Merry heat wave! I’m back filling in and I’ll be writing more of this newsletter, alternating with our beloved Nikita through the summer.
On that subject, New York summers … can feel like a drag. Maybe I’m actually the drag — or I just need to move to Los Angeles (kidding!) — but when it’s above 85 degrees, the normal schlepping and commuting can feel torturous. The salve: drinking a beverage that feels like vacation. You know exactly where I’m going with this: boozy, brain-freezy drinks.
Here are a few of my favorites, and, because this is a food newsletter, what you should eat alongside them.
Once you’re done here, take a look at the New York Times Food staff’s picks for 22 of the best pizza spots across the country, showcasing pizza’s many exciting new forms. Let us know what your favorite pizza place is, and after that, you can read Brett Anderson on America’s storied pizza history.
Bright and boozy, plus a burger
If you’re not interested in this intel because your experience with frozen drinks is getting hungover from cloying, one-note cocktails, please know that I despise frozen drinks that are even slightly syrupy-sweet. I would never direct you to one of those.
I’ve spent the better part of a decade yapping about the frozen drinks at Mother’s Ruin, my local all-occasions bar in NoLIta (it exists in that liminal space between a dive and a cocktail bar). The contents of their slushy cocktails, which spin in a refrigerator-size frozen drink machine named Kathleen Turner, change pretty often. Currently called the Squalor Squad, the drink is a pinkish, miraculously balanced combination of rum, Campari, coconut, blueberry and citrus. And after a couple of those, you’ll be primed for a great, secret-sauced and pickle-heavy bar burger and waffle fries dusted in Old Bay.
18 Spring Street (Elizabeth Street)
Coney Island is for margaritas
Did I think I’d enjoy a frozen margarita from a Coney Island counter called Margarita Island? No, I really didn’t. But consider this is my formal apology to Margarita Island, a delightfully shabby, distinctly Coney Island-y bar right next to Luna Park, where the view is directly of the Wonder Wheel. The classic frozen margarita is tart, creamy and stronger than it tastes, all hallmarks of a delightful frozen drink.
I’m not sure if this is legal, but because Coney feels like a lawless place: Take your margarita to the boardwalk a block away and drink it with a Nathan’s hot dog, or fried fish from Tom’s, to reach the Summer Behavior Zenith.
1105 Bowery Street (West 12th Street)
‘That green drink’
Florida-core bar the Commodore in Williamsburg, where striped lawn chairs litter the sidewalk and they put cocktail umbrellas on the burgers, is far from a hidden gem. Their frozen mojito, though, remains criminally underrated. Everyone goes for their namesake drink, basically a frozen piña colada, but they sleep on what I call “that green drink.”
They’re made to order in a blender behind the bar with so much fresh mint that the result is basically a mint-and-lime slushie with some rum sneaked in there. It’s served in a hurricane glass with, yes, a cocktail umbrella, as is the will of the summer gods. To order the hot chicken sandwich is human, but to order the Cadillac nachos is divine. The nachos are at their best when they come heavy on the cilantro, scallions and sliced radishes, and Southerners in New York will understand how valuable it is to find white queso in this town.
366 Metropolitan Avenue (Havemeyer Street)
Straight-up fruit slush from the deli
Maybe you don’t want a cocktail. I don’t know your life! One of the greatest treats downtown has to offer is at a bodega: the fruit slush at A&N Fruit Store, in the Lower East Side. You pick a type of frozen fruit, they blend it up with water and ice, and serve it in a deli quart container with an extra wide straw. The strawberry and lime slush is best enjoyed sitting outside on the wood palettes seemingly designed for loitering, or on a walk to Regina’s Grocery for a sunny sandwich.
25 Canal Street (Essex Street)
