The Story Behind The Eastside
A cocktail that’s been likened to “renegade spa water,” the Eastside is a bright, shaken blend of gin, lime juice, simple syrup, muddled cucumber, and mint. Concerning its name, the cocktail is an east Manhattan-born riff on the Southside, and though both drinks bear disputed origins, the Eastside is a product of the early aughts, arriving nearly a century after the advent of its parent cocktail.
There are two competing stories — both equally feasible — regarding the genesis of the Eastside.
One belief is that George Delgado created the drink in 2004 at the now-shuttered bar Libation in NYC’s Lower East Side. Allegedly, his version was a long drink, but after bartender Chad Solomon brought the drink’s concept to the late Sasha Petraske’s bar Milk & Honey, the staff there began serving it up, without ice or soda water. Boom: The Eastside was born.
Oddly enough, the second version of the story involves a similar cast of characters. In Sasha Petraske’s posthumously published 2016 book, “Regarding Cocktails,” bartender Christy Pope writes that the cocktail was actually invented by Solomon himself. “Chad had a drink called the Eastside Fizz made with sugar, mint, lime, soda, and Hendrick’s Gin,” she writes. “We took the idea of his drink and molded it the Milk & Honey way, using tequila as the base,” thus creating the Tequila Eastside.
However, fellow Milk & Honey alum Richie Boccato tells VinePair that the gin-based iteration was “how we always made it at Milk & Honey back in the day.” He also tells us that he was always under the impression that the Eastside recipe was adapted from a long drink by Delgado, but went on to say, “I would take Christy’s word as gospel when it comes to these things. She was most definitely there at Milk & Honey in the seminal days when many of the things that still matter today first happened.”
Whether it was indeed Solomon or Delgado, one thing’s for certain: The Eastside was enough of a hit that it circulated around the cocktail bar circuit in the early aughts. In most cases, Hendrick’s Gin was the base spirit of choice. The spirit debuted in 1999, and given the inclusion of rose and cucumber in its botanical bill, the gin’s profile makes a perfect companion to the bright, herbaceous components at work in the Eastside’s spec.
