The Story Behind The Eastside
A cocktail that’s been likened to “renegade spa water,” the Eastside is a vibrant, shaken mix of gin, lime juice, easy syrup, muddled cucumber, and mint. Regarding its identify, the cocktail is an east Manhattan-born riff on the Southside, and although each drinks bear disputed origins, the Eastside is a product of the early aughts, arriving practically a century after the arrival of its dad or mum cocktail.
There are two competing tales — each equally possible — concerning the genesis of the Eastside.
One perception is that George Delgado created the drink in 2004 on the now-shuttered bar Libation in NYC’s Decrease East Facet. Allegedly, his model was a protracted drink, however after bartender Chad Solomon introduced the drink’s idea to the late Sasha Petraske’s bar Milk & Honey, the employees there started serving it up, with out ice or soda water. Growth: The Eastside was born.
Oddly sufficient, the second model of the story entails the same forged of characters. In Sasha Petraske’s posthumously revealed 2016 ebook, “Concerning Cocktails,” bartender Christy Pope writes that the cocktail was really invented by Solomon himself. “Chad had a drink known as the Eastside Fizz made with sugar, mint, lime, soda, and Hendrick’s Gin,” she writes. “We took the thought of his drink and molded it the Milk & Honey means, utilizing tequila as the bottom,” thus creating the Tequila Eastside.
Nonetheless, fellow Milk & Honey alum Richie Boccato tells VinePair that the gin-based iteration was “how we at all times made it at Milk & Honey again within the day.” He additionally tells us that he was at all times beneath the impression that the Eastside recipe was tailored from a protracted drink by Delgado, however went on to say, “I’d take Christy’s phrase as gospel on the subject of these items. She was most undoubtedly there at Milk & Honey within the seminal days when most of the issues that also matter at the moment first occurred.”
Whether or not it was certainly Solomon or Delgado, one factor’s for sure: The Eastside was sufficient of a success that it circulated across the cocktail bar circuit within the early aughts. Generally, Hendrick’s Gin was the bottom spirit of selection. The spirit debuted in 1999, and given the inclusion of rose and cucumber in its botanical invoice, the gin’s profile makes an ideal companion to the intense, herbaceous parts at work within the Eastside’s spec.
