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Where To Get Vegan Cocktails In (You Guessed It!) Brooklyn
By
John Del Signore
Published Dec 20, 2012
Modified Dec 20, 2012
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By
John Del Signore
Published Dec 20, 2012
Modified Dec 20, 2012
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Vegan cocktails, what? Aren't most cocktails that don't come with a novelty slab of bacon vegan already? Apparently not, and we're insensitive eco-idiots with anchovy blood on our hands for assuming otherwise. Thankfully there is a place you can go where you can be sure your libations are free of gelatin and crushed beetles. You'll find it in the fussy-person's utopia we call Brooklyn, where the Pine Box Rock Shop makes sure no animal byproducts touch your pristine lips.
The Bushwick bar has been quietly selling vegan cocktails for years, but today the Brooklyn Paper blows the lid off their whole operation, which co-owner Heather Rush explains as "an ethical choice on our part. I like the idea that vegan food is normal food." According to the Pine Box website, "many companies that produce spirits, beers, wines and sodas unnecessarily incorporate the use of gelatin, isinglass (fish bladders), carmine (ground beetles) and other 'ingredients' for filtration or presentation-related reasons." Luckily, these substances are paired with alcohol, which will make you forget all about those fish bladders.
In order to offer a full cocktail menu that will ultimately only hurt humans, not animals, Pine Box bartenders have come up with creative workarounds. According to Brooklyn Paper, they "make their own Bailey’s-type cream out of vanilla vodka, Kahlua, Frangelico and vanilla soy milk, which goes in the Sam in a Sweater, a mix of the vegan cream with root beer, Cointreau, vodka and brandy cherries. And since most Worcestershire sauces — used in bloody Marys — include anchovies, they use their own version that instead has a vegetable protein."
The Devil in Disguise Bloody Mary features a stiff shot of vegan bacon vodka, which we aren't really sure is actually a thing. But until this morning we didn't know vegan cocktails were actually a thing, so we don't know what to believe any more. Kids these days are mixing cocktails with exotic carbon neutral cruelty free artisanal home grown substances we never even dared imagine!
Tagged
animal cruelty
brooklyn
cocktails
pine box rock shop
vegans
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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