Cienfuegos' Rum Punch Bar "Cocteleria" Has Soft Opening Tonight, Opens Thursday

The rum punch bar faction of Cienfuego—the new East Village, Cuban food-and-drink place fostered by downtown cocktail mogul Ravi DeRossi (Mayahuel, Death & Co.)—will have its soft opening Monday night, April 26, working toward an official opening on April 30, manager Miguel Calvo told Off the Presses. It's name: Cocteleria! The Cuban sandwich shop section of the two-floor complex, called Carteles, opened earlier this year at 5 Avenue A, near E. 6th Street.

As previously reported, mixologist Charlotte Voisey (Gramercy Park Hotel, The Hideout) devised the menu for the haunt which, when it is finished, will contain Careles (above), Cocteleria, and a still-to-be-unveiled rum cocktail bar. (Who wants to bet its name will begin with a "C"?) Taken together, the three parts of the enterprise go by the name Cienfuegos. (Pictures courtesy of Urban Daddy. Um..colorful!)

Cocteleria has 60 seats and is open from 5 PM to 2 AM. Table service is emphasized. 

All the punches can be ordered in a variety of sizes—single serving, two servings, and for large groups. You don't have to order a bowl. All the drinks start at $13, with prices go up in increments depending on the number of people who order. $100 buys punch for "the whole family," as Calvo puts it.

The food menu is "primarily small-cut Cuban bites. Little Cuban sandwiches, little Sloppy Joes, croquetas, empanadas." 

Here's the drink menu. Every drink listed is a punch:

Punch and Judy(Winner of Tales of the Cocktail Punch competition 2008)
Solerno, Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum, Laubade Armagnac VSOP, agave syrup, Hendrick’s gin, pineapple, fresh lime juice, Angostura bitters, strawberries

A Moveable Feast
Mount Gay Eclipse Silver, Dolin Blanc Vermouth, fresh lime juice, dry french cider, Regan’s bitters, nutmeg.

Vinales
Coconut ice, tamarindo, pineapple juice, Angostura bitters, Barbancourt 8 yr, fresh lime juice, Fernet Branca, Jarritos Tamarindo, nutmeg sprinkles/

Cuban Angel “ El Cobre”
Aged Rum, Armagnac, Solerno, orgeat, apricot, orange bitters, fresh lemon juice, egg white.

Rhubarb Rhum Phunch
Clement VSOP, Creole Shrubb, rhubarb simple syrup, fresh orange & fresh lime juice, simple syrup to taste, rosemary sprigs & mace blades

Rosa Verde
Flor de Cana Nicaraguan rum, watermelon juice, pink peppercorn, celery bitters

Ernesto
Rum, Fernet Branca, Maraschino Liquor, pink grapefruit juice, fresh lime juice, sugar cane syrup, Malbec float

Molucca Punch
Barbancourt 8 year, fresh lime juice, allspice, Cynar, fresh orange, Bitter Truth Chocolate Bitters, chocolate shavings.

Punch ( Tuesday ) 13
Smith & Cross, Leblon, Yellow Chartreuse, strawberry (per serving), pineapple juice, dash bitters.

Alabazam Punch (adapted from a lost and forgotten classic)
8 parts Appleton twelve year old, Maraschino, Lillet Rouge, fresh lemon juice, bitters, Champagne.

Vesperone
Rye Whiskey, aged rum and cassis with fresh lime, decorated with aromatic sage and blackberries

La Estrella
Mirto, Rhum Neisson Blan, coconut ice cream, lime juice, peychaud bitters

Rum and Punch: Two Trends for 2010

I was at an industry event for the Guatemalan rum Zacapa, talking over the cocktail scene with a couple collegues. We were discussing how it seemed that, after gin and absinthe and tequila had all recently gotten their moment in the spotlight, it now appeared to be rum's turn. "Yeah," said one man, "I wonder what will be next?" We thought for a moment. "Nothing," another finally said. "Rum's it. It's last. It's the last major liquor category to be rediscovered."

Late last year, the New York Times ran a big feature story on how rum had come of age in America, and was being newly rediscovered by U.S. drinkers and drink makers. The piece focused mainly on west coast places like Martin Cate's Smuggler's Cove in San Francisco and Audrey Saunder's Tar Pit in Los Angeles. But the article's looking pretty prophetic as far as New York is concerned. 2010 is not even two months old and we have already learned that, before spring is over, we well see Painkiller, a new tiki-rum place on the Lower East Side run by Richard Boccato and Giuseppe Gonzalez of Dutch Kills fame; and, as part of the new East Village Cuban restaurant Cienfuegos, two rum bars overseen by mixologist Charlotte Voisey. No longer can anyone say, "Why isn't there a decent rum bar in New York?"

To my mind, part of this gravitation toward rum is an either intentional or subconscious desire to chill out a bit. The cocktail scene can get rather arch sometimes, with it's insistence on the right way of doing things, its ingredient and behavior snobbery and its sometime rococo new cocktail creations. Rum is all about relaxing and taking it easy.

Both of these new bars also seem to tangentially embrace what I feel is another dawning trend of 2010: Punch. Now, I know that a lot of cocktail geeks out there will balk at that statement, saying "Punch was so 2008." True, Death & Co. and Clover Club have been doing punches for a couple years now in New York, and Prime Meats serves a different punch by the glass every day. But the punch thing never really took hold. It was an isolated, intermittent side show, found only in the most fanatical corners of cocktaildom.

This year may change that. One of the rum bars at Cienfuegos will focus on rum punch. And Painkiller is going to have a Scorpion Bowl menu. That would all be fine and good, but the real clincher to this being a punch year is the arrival of David Wondrich's new book on the matter. Wondrich created quite a stir with his last opus, "Imbibe!," basically an exhaustive history of cocktails in 19th-century America. Fans will be waiting anxiously for his next volume. (I don't know what the title is yet, but I'm guessing, maybe, "Punch!").

Wondrich recently gave a little preview on what the book will contain during a well-attended lecture at Pegu Club on Jan. 25. He had just turned in his manuscript two days beforehand.  He talked about the history of the brimming bowl, and made a few sample punches (there's one below), including one made with ambergris, which anyone who has read "Moby Dick" knows is a once-treasured byproduct of sperm whales. Though something in me tells me that punch will be a harder sell to the general public than individual classic cocktails were (it's labor intensive, requires special equipment, and you need to lay out a fair amount of money to make a good-sized bowl), I'm still betting that the book will inspire plenty of bars to start offering punch.