DEATH & COMPANY
433 East 6th Street
New York, NY 10009
(212) 388-0882

I've found myself addicted to cocktails. I'll be at Strand pouring through cocktail guides, trying to find one that fits the "home bar" I made in the corner of my living room. And to continue that train of thought, I made a home-bar in the corner of my living room. Once upon a time, I couldn't have cared less. I thought that alcohol was just for those with nothing else to do. I thought that drinking just to get drunk was a waste of precious booze. But now I know that there's a time and there's a place where I can choose to walk the fine line between self-control and self-abuse.

Continuing my slow (and none-too-cheap) crawl across the city searching for good cocktails, I found myself at Death & Company, a bar which either has the coolest name ever, or the most pretentious. I'll go with cool. Situated smack in the middle of the 6th Street between First Avenue and Avenue A, if you don't know it's there, you'll walk right by. Hell, I know it's there and I still miss it. Fear not, dear traveller, there's a sign. Sort of. It's really more of an unlit carved wooden plaque that hopefully no one will be standing in front of at the moment you need it.

Death & Company does not take reservations; you just have to hope for a seat. Unlike at Pegu Club, standing at the bar isn't allowed. This ain't no meat market bar. If there aren't any seats, just give the guy at the door your cell phone number and he'll call you. Or prop yourself up against that carved wooden plaque and wait.

Death & Company has a small plates menu for those feeling a might but peckish, but I've never ordered the food here, instead choosing to stick to their libations. One very nice thing about Death & Company is that their menu is both larger than most others, as well as more traditional. In other words, you'll see something on it that you might have liked elsewhere, like a daiquiri (The Classic Daiquiri) or a mint julep (The Classic Julep), and then find variations on that theme, rather than some bizarre concoction, half of whose ingredients you've never heard of. In that sense, Death & Company possibly the perfect cocktail lounge for cocktail-scene newbies. You can order something unique, knowing that if you don't like it, you can fall back on an oldie but a goodie without fearing that the bartender will sneer at you while muttering "plebeian".

All of my drinks have been tasty, and if they weren't so damned expensive and the wait so damned long (expect to wait half an hour to an hour Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights), I'd be coming back again and again, working my way through the menu. In addition to the two "classics" above, I can recommend The Green Mile, if you like citrusy licorice, and The Spicy Paloma, if you like spicy. It's certainly an acquired taste, but by the bottom of the glass, I acquired it.