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Pegu Club

Tue., January 8, 2008

At the Pegu Club, conceived and operated by some of the same folks behind my favored Flatiron Lounge, music from the ’20s floats in the background. Comfy sofas and chairs with wraparound backs line the windows, which afford views of Houston Street and are overlaid with wooden lattice panels that resemble floor plans of symmetrical labyrinths. Black, lacquered-wood high chairs are angled at precise 45-degree angles to the bar, the top of which is a grained blonde wood with thick, randomly undulating edges all buffed to a sheen.

As I sat there, I perused the weighty, leatherbound drink menu. It lists a dozen seasonal drinks, contains a lot of gin-based concoctions and features wines by the glass and specialty champagne beverages. Regarding the bubbly, a Winston Churchill quote crisply notes, “In defeat I need it, in Victory I deserve it.”

I was happy and sad to see Tom & Jerrys on the seasonal specialty menu: happy because I’ve wanted to try one since reading the drink’s storied history in David Wondrich’s well-researched history of key American bartenders and cocktails, Imbibe! And sad because I wasn’t in the mood to drink one. Something about the raw eggs, I think. (Ironically, when I wanted one, late last month, I tried ordering it from a bar actually named Tom & Jerry’s, but they serve the drink only one day a year, during their Christmas party.)

I ordered a small plate of truffle-steamed portobello mushroom dumplings from the Asian-inspired menu of 10 snack-style items, half of which are seafood-based. And for my first drink, I knocked back a Whiskey Smash, made with rye, muddled lemons and mint, and simple syrup. It had a lactic aftertaste but I got more into it after a few sips.

Although I’m no big fan of gin1, I also enjoyed the club’s powerful signature drink, the bracing, melon-colored Pegu Club Cocktail, made according to an early 20th-century recipe that calls for London dry gin, two types of bitters (Angostura and orange), orange curaçao and fresh lime juice, shook with vigor until ice-cold then strained into a squat and frosty cocktail glass. In perparing the drink, the bartender had locked the lid to the shaker so tightly that when he separated them, they came apart with a loud snap. Presentation is everything: the lime-wedge garnish was lanced with a fettuccine-width spear of bamboo tied at the end into an artful knot. A real kick in the head.

In short: spending any more than an hour at Pegu, I could burn through the contents of my wallet.

Pegu Club

1 And yet, here is a digression: according to the delightful Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, billed as “A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence,” slang for “gin” in early nineteenth century Europe included the following words and phrases (which I’ve mentioned before). We need to revive these into casual conversation, post haste!

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