Passing The Bar: The Narrows

In a neighborhood like this, people just know,” states Keith Cochran, summarizing his modest marketing strategy in between mixological feats and far-end-of-the-bar draft deliveries on a recent summer night. The setting and the topic are the same: new East Williamsburg imbibery The Narrows, a sleek new hangout co-run by Cochran and Matt Webber, the latter the owner of Bedford Avenue staple Soft Spot.

Then Cochran’s back to work, a cocktail shaker in rhythmic motion above the dark pocket square he’s neatly tucked into his pink dress shirt, full-length sleeves neatly rolled-up with arms in motion. And just like that: Que bonita! a blend of house-infused jalapeño tequila, freshly-made simple syrup, lime and cucumber, the drink is an unexpected mingling of seasonal flavors—and, despite just settling in at the metallic bar next to a black-shaded lamp, a night of drinking in my ever-hazier future—I’m ready to declare it a favorite.

Not that I expect much consensus among The Narrows’ five-option, menu-leading cocktail list. My drinking companion on this particular visit goes for the babushka, likely selecting it less for its lime and ginger accenting of a vodka soda as for its wallet-friendly $7 outlay. The boozy chum who first told me of the Morgan-L joint, though absent tonight, has reportedly progressed to ordering the normally eight buck Caulfield’s Dream (a slightly thicker synthesis including rye, lemon, mint and bitters) upgraded to a pint glass, his pleasure maximally indulged.

And who can blame him? With a mixed drink menu concocted by one of the bartenders at top-scale Williamsburg tipple mecca Hotel Delmano, any whim is justified, though few are expected to last past the season: The Narrows’ spacious back yard, for now, provides both excess seating and an herb garden with plantings that double as the mixologist’s muse. But the rear area patio patch is likely to turn over as the seasonal heat fades—and the seasonal specialty drinks replaced along with it.

We don’t make it outside this particular evening, instead opting for the low-lit art-deco core, surveying the action from the middle of the bar and asking nosy design questions. “Those doors,” says Cochran of the entrance, “are from an old ’30s-era planetarium. There’s an industrial warehouse in Scranton,” he says of their acquisition, “you can just sort through piles of shit yourself.”

Which is clearly what these Flushing avenue connoisseurs did with the rest of their alcohol selection, lest you think The Narrows only a place to get a lavishly built in-house beverage. My night burrows into high-alc depths as we progress. Cochran’s first suggestion was one of the eight coastspanning domestic taps ($6-$9): California’s green Flash Imperial IPA, a flavorful citrus sour quaff that leaves me feeling equal parts refreshed and ready for another.

Then I go international. I know the occasional Belgian well, and yet here I am offered something more novel. Orval, in a just-under-12-ounce bottle, is the Trappist outlier that has till now eluded me. It’s not Chimay, for sure, but the heady, earthy, shockingly carbonated lightness of it tells me just why it’s at the ready on a summer evening. I love it in that precise way one does when they have their expectations defied—though nine greenbacks plus tip stings a tad, and I do wonder if my tongue’s been dulled to the point where the six buck Sol and jalapeño tequila special is actually the kick I need.

My drinking buddy, facing a day that’s already technically started, soon settles up his tab and departs, and after looking over a wine list I can’t comprehend (reds and whites have never really been my thing, even if they, as the menu here asserts, taste of “apple and sea spray” or “deep cherry and a hint of chocolate”), I decide to do the same. Still, if Bushwick is truly fleshing out its bar scene, with the remainder of New York equally willing to expand its drink-seeking perimeter, I can just as easily return to The Narrows and widen my potables palate another day.

>> The Narrows 1037 Flushing Ave. (betw. Morgan & Wilson Aves.), Brooklyn, no phone.