It's 2013 and it seems the atavistic cocktail trend is here to stay. And while you may think you've had quite enough of serious bartenders in suspenders spending hours meticulously mixing old-timey libations, we think you should make an exception for The Dead Rabbit, a beautiful multi-level watering hole that just opened in a landmark lower Manhattan building dating back to the 1820s. Named for the infamous Irish gang that brawled ferociously with The Bowery Boys during the mid-19th century, the Dead Rabbit is the work of "international barman" Sean Muldoon and Jack McGarry, who both hail from The Merchant Hotel in Belfast, winner of “World’s Best Cocktail Bar” at Tales of the Cocktail in 2010.
The ground floor tap room feels like a time capsule, with live Irish music sometimes playing in the corner, sawdust on the floor, historic satirical cartoons, and exposed wooden beams. Down there you'll find cocktails, bottled punch, a wide selection of craft beer, a truly massive array of Irish whiskeys and “pop-ins,” which we're told "consist of lightly-hopped beer combined with amari or fruit liqueurs, a tradition dating back to the Middle Ages to give unhopped brews a bitter or fruity character." In the back, an assortment of imported British and Irish groceries are for sale, which alludes to the days when gangs would get drunk in bars hidden inside grocery stores.
“I have, for years, dreamed of creating a mid-19th century community tavern, a rough and ready place suitable for Boss Tweed that would serve great quality drinks and food,” Muldoon says. “As much as I love everything about cocktails, I also love drinking beer in age-old taverns. The Dead Rabbit is an amalgamation of the two." The upstairs cocktail "parlor" is similarly old-timey, but slightly more sophisticated. McGarry has put together a sprawling cocktail menu inspired by some 70 drinks that you might have knocked back in the 19th century, including "hot and cold communal punches, bishops, flips, possets and nogs, cups and cobblers, sours, fixes and daisies, slings, toddies and fizzes, juleps and smashes, as well as absinthe." We don't know what half those things are, but we'll drink them. All of them.
Most cocktails are $14 and, when bitters are involved, deploy the Dead Rabbit's housemade Orinoco bitters, which are based on the earliest style of bitters. (Bottles of these are also for sale downstairs.) The punches are ladled out of communal antique punch bowls into my-how-darling vintage tea cups, which you can decorously sip at the bar or at one of the back tables where a variety of bar food is served. The menu includes Scotch Eggs, Potted Shrimp with Toast, Zucchini Fritters, Lollipop Lamb Chops and Welsh Rabbit. Check your paving stones and brick bats at the door!
30 Water Street // The Dead Rabbit’s taproom is open seven-days-a-week from 12 noon to 4 a.m. Its cocktail parlor is open Mondays to Wednesdays, 5 p.m. to 2 a.m.; Thursdays to Saturdays, 5 p.m. to 3 a.m. and is closed Sundays.
