Even today, to-go cocktails still make up 11 percent of his revenue. “We sold very few individual cocktails to go, but large, batched cocktails got us through the pandemic,” he explains. With customers like me no longer able to belly-up to the bar and drink $15 snifters of esoteric single malt, Vacheresse had pivoted to selling to-go cocktails by March 17, 2020. Like Vacheresse’s Travel Bar, my favorite place to sip whiskey in Brooklyn. These new pandemic to-go rules weren’t just extremely popular with drinkers across the five boroughs, they were a lifeline for many businesses over the past 15 months. Governor Andrew Cuomo's announcement ending the State of Emergency that began last March made New York one of only 13 states to end such orders and 'return to normal.'
I had just broken the news to him on Wednesday afternoon that the New York State Liquor Authority (SLA) had abruptly-and with a tweet, no less-axed pandemic rules that had allowed bars and restaurants to offer to-go cocktails and other alcoholic beverages. “I’m fucked,” Mike Vacheresse wrote to me.
