Sasha Petraske Workshop

On Repeal Day we had the opportunity to attend another workshop organized by Red Monkey Group at Paparazzi in Bratislava. This time we had the great honour of being able to listen to a man who is a living legend in the bar world - Sasha Petraske of Milk & Honey.

During this almost 3 hour workshop Sasha talked about the speakeasy culture of prohibition, cocktails of that era as well as giving us his own history of how he got started in the bar business and gave us some insight into what he thinks makes a great bar and bartender. And he certainly has strong views and opinions about certain aspects of this trade.

Although people in the bar trade mostly talk about the negative effects that Prohibition had such as legitimizing organized crime, harming or even killing people with bad alcohol, destroying the bartenders craft in the U.S.A and driving bartenders to Europe. It seems that many good things did come out of it. The number of bars was actually increased, it made it possible and acceptable for women to come to these venues and bartenders had to really improvise and strive to create potions that were drinkable considering the bad ingredients that they had to work with. Nowadays it's just very easy to use expensive and luxurious ingredients.

Sasha presented a number of cocktails throughout the workshop that were “created” in this era. Nowadays, these concoctions may seem not only seem bizarre but also their taste might not be to everyone’s liking. But you have to remember that in those times it was often a matter of disguising the bad taste of alcohol more than anything else. A bartender had to improvise and there really was a lot of pressure to innovate. Some of the cocktails he presented were: Mary Pickford, Colony Cocktail, Blood and Sand, The Whitney Cocktail and The King Cole – something like an Old Fashioned with muddled pineapple, orange, sugar and Scotch.

There was one thing that Sasha stressed a few times throughout the workshop and that was the approach to customers and what he thinks is the role of a bartender and a proper bar. He feels that making cocktails is not an art but a craft. In a bar the customer is the star and the bartender is the supporting actor. Those of you that have had the opportunity of visiting Milk & Honey will hopefully agree with us that this is certainly the case there. It is a place where friendships are reinforced and not made. This is partly helped by their house rules like the one about men not introducing themselves to ladies. Sasha created these rules when he first opened Milk & Honey after having worked for 3 years in a loud bar pouring beers.

For us it was actually quite surprising to find out that when he first opened the place he really didn’t have much of a clue about cocktails whatsoever. Nowadays, Milk and Honey seems to be synonymous with great cocktails. But that wasn’t always the case. Even though Sasha was inspired by Angel’s Share to a great extent it wasn’t until a certain Dale DeGroff gave him a muddler and an old Trader Vic book that he got turned on to cocktails. And it wasn’t until a certain blogger wrote about his bar, after he specifically asked them not too, that they introduced the reservation only policy. The rest as they say is history. So if you ever decide to visit Milk & Honey just remember that you should make a reservation not because they are trying to be exclusive but simply because they can’t accommodate as many guests as they might like to. Everyone is welcome at Milk & Honey, although they might not necessarily be welcome back.

Cheers!

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