Death & Co. | New York City

In many ways, it’s cocktail Mecca.

Death & Co. was number one on my list to visit when I went to NYC — for me, it was mostly because what has taught me most about home bartending and craft cocktails is the book, Death & Co: Modern Classic Cocktails. It is by far, my favorite cocktail book, and I have spent hours scanning the pages and marking the cocktails I have made at home with a little “x”.

I am proud to say that my copy now has a
considerable amount of those x’s.

Therefore, I planned my entire NYC trip with one main goal in mind:
to sit at the Death & Co. bar.

I made sure to be at the front door moments after it opened, and before I knew it, I had the best seat at the bar at one of the most respected and talked about craft cocktail bars in the world. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that it was sort of a spiritual experience for me. I get little chills — because THAT is truly how nerdy I am.

Mostly, when I roll up to a bar, I like to engage the bartender, chat about some options, and geek out about weird amari or something. But for some reason, I didn’t quite feel like doing that at Death & Co. I just wanted to sort of take it all in. Watching the bartender was really amazing, and basically I opened the menu and just pointed to a selection without any real reasoning behind my order. I didn’t go crazy with the photos either. And….we only ordered two cocktails.

I was pretty serious into the watching of it all.

I kind of forget to participate — and, I was totally 100% a-ok with that.

Then, everything lived up to the hype,
which honesty, was REALLY big in my head.

I get that I am not the most well-known cocktail writer/blogger/photographer out there, and living somewhere like Salt Lake City doesn’t really put you on the cocktail and spirits map.

And, I also get that so many of my cocktail buddies around the world, and especially in NYC, can walk into Death & Co, or cocktail bars of that caliber, any night of the week — so my enthusiasm might seem silly to some, and that’s fine by me.

SLC has some great options, but nothing with the history or the influence that Death & Co. has, so for me, and my cocktail-enthusiast-nerd personality, this was a big deal.

It was my big Broadway show.
It was the Statue of Liberty.
It was my tourist destination.

So, I am super happy it wasn’t a drag. 😉

And the icing on the cake? Death & Co. shared one of my photos, which for me was basically the equivalent of feeling like the really really realllllly cool kid in a group of THE MOST cool kids ever.

At least for a few minutes.