s in Flatiinsider ron, an said the cocktail bar sometimes “gifts” regcoveted ulars its Vesper Martini — usually sold for $24 and served at an icy -27 degrees — or its “Dirtiest Martini” (usually sold for $30) to take away.
At Isla & Co., an Australian restaurant inside Midtown’s Hotel Hendricks, managers have spotted customers pouring their martinis into coffee cups they get from their hotel rooms.
“Every hour seems to also be martini hour this winter in New York City,” co-owner Tom Rowse quipped.
Pain in the glass
Even the most highbrow establishments are struggling with DIY roadies.
At DOM cocktail lounge in Gramercy Park, owner and mixologist Albert Trummer says he’s had to downgrade his barware because so many imbibers were leaving with their martini glasses half full.
“In the first nine months of our opening [in 2022] everything was Baccarat crystal — then we said we can’t keep up with the demand of people taking them,” Trummer said. “People put them under their coat, in their pocket and walk right out. One lady put a silver [martini] shaker in her Louis Vuitton bag.”