Back in the early 2000’s until the 2024, I wrote about Spirits, cocktails, men’s grooming, NYCC (Comic Con for the non nerds out there), and bars for various online and print publications. Imbibe, VinePair, AM New York, American Whiskey, The Alcohol Professor, Distiller Magazine, and Whisky Magazine. I’m also a founding media member of the New York City chapter of the United States Bartenders’ Guild (USBG). I tend to get around.
Now, I’m in my judging and ‘consulting’ phase. My love of writing and creating is at the essence of my still beating 57 year old heart. If you will indulge me I’d like to share a piece I wrote for a UK based Spirits magazine that was submitted (before deadline) but never published. This one was written in 2023(?). I updated it a bit. Please enjoy.
Whiskey Time Capsule-
Another planetary dance around the Sun brings new seasons, new whiskeys, and the closing of one more whiskey bar in New York City. The Whiskey Ward in Manhattan’s Lower East Side shut its doors days shy of their twenty-one-year anniversary. As a long time, whiskey lover and native New Yorker who loves whiskey, I made it a point to stop in before the doors shut and a semi-legal Vape shop or pointless, soulless Starbucks takes its place.
As I settled in for a much-needed whiskey my location app tells me that I haven’t been to the Ward since March of 2010. For such a long absence, I am full of shame and that shame would be washed away by 2 ounces of Heaven Hill Seven year Bottled in Bond Bourbon. My cure for making up for lost time.
That last night at the Ward, I saw old whiskey loving friends and made a few new ones. Whiskey and stories were shared, bonds reaffirmed, laughter and cheesy 80’s music filled the air. It was an Instagram/Threads/Mastodon/Vero worthy night, not soon to be forgotten. Some of the best times are so filled with energy and laughter that taking a picture is an afterthought.
To some, Whiskey Ward’s passing might not be worthy of a dirge filled with enough sorrowful lyrics to make a distiller weep. But the Ward’s closing made enough of an impact on my core to get me thinking about the passing of time and how every whiskey barrel, every whiskey bottle and even that greatest of things, the whiskey bar is basically a time capsule. Allow me to explain, and I promise not to use any temporal mechanic techno babble.
Funny thing about most time capsules, they hold a piece of the past to remind the future what was lost and what it has gained. High schoolers and communities will usually fill a time capsule with popular music and books of notoriety from that time.
Tucked along with cellophane wrapped newspapers with bold large font headlines declaring past political victories and playable devices full of recorded voices going on about accomplishments or dire warnings. The time capsule defends these items so that one day, in the future, someone (hopefully) will open it and be amazed that 50 Shades of Grey was a New York Times best seller or wonder what a Blockbuster card is. And that is part of its charm – reminding the future of how good they have it and why Ryan Reynolds makes a perfect Deadpool but made a piss poor Green Lantern.
Time is truly precious to making whiskey. You cannot cheat time, something all distillers agree on. Putting a whiskey to cask and then to bottle is akin to writing a love letter, sealing it in a glass soda bottle, and casting it to the sea. Once barreled, the whiskey becomes hope. It is generations of experience, and unyielding faith sealed away to one day be discovered and shared by others with the risk of love or disappointment. Yes, disappointment is there as well. No whiskey lover can say they truly enjoy every age expression of any brand. As with love and beauty, good whiskey is in the eye (glass) of the beholder.
The whiskey barrel, charred as it is, is the perfect keeper, the best-in-class vessel that secures and promises that its contents will be wonderful upon arrival at some future date. The barrel breathes and exhales as it protects precious cargo across the sea of aging. It will withstand time and most of the elements allowing the amber spirit to mature and evolve. A cocoon of wood and metal to bring forth the very best of its cargo to a future imbiber who might be looking to responsibly celebrate the birth of a child or get tangle footed at a house warming party.
A bottle of whiskey might be the better example of the time capsule theory. Already aged to perfection it is the past but portable. It is yesterday preserved to enjoy today or tomorrow or even next year. It is peak past looking at the horizon of tomorrow while giving the owner great expectations of unspoken joy
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Time spins and swells around Whiskey. Fads, politics, and personal preferences will come and go as whiskey ages. Think of the person you were seven years ago, five years ago. You’ve changed styles, phones, addresses, maybe even partners or forged a lifelong bond with that person. Very few things remain the same as when that whiskey first entered that barrel. The whiskey has become better, protected by its secondary time capsule – the bottle.
Ward’s ending reminded me of who I was in 2010. The man of 2010 was someone at the end of a long-term relationship, an owner of a Samsung phone, and living on the Isle of Misfit Toys aka Staten Island. And now at the close of the Ward in 2023 I’m a married, Android phone-using, whiskey enthusiast who looks back with a grin and faces the future with a smile because he’s no longer living in Staten Island and happily married.
And at the end as it was in the beginning for the Whisky Ward, its charm remains as well as its extensive list of whiskeys. The list grew and improved as time passed, like whiskey does.
The Ward was sacred for some, a genesis for new careers, relationships, and of course, for discovering newfound whiskeys. The Ward’s location will hold those memories and adventures like any good time capsule would and should, no matter what moves in to take its place. It’s a reminder to whiskey lovers and local barflies that there once stood a time capsule dedicated to whiskey.
The barrel, the bottle, and the bar all keep a small bit of whiskey’s past to impress upon the future. Barreled or bottled whiskey emerges slightly new and utterly energized with a subtle sadness for the passing of what it once was to what it becomes.
