In 1999, Petraske opened Milk & Honey on New York's Lower East Side. The speakeasy-style cocktail den quickly went on the radar for its top-quality booze and elaborate garnishes. If bespoke cocktails weren’t enough to lure customers to the door, the mystique surrounding the tiny bar sure was. Eager New Yorkers needed to acquire a secret phone number to secure a reservation behind 134 Eldridge Street's discrete door.

 

His influence can be seen in countless details now common to cocktail bars around the world, including hidden entrances, a focus on classic cocktails and formal attire worn by bartenders. He also championed the “bartender’s choice” found on many cocktail menus, the use of jiggers to measure out drinks, and even the use of cucumber slices in water glasses.

 

But Petraske’s role as a cocktail innovator and legendary proprietor had a circuitous start. As a teenager, he attended Stuyvesant High School but dropped out to take a job in a cafe. Soon after, he took a cross-country bicycle trip, lived in San Francisco for a while and joined the Army, serving for three years. Back in New York, he worked at Von, a bar in East Village and began to dream of opening his own—one that would reflect his love of jazz, vintage clothes and old-fashioned decorum.

 

Petraske stumbled upon his break when he saw an ad in The Village Voice for a narrow commercial space priced at $800 a month. He learned that the landlord had been a childhood friend of his and promised to run a well-mannered establishment. Broke but determined, Petraske borrowed money from friends and eventually opened Milk & Honey on Dec. 31, 1999. He adopted many stylistic aspects — rules of etiquette, quiet atmosphere, large ice cubes — from Angel’s Share, a bar he admired in the East Village.

 

Petraske went on to open other similarly styled bars with a number of partners, many of them former Milk & Honey bartenders. These included Little Branch in Greenwich Village; Dutch Kills in Long Island City, Queens; Middle Branch in Midtown Manhattan; the Varnish in Los Angeles; and the Everleigh in Melbourne, Australia. Petraske also opened a roomier version of Milk & Honey in London with Jonathan Downey, a British entrepreneur.

 

According to Robert Simonson of The New York Times, Petraske was a man who “gave many bartenders their careers and their names.” Sam Ross, creator of the Penicillin cocktail, cut his teeth at Milk & Honey under Petraske’s guidance. He now operates Attaboy at 134 Eldridge in place of the original Milk & Honey.

 

 

In 2012, Milk & Honey moved to a larger space on West 23rd Street, but the new location did not last long. The building was sold, and a demolition clause in the lease forced him to vacate. Although Petraske had suffered financial setbacks in recent years, he planned to open a third version of the bar. Petraske had also been planning to open a new bar, Falconer, this fall in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood—a testament to his independence and commitment to the craft cocktail scene.

 

Check out the video below for a little more about Sasha Petraske.