In 1806, a Hudson newspaper published the first-ever definition of the word “cocktail” in reference to an alcoholic drink. One writer honors the local legacy of the invention by consuming several of them in rapid succession.

by Ben Rendich
illustrations by Robyn Hager

It’s a friendly, resigning September evening as I land outside the Half Moon. Hot sun is matched by still air, and the calls of crickets mingle with the mild conversation of alighting train passengers. I smile and step inside.

Merry jazz coaxes me into a wide open room bathed in sunlight. Pizza steams on oven stones while beers beckon from the bar. No pizza or beer for me, though. Tonight, I’m on a mission: tonight, I’m drinking cocktails.

I plant myself at the bar and ask about the Half Moon’s offerings. The bartender — a tall, elegant woman of fifty, with dabs of glittery blue eyeshadow and Anne of Green Gables pigtails — demurs.

“This is more of a dive bar,” she confesses. “I can try to make you something simple.” Gamely, I order my go-to: gin martini, with a twist. As Anne of Green Gables prepares it, a man with a bulging backpack, fresh from Amtrak, storms through the door. Breathlessly, he orders a beer.

“What kind of beer?” Anne asks, taken aback.
“Any beer. A bottle of beer.”

Anne finishes my drink and pulls out a Miller Lite. Returning, however, she’s startled to find that not only is the man gone, but someone else is in his place: an old skunk in shades, demanding a cosmo. When Anne hesitates, he settles for a rosé and stands waiting, stern as a guard dog, cash in hand.

Meanwhile, I gaze into my martini. Flecks of ice float around a waxy lemon peel, and the pool of booze is clear as water, catching the sun. I am drinking cocktails tonight because the first printed mention of the word “cocktail,” in reference to an alcoholic drink, was in a Hudson newspaper in 1806: a “stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters…it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head.” Boldly, I try a taste of the Half Moon’s offering. It is divine.

The skunk turns away with his rosé and the frenzied man returns, scarfing down a slice of pizza. He hugs his backpack, chugs the Miller that was left for him, and asks if there’s a gas station nearby whereupon he can procure more beers. Anne directs him to the convenience store up the street.

“No prah-blum,” he belches, pointing. “Up this way?”

At the pizzeria end of Half Moon, benevolent fathers chat and watch over their children. To my side, a young couple nurses a sour and a dirty martini. Nearby, a Culkinish man in a blazer cuddles his Bloody Mary.

Outside, I stride up Front Street. To my left by the Terrace Apartments, a woman in a blue dress clutches a Pekingese mutt, glaring at me imperiously. To my right, the Farmer & Sons happy hour is in full swing. As I round onto Warren Street, sunset crests the roofs. I hurry past restaurants that emit perfumed air. Touristing retirees peer into unlighted art galleries.

Skirting along Third Street, I make an abrupt right and hoist the heavy door that seals The Maker Lounge. Entering this place — with its dark, vaulted ceiling and vague Euro dance music — I feel as though I’m being led into a slumber.

Three bartenders are working a mahogany counter. One of them — a handsome former actor who, as I gather from my eavesdropping, played Iago in high school — offers me a coy smile and a menu before smoothing his shirt and turning toward someone else just settled at the bar.

“What’re you thinking?” The man — sixty-ish and unprepossessing — grins at him, wide-eyed. “I’m thinking of how beautiful this bar is…!”

For my part, I order The Stag — a thirty-dollar potion that includes Hillrock single malt and Hudson bourbon. “Seductive woods,” reads the description, “that smell like confidence.”

My eyes adjust to the dark room — the refurbished carriage shed that it is. Beside me, a middle-aged man and woman, celebrating their anniversary, chug foamy cocktails like Charlton Heston just in from the desert. There’s the flirtatious creature who’s now asking Iago about his tattoos.

“I got this one in Thailand,” he says, pointing to his arm. “I went to a whole monk ceremony. It was cool.” Three women with misshapen bobs perch on stools and take pictures with their iPhones.

An hour slips by like it’s nothing, and, as I get up to leave, Iago shakes my hand before returning to his audience.

“Have you been to Oaxaca?”
“Yeah! Zipolite was great…!”

I scuttle onto the street and observe that the sky has mellowed into a faint mauve. Outside Hudson Hall, a derelict man puffs on a blunt, sways to ecstatic visions from a pair of VR glasses. A few yards on, at the crosswalk, a couple is taking engagement photos. The fiancée, smiling bravely, keeps tripping over her silk caftan.

Slipping past them, I lurch into the quiet, open expanse of Back Bar. Here the crickets return and shepherd my progress, along with Cardi B blasting from the speakers. Out back, the drawl of a baseball game announcer wafts from the TV. Blue folding chairs patiently await their occupants.

At the bar, I request a classic margarita and egg fried rice. The young man who takes my order blushes, smiles with kindness, and shuffles over to a chair. The spire of the First Presbyterian Church interjects a brick wall, encroached by ivy.

When my food arrives I immediately pack it away. I barely touch my margarita. I’m a lightweight, of course, and I am becoming self-conscious.

Amber light beams down from a telephone pole in the adjoining alley as I make myself finish the drink. Out on Warren, I hurry towards Padrona. The church looms overhead as the sky descends into a diffused, royal blue.

At Padrona, I’m greeted by the Clash and folks with furrowed brows hunching underneath light fixtures. Crimson red leis wilt from the bulbs.

The bartender — a young woman in a black crop top — wordlessly hands me a menu. Looking over its extensive options, I order The OG: essentially a slushy for grownups: Mezcal, aperol, and Thai chilis. It is served in a low, declaratively unpretentious rocks glass; a slice of cucumber hovers at its center. At this point, I have imbibed four different types of alcohol, plus countless garnishes, bitters, and mixers.

Sipping at this sweet treat, I crane my neck toward the ceiling. A neglected disco ball lingers, and Barbie dolls splay with ritualistic abandon around a framed print of a woman reclining in a wine glass. The vibe is cool, muffled, like the Queen song that just came on. Those at the bar who, like me, aren’t partnered, burrow into their phones. A woman of thirty leans, plaintively, into her husband’s shoulder. He stares off into space, stroking his bicep and Apple Watch.

I lock eyes with a solitary, forlorn woman. She gazes at me with a wistfulness, or is it pain? In my glass, the slice of cucumber watches my slurps like a judgmental chaperone. A ghoulish Freddie Mercury whines over the sound system: “Slow down…!”

On Columbia, passing by the vacant Club Helsinki, I breathe deep. The air is fresh. It smells like back-to-school. The crickets continue their symphony as the First Presbyterian Church chimes nine times.
I stumble toward the Pocketbook Hotel like a stuttering silent film, my determinations set on cocktail number five in their opulent bar. But arriving at the renovated textile mill — a place once filled with the Victorian proletariat, now with Daisy Buchanans and aspirant yachtsmen — I am met with a familiar Hudson sight:

CLOSED FOR A PRIVATE EVENT

Faintly relieved, I race back down the steps, sloshing with booze and emotional recalcitrance. From the sidewalk I hear a clattering of kitchenware. In the second-story windows cooks and busboys are at work, laboring behind the scenes to facilitate that lithe, heterogenous gathering to which I am not invited.

Turns out The Hereafter, my fifth and final bar of the night, is a popular place. Refined in its rusticity, it betrays the same weary, friendly resignation as this September night. The flickering candlelight casts everyone in a stern and sorrowful glow, even amidst the revelry.
The bartender looks like a young Tom Waits, and he sets me up with an espresso martini. Around me, the population at the bar smells of unwashed hair. Over the airwaves, Diana Ross insists, over and over, that she doesn’t want no cure.

Beside me, a man is talking about Majorca, but the woman to whom he’s speaking isn’t as familiar with European enclaves. When he names the island, her eyes glaze over — or maybe it’s the Vesper that dawdles in her hand. She excuses herself, retreating to the bathroom; he takes another swig of von Trapp.
I like to think that I won’t regret any of the things I’ve said or done tonight; that these places — which are the same, some of them, as the day I first came to Hudson — will have me back. I will return to drink, albeit with moderation, without a mission. Because I am not the man I was when I started out. Like they say, the person who orders their first drink is not the same person who orders their second.