new york sour

Is a New York Sour a Girly Drink?

Are you there? Are you in New York? You are? Ok, do me a favor and just grab the first New Yorker you can get your hands on. Grab them by their lapels and shove your face up close and scream-whisper, Is a New York Sour a girl’s drink?!

Still not convinced? Alright, stand back up, grab that tooth off the curb; you’re dentist will want to take a look at that. See that cheap bar over there by the lamp store? Go in there. We’re on a mission.

Throw the door open like you just landed here after a time-travel experiment gone all Alabama that left your 1950s laboratory in shambles. But you’re not giving up; lives depend on you.

As all those tired old sandpapery day drunk faces turn to you, glowing oyster gray in the light streaming in from the open door behind you, shout to the whole bar, IS A NEW YORK SOUR A GIRL’S DRINK?!

Huh. That’s weird. Well, try to—shit, are you ok? Here, let me help you up. Ok, let’s get out of here. Yeah, here’s a place; let’s go into this bodega. They’ll know.

Walk into this corner bodega, wipe the blood off your broken nose with the back of your torn sleeve, heave yourself in front of the 340-pound truck mechanic buying lotto tickets for his shop and ask the 87-year-old lady running the register IS A NEW YORK SOUR—

You ok? You don’t look so good. You look like a runaway garbage truck tossed you out as an anchor and it didn’t work. You look like a meth-addled badger wrangler’s trainee. You look like a psyche ward threw up. You look like a fluffer for Giraffe porn. But cheer up booger cup, we’re not here to judge. We’re here to help you answer the question burning a hole in your increasingly spectral self: is a New York Sour a girly drink? Ask that cop. Yeah, go ahead—

Jesus, man. Ok, let’s just . . . let’s just get you onto this bench here. You’re breathing pretty heavy, pal. You look faint like you’re fading out. So before you go into a stupid-induced coma, allow me to answer the query you’ve been IRL Googling up and down this Manhattan street: No, you dead sandwich flavored jello-boned butt puckering antediluvian nostril fucker, a New York Sour is not a girly drink, it’s this:

New York Sour

Ingredients

2 ounces of Widow Jane Rye

1 ounce freshly squozen lemon juice

3/4 ounce of simple syrup

1/2 ounce of red wine

Method

  1. Add whiskey, lemon juice, and simple syrup into a shaker filled with ice. Shake like your life depends on it. Shake it until a thin layer of ice forms on the outside of the cocktail shaker and you can’t feel your fignertips.
  2. Strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice, or a nice fat cube
  3. Carefully pour the red wine over the back of a spoon so it just floats on the top of the drink.
  4. Garnish with a nod.
Author: Bull Garlington
Bull Garlington is an author and columnist in Chicago who writes about the madness of travel, analog tools, food, wine, and whiskey. Garlington lives with [his attorney], smokes black cavendish, hikes the easy trails, and makes a mean gumbo yaya.