A New Season at Four Seasons
Cocktail Vet Toby Maloney Spins Out a $57 Martini, and Other Wonders
“Figuring out how to riff on a classic drink is to figure out how to make it not worse.”
So sayeth Toby Maloney, who knows a little something about riffing on classic cocktails. The veteran bartender and two-time James Beard Award winner has piloted the programs at such iconic cocktail bars as Milk & Honey, Pegu Club, Mother’s Ruin, Pouring Ribbons and his own The Violet Hour in Chicago.
Maloney is back in New York after having decamped in 2018 for stays in Philadelphia and Louisville. His new perch is the polar opposite of his previous downtown credits, while arguably being his most high profile to date. He is shaping the debut cocktail program at the Ty Bar inside the 52-story, I.M. Pei-designed Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan, which recently reopened after being closed for four years, a victim of the Covid-19 pandemic.
It is Maloney’s first new cocktail program at a New York bar in 12 years.
The new menu is an ode to various eras of Gotham drinking. Sections include “The Gilded Age,” “Supper Clubs” (the 1940s) “Swank and Swinging” (the 1950s and ‘60s) and “More Is More” (the 1980s). Each category boasts three cocktails representative of their time. For instance, the 1980s portion has drinks based on the Cosmopolitan, Sex on the Beach and the Long Island Ice Tea. Future chapters will draw inspiration from the 1920s and 1970s.
All of the cocktails are batched, a process that Maloney used to frown upon.
“I realized many years ago that if I had access to a time machine, I wouldn’t save the world,” he said. “I would just go back a day and cook stuff so I could eat it the day of. Because enchiladas, lasagna, all those things are better the day after.”
His point is that cocktails end up as a more integrated whole if the ingredients are allowed to meld together in the same bottle for a day or more. Moreover, a complicated cocktail made up of several components, if batched, can meet the time requirements of a demanding hotel-bar clientele.
“I keep all the mixology back there, so it’s not in your face,” said Maloney, referring to the kitchen, which is hidden from the bar crowd, “the idea being to add as much complexity to the drink as possible, but still make it really accessible and fast, because nobody wants to wait 25 minutes for a drink.”
Take the You Mean a Whiskey Negroni, Maloney’s cheeky name for a Boulevardier. “I wanted it to be easily pronounced and easily recognizable,” he explained. The drink features a vermouth blend and a bitters blend made of Campari, and small amounts of Aperol and Cynar, which he employs in the manner of dashing bitters. Made a la minute, it would take some time to put together. I got mine in under 30 seconds.
The only things Maloney doesn’t batch are the citrus elements of cocktails and, unusually, the bitters. Because, in his opinion, bitters “bloom” in a batched mixture.
“They change much faster than anything else, because they’re so concentrated,” he said.
That means when you order a Ty Manhattan—made of Widow Jane Rye, a bit of Highland Park 25-year-old Single Malt Scotch, Carpano Antica vermouth and a touch of oloroso sherry—the bitters will go in the drink last. That cocktail is served, unorthodoxly (at least in NYC), on the rocks. It’s a super-boozy take on the classic, one that Maloney thinks of as a liquid charcuterie board. There the nuttiness of the sherry, the honey notes in the Scotch and the cherry garnish.
“It’s what was at the top of my head” he said. The description is a good way of describing the unusual mental images that go through Maloney’s mind when he comes up with a cocktail.
Another example. Maloney gave up smoking during Covid. Asked if the elimination of tobacco from his diet changed his palate, he said, “Superman can’t actually fly.”
What?
“He was just on a planet with heavy gravity for a little while.” His meaning: the smoking held back his palate. Once he gave it up, he suddenly developed super-sensory abilities, the kind that forced him to sit down during a recent trip to Oregon, so overcome was he by the scent of the surrounding pines.
Regarding the name of the bar and the Manhattan, the Four Seasons is owned by H. Ty Warner, the reclusive billionaire who grew up in a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Oak Park, Illinois, and made his riches inventing Beanie Babies. In the interest of diversifying his holdings, Warner bought The Four Seasons in New York. Ty is his actual name. His father, Harold Warner, a jeweler and toy salesman, named his son after baseball great Ty Cobb. (I’m thinking there should be a Cooperstown cocktail on a future menu.)
Other cocktails on the menu include a 20th Century, served long with soda water and kegged, in order to fully carbonate the drink; an excellent Cosmopolitan twist made with house-made limoncello; and a New York, New York Sour, with the red wine integrated into the cocktail, rather than floated on top, allowing for a stencil of the Milton Glaser “I Love New York” logo on the cocktail’s surface.
“It’s visually arresting,” Mahoney said of his New York Sour, “but in a lot of ways it doesn’t make the best drink, because everything isn’t all together. I wanted the wine in every bit of the drink the same.”
While tasting through these attractions, Maloney brought out a surprise, a Martini not yet on the menu. It’s called the 57 Martini, and there’s a lot of cleverness therein. The Four Seasons is located at 57 East 57th Street. The cocktail costs $57. And its ingredients add up to 57: the gin Monkey 47, which goes for about $50 for a 375 ml bottle; and the vodka Belvedere 10, which is rested for 10 months, hence the name, and can fetch $150 for a 750 ml bottle.
It’s served out of the Belvedere decanter, a bizarre object that looks like a Cubist Rubirosa pepper grinder and could be used as a shillelagh in a pinch.
The 57 Martini is about ninety percent vodka and ten percent gin. The small portion of gin adds a surprising amount of complexity to the drink, as does a touch a fino sherry. The drink has no vermouth. Olives, dusted with gold leaf, are served on the side.
As with a Dukes Martini or a Zombie, only two are allowed per customer.
As that Martini strongly suggests, if you wish to experience the Ty Bar, you should come with a full wallet. This is the Four Seasons, and if you’ve ever been to any other Four Seasons bar—say the Chandelier Bar in New Orleans—you know the price of admission doesn’t come cheap. The Whiskey Negroni is $33; the 5th Avenue Cosmo is $34; the New York, New York Sour is $36; and the Ty Manhattan is $43. (The cheapest cocktail is $29.)
The drinks are fully matched in their luxe quality by the bar food, which includes bite-size versions of Beef Wellington, Lobster Newberg and Fois Gras. Of those, the lobster was my favorite.
If you wish to sample what Maloney can do with a cocktail list, you better hurry. Maloney’s contract with Four Seasons ends in March, though the menu he created will persist. After that, this cocktail Superman flies away.
Odds and Ends…
My latest “Bar Tab” column appeared in The Wall Street Journal last Saturday. The focus was the Jack Rose cocktail, and The Stockton Inn, an old hotel located in a centuries-old building in the small riverside New Jersey hamlet of Stockton. The inn was recently refurbished and reopened as a luxury hotel after several years of being dormant. Brian Miller (Pegu Club, Death & Co., The Polynesian), was put in charge of the beverage program at the facility’s two bars. Knowing his cocktail history, Miller featured the Jack Rose, a cocktail with deep roots in the state. I’ve been lucky enough to stop by the inn twice since it reopened and heartily recommend a visit. The cocktails are as good as any to be had in the nation’s larger markets… During a recent brief visit to Wisconsin, we managed to finally check out The Spot, a cinder-block drive-in in Kenosha that has been serving up hamburgers, fries, root beer and what not since 1945. It was a cold, snowy night, but the carhops were out braving the elements nonetheless. We ordered the burgers, of course, for that is what the joint is best known for—a double cheeseburger for Mary Kate, a single cheeseburger for me—but I also went against the grain and ordered a hot dog with chili, cheese and onions. The burgers came with onions, pickles, ketchup and mustard, and were excellent. Classic, drive-in style burgers. They took a while to get to us, meaning they were made to order from scratch. I found the hot dog just as good, topped with impressively flavorful chili and long, thin strips of onion. It wasn’t pretty—it looked like a bloody car wreck, actually—but it was delicious. I will have to order the chili on its own next time. The fries were hand cut, and the homemade tasty root beer came in a frosty glass mug .… Also, while in Wisconsin, we caught the current show at Milwaukee’s Renaissance Theaterworks, The Nether, a chilling dystopian vision of the dangers of AI by playwright Jennifer Haley. Though the play was written 12 years ago, it remains quite timely. It was expertly acted, under the direction of Elyse Edelman. My sister, Karin Kopischke, executed the striking, Victorian-age costumes. The production runs through Feb. 2… If you’re still lonesome for Christmas, visit the Magic Forest in the back yard of At Random in Milwaukee, where you can occupy a heated plastic igloo, surrounded by Christmas trees and holiday blow molds, through the end of January… The space occupied until recently by the celebrated Brooklyn Thai restaurant Ugly Baby will soon be taken over by three former employees of the eatery. The new restaurant, called Hungry Thirsty, will open by the end of January. The menu will be inspired by the cuisine of Southern Thailand and will feature a couple dishes adapted from the Ugly Baby menu… Mockingbird, a new NA cocktail bar, will open in Park Slope, Brooklyn, on Jan. 16, just in time for Dry January. It will be at 213 7th Ave (between 3rd and 4th Streets)… The iconic and enormous neon sign outside George’s Coney Island, the historic and beautiful hot dog palace in Worcester, MA, will undergo a refurbishing beginning Jan. 13. The project marks the most significant investment to the neon sign in over 25 years. The neon restoration will be led by renowned neon preservationist Dave Waller of Neon Williams in Somerville, Mass. Waller has experience with iconic and world-famous neon landmarks such as Boston’s Citgo sign. This is great news at a time when many classic New York City neon signs are being replaced by lackluster LED facsimiles. The restoration process will take months… Film Forum in Manhattan recently launched a very-timely retrospective of films that deal with the implications of rampant use of AI technology. Movies in the series include Bladerunner, Alien, Silent Running, Total Recall, Desk Set, Metropolis, The Stepford Wives, The Iron Giant, Short Circuit and 2001: A Space Odyssey. The series will run through Jan. 23.
I love this article! Go Toby!! Cannot wait to try the drinks there.
you had me so excited to pop in to this bar and then you listed the prices :(
(i'm glad you did, since they're not on the online menu. honestly might have walked out the bar if I had come in without knowing what I was in for!.)