It's Slow Drink Week in New York City this week — and no, that doesn't mean the bartenders dawdle, or that you're forced to drink sloe gin (not that that would be a problem.) Rather, it's a spinoff of the "Slow Food" movement, which celebrates artisanal, sustainable, and basically non-industrial food practices. Because attention to those things = increased tastiness, which we should all be able to get behind.
Slow Food principles apply nicely to the cocktailian mindset: you can't get much more fast-food-like than doing things like using premade "sour mix", soda guns, prebottled cocktails, or just plunking a bunch of sweet crap in a cocktail glass and calling it a Martini. Slow drinking involves taking time to consider how each ingredient's taste contributes to the whole, measuring the ingredients carefully, and not cutting corners when building a tasty, well-balanced cocktail. (It's why you squeeze those juices freshly rather than resorting to ReaLemon. It just tastes better.)
At any rate, I'm probably preaching to the choir here, so let me point you to the list of Slow Drink Week events:
- Today, at Tailor;
- Tomorrow, at Huckleberry;
- Thursday, at Brandy Library and The Good Fork;
- Friday, at B Flat and Brandy Library;
- Sunday, at PDT; and
- Monday, at The Randolph.
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