City Guide: Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn
Brought to You by The Pathfinder
Welcome to City Guides, featuring personal recommendations for my favorite neighborhood spots for drinking and eating around New York City and beyond. City Guides is a Friday paid-subscriber exclusive.
Today’s LAST CALL City Guide is free to all readers thanks to the generous support of The Pathfinder.
Since it made its debut at the Capitol Hill bar Life on Mars in Seattle in 2021, the botanical-driven, non-alcoholic elixir The Pathfinder has grown from an in-the-know local darling to a sought-after bottle found at some of the best bars and bottle shops around the country.
The base of The Pathfinder is made from fermented hempseed refined through copper pot distillation that’s blended with wormwood, angelica root, Douglas fir, juniper, ginger, orange peel, saffron, and sage. The result is an N/A botanical spirit with an amaro-like profile, rich with notes of root beer and sarsaparilla, cinnamon and clove, and the woodsy, forest-floor aromatics of juniper and pine.
Bartenders have been among those leading the charge in making The Pathfinder a favorite N/A option by employing it in countless concoctions, but also to modulate spirited cocktails to half-strength or lower, while still offering depth and complexity as a modifier like amaro or vermouth, layered into aromatic tropical drinks, or shaken up in a daiquiri.
When I'm trying a new amaro I adopt a presentation style I picked up from a bartender at SRV, a Venetian-inspired restaurant in Boston. On the after-dinner menu he offered a flight of the same amaro in a trio of small glasses where it was served neat, over ice, and shaken with a hit of expressed citrus. This method was a way for guests to experience firsthand how an herbal liqueur can be transformed through temperature and dilution.
I've since applied this same approach to the 50/50, the equal-parts combination of an amaro paired with a complementary spirit, amaro, or liqueur. While these are usually knocked back as a shot via bartenders' handshake, I always like my 50/50 served chilled in a rocks glass, sometimes over a big rock, so it feels more like a contemplative nightcap.
While considering a 50/50, I turned to the Pacific Northwest's rich history with coffee and paired The Pathfinder with a coffee liqueur, in this case the small-batch Brown, from Brooklyn's Forthave Spirits. The combo was a perfect match and had an added layer of symbolism for me as I lived in Seattle for years and now call Brooklyn home. First up was equal-parts The Pathfinder and Brown simply served neat at room temperature; then another small glass with an ice cube added for a bit of chill and added dilution; and finally shaken over ice and strained into a mini-coupe with a lemon twist. Tasting all of these side by side inspired me to consider even more like-minded spirits to pair up with The Pathfinder and continue my journey with the N/A botanical spirit for even more cocktail adventures.
And just how much is a shot exactly when you're making a 50/50? Bartender Damon Boelte once told me: “I don’t think a shot should be something you should choke on. Unless it’s an ounce I always two-step my shots. An ounce-and-a-half shot is just about right for everyone.”
City Guide: Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn
When I first moved to Brooklyn in May 2010 I lived in Clinton Hill, but I spent most of my time in Carroll Gardens, primarily because Prime Meats (now Franks Wine Bar) on the corner of Court and Luquer quickly became my favorite hangout. Eventually I moved to the neighborhood and lived there for eight years from 2012-2020 (while the lease said “Carroll Gardens” it was technically the Columbia Street Waterfront District).
Like many South Brooklyn neighborhoods the true borderlines of Carroll Gardens remain up for debate by locals, but for today’s City Guide I’m honoring the borders of Degraw Street to the north (some maps also include Warren Street), Hoyt and Smith on the west, the Gowanus Expressway to the south, and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (or the west side of the two-lane Hicks Street that runs alongside of it) as the western border.
Encompassing approximately 40 city blocks, Carroll Gardens and its centerpiece Carroll Park (one of Brooklyn’s oldest parks) were named in honor of Charles Carroll in 1853 for his patriotic service during the Revolutionary War. In a battle with heavy losses, the future Founding Father and only Roman Catholic signer of The Declaration of Independence, led his Maryland Regiment in a raid against the British to reclaim a key location along the Gowanus Creek during the Battle of Long Island (also called the Battle of Brooklyn). The Gardens part of the neighborhoods name was inspired by the historic mid-19th century brownstones that feature deep front yards, many decorated with extensive holiday displays (and plenty of statues of Catholic Saints)
Considered part of Red Hook until the mid-1960s, Carroll Gardens was home to many Italian immigrants (mostly from Sicily and southern Italy) coming to Brooklyn in the late 1800s and early 1900s taking work in the nearby Brooklyn Navy Yard and the Brooklyn Waterfront. The neighborhood remains approximately 20% Italian though it seems more and more of the shops run by and servicing the Italian American community are fading away.
The highly walkable Carroll Gardens neighborhood is serviced by the F and G subway lines with stops along Smith Street on Bergen Street, Carroll Street, and West 9th Street (the highest elevated station on the MTA line). The B57 bus runs south on Court Street and north on Smith, with the B61 bus cutting through lower Court Street on its way from Park Slope to Red Hook.
Carroll Gardens Fun Facts!
Home to The Green Lady of Brooklyn, whose sightings always seem especially magical.
Before he made his name in Chicago, the infamous mob boss Alphonse “Al” Gabriel Capone married Mary May Coughlin at the Roman Catholic church St. Mary Star of the Sea on Court Street, just a stone’s throw from Frankies Spuntino.
Cammareri Bros. Bakery on the corner of Henry and Sackett Streets (which closed that location in 1998 and is now the home of MozzLab) served as the setting for the 1987 picture Moonstruck, starring Cher and Nicolas Cage. The townhouse where Cher’s family lives in the movie was filmed on Cranberry Street in Brooklyn Heights, and the building that Amy Schumer now calls home.
Other pictures and programs filmed in Carroll Gardens include Goodfellas (Jimmy to Karen under the elevated subway tracks on Smith & 9th: “Nah, nah, right down there… right around the corner. It’s over there… it’s right there.”), The Irishman, , The Intern, The Departed, Brooklyn, Jack Goes Boating, Kill Your Darlings, The Object of My Affection, Godfather of Harlem, The Americans, Blacklist, Bored to Death, War of the Worlds (2005),
No one really knows the reason why most of the homes on the one-block long, narrow lane known as Dennett Place have miniature Hobbit-sized, street-level doors.
on “The Tiny Doors of Dennett Place.”
Drinking & Eating in Carroll Gardens
