1237 Flushing Avenue, via Eater
It’s slotted to open in September:
After a year and a half as a bartender at Death + Company, award-winning mixologist Al Sotack is getting ready to strike out on his own. He and Maks Pazuniak, former head bartender at New Orleans’s acclaimed Cure, plan to open a cocktail bar late this summer in an old check-cashing facility on Flushing Avenue in Bushwick…
If you’ve ever tried the Double Dragon, one of the most popular drinks on the menu at Death + Co., you’ve tasted Sotack’s handiwork. It’s his own invention, made of Japanese whiskey, mezcal, Porte syrup and Moroccan bitters. Sotack wants to bring that creativity to his new bar, but he doesn’t plan on it being a seated-only, speakeasy-style joint. “It will be a little bit more of a lounge aesthetic with sound design and good music,” he said.
As a 10-year veteran of the service industry he’s reluctant to say too much about the concept. “There’s a lot of talk and overgrandizing and the stating your vision again and again,” he said of would-be bar owners. He did say that while cocktails will definitely be an important element, they may not necessarily be the main focus of the bar, cryptically adding that “overall you won’t find any other bars like this, not just in the neighborhood but in Brooklyn or Manhattan, really. It will be a bar that’s very specific to the place and time.”