The first unsettling realization, back when I made my initial stab at DIY bitters, was that I didn’t have the mixology skills to do my tinctures justice. The second was my total cluelessness as to whether they were even worth a damn. So I took matters to the top and sought out PDT’s Jim Meehan, a man who I’ve got a sneaking suspicion was the inspiration for the phrase “a gentleman and a scholar.” He graciously agreed to check them out, and after a month of daily shaking, smoking, and praying, my precious babies were strained, bottled, and shipped off to St. Marks. They also went with a hopeful request: if any of them were deemed decent enough, would Meehan or his staff be willing to create a drink based around my bitters? Why yes, they would.
What followed was a three-month-long game of cat and mouse, as Mr. Meehan traveled the globe on business, doing what he is wont to do (blow minds), while I corresponded with him from the confines of my light-starved studio apartment.

Here in the land of women it is a time-honored truth that Halloween is merely an excuse to wear our naughties outdoors. One only needs to throw on her favorite corset, wig, fake eyelashes, tranny heels, and garter belt, and voodoo costume magic, she is good to go. When that creepy guy in the Jon Gosselin bald pate sidles up at the punch bowl and asks who she’s supposed to be, she can simply roll her eyes, be all like, “Sarah Palin, obviously. Don’t you see the glasses?” Unfortunately, a disturbing spike in pantlessness and underwear as outerwear is threatening to render national skivvies night obsolete. Every day can’t be hooker day, can it?

Andrew Carmellini, head chef at Tribeca’s Locanda Verde and co-author (with wife Gwen Hyman) of home cooking-savvy cookbook, Urban Italian: Simple Recipes and True Stories from a Life in Food, has cooked at some of the finest eateries around the world but remains modest about his culinary experiences. In New York, he’s gone from the kitchen of Le Cirque to Café Boulud to A Voce, and rumors of "all you can eat' pasta night" at Locanda have been turning heads recently. We've been told that dinners such as these are not planned to start until January ... we'll see.

It's about time somebody launched a festival dedicated solely to the consumption of booze, with zero pretense of cultural distractions like movies or music. The first-ever Manhattan Cocktail Classic kicks off this weekend, with events like "The Agave Session: The Magical Elixirs of Mexico," and "Cocktail Kingdom Presents: A Practical Guide to Barware from Around the World." Beyond the seminars, which promise to have many tastings, there's a series called "Stories from Behind the Bar" where you can get up close and personal with bartending talent on their home turf.

At the end of the first part of my DIY bitters experiment, the ingredients were in their respective jars and I was waiting for them to infuse within the comfort of my Manhattan closet. A week went by, and my bitters (after seven daily shake sessions to the rhythm of Miami Sound Machine’s “Bad Boy”) started taking on their flavors and aroma profiles. The aromas got intense -- high-proof alcohol is an effective blank canvas. On my citrus/clove/pink peppercorn blend, the floral spice of the peppercorns and cloves hit first, followed by that zing of citrus, the flavors playing nicely off each other. The cherry/birch batch, however, is almost entirely birch; it’s herbal and bitter with just an undercurrent of sweetness from the rainier cherries, which have a mild flavor (note to self: next time use Bings if possible). To counteract the birch’s bitterness, I stirred in a teaspoon of cherry-infused honey I’d picked up at the Greenmarket. As for the smoked bourbon bitters, the vanilla harmonized with its bourbon base while the sarsaparilla was more of a background note, but it had a glaring flaw. It wasn’t smoked yet!

Where do the dancing girls of publicly traded flesh palace Rick's Cabaret like to hang when they aren't putting themselves through school? Sure, you saw the stripper interviews yesterday, but wouldn't you rather get intimate with the source material? After the jump, the Rick's lovelies page throuh our "notes" regarding where the ladies kick it when they're not working the pole. Can you get a Pulitzer for blue balls?

Belvedere's master mixologist, Claire Smith, on launching the world’s first super-premium vodka and the return of the classic cocktail and speakeasy bar.

What is your favorite classic cocktail? It changes day by day, but I suppose the one thing I always turn to is the gibson, which is a Belvedere vodka martini with cocktail onions. That’s my go-to drink.

Has vodka always been your spirit of choice? Yes, it has actually. I’m a big fan of the history of vodka and the struggle that the spirit has gone through over the years, in particular how it’s gone from being a peasant’s drink to becoming the world’s number one spirit. That’s something that I’ve always been fascinated by.

Everyone's got an office. For Mario Batali, it's the kitchen; for LeBron James, the court. And for BlackBook staffers, it's an actual office. But for the girls who work at Rick's Cabaret and Steakhouse, the office is something entirely different. It's the stage-to-ceiling brass pole, or the giddy lap of an Asian salaryman. But when daily tasks include gyrating your hips to a T-Pain banger or sipping bubbly with VIPs in the champagne room, what space does that leave for a regular nightlife? Last week, after a long day at our office (be sure to check out the raw source material), we decided to visit theirs to fulfill our journalistic duty by asking them the essential question: Where do you like to go out in New York?

Over a year ago, the first legal absinthe since before Prohibition made its way to New York. Now, its omnipresence -- whether of the variety that’s true to the original or not -- has inspired plenty of noteworthy concoctions. As to the supposed hallucinogenic properties of the liquor, those remain a hotly debated topic, but head to any of these spots and, at the very least, you can try and blame any unruly behavior on your legal drug use.

10. Bookmarks in the Library Hotel (Midtown East) - An absinthe cocktail named after famed author and absinthe-lover Oscar Wilde is great. Blitzes of Midtowners looking for their after-work alcohol fix? Not so much. With that in mind, head to Bookmarks on the later side for some cozy digs and a fireside Oscar Wilde.
9. Employees Only (West Village) - Party like it’s 1920 as you sip on your Martinez -- made with gin, maraschino liqueur, bianco vermouth, and dashes of absinthe bitters -- at the perpetually packed Prohibition era-inspired spot.
8. The Eldridge (Lower East Side) - Who needs Rose Armand de Brignac Champagne when you can have tableside absinthe service? All you need now is a way in and someone to foot the exorbitant bill.

Over on our Mixology site in the Pros section, we asked the hottest bartenders in New York and Los Angeles to whip up a specialty cocktail while describing their perfect New Year's Eve. Check out Jonathan Pogash crafting a Mistletoe Martini at NYC's Campbell Apartment. But that's not the end of Jonathan's game; he's also "director of cocktail development" at the World Bar, the Carnegie Club, Bookmarks Lounge at the Library Hotel, and Madison & Vine.

What do you do? What do you drink? I develop new cocktail recipes for our menus, I train the bar staff and I’m also actively bartending as well. I drink Manhattans and Margaritas

How did you get your start? I started out as a bar-back, and then I just became a bartender after that at the Russian Tea Room. From there I moved on to a place called Town, was trained by various people along the way, and just went off to various bars and started getting creative. Then they started putting my cocktail recipes on their menus.