The Perfect Cocktail - Part 2: Buck and Breck
It's early for cocktails. The sun hasn't set. Most are venturing home from work as I obsessively scan the street for the clues hiding the dessert of my day.
Berlin's Buck and Breck is, as many of my favorite bars are, hard to find. But I'm a sucker for the tensions and joys of hide and seek. The little light left in the sky helps me find the secret entrance. Buck and Breck's exterior masquerades as a joyless convenience store marred by graffiti. I buzz an innocuous little box and wait.
Long seconds pass.
Do you have a reservation? says a woman's crackling voice.
No, I don't, I respond. My gamble is fallible, but calculated. It's early, a weeknight, and I'm alone - a reliable ticket for the world's best.
More long seconds pass.
No problem, she says.
The door unlatches. The bet pays off. I smile and walk in. Beyond an innocuous door is the hall to my prize.
Inside - the real inside - is small, dark and warmly lit. It's cozy, modern, and elegantly essential. There's no screens. Never screens. No phones. No selfies. Small ornately framed paintings hang on a wall. It's is a tinge demented, in the way I like about Berlin. A gold painted chainsaw hangs behind the bar. Cartoon plush octopi live in glass containers. Speakers play tasteful blends of jazz and hip hop.
It's early for drinks, but perfect for The Perfect Cocktail. No crowds. No fuss. Buck and Breck is too inconvenient for the unserious. Nobody is here by accident. Everyone buzzes with calm satisfaction.
Just how I like it.
I belly to the bar. The bartender clears my spot, greets me professionally, and hands me the menu. I study it intensely. Cocktails are too expensive to get wrong.
I reveal my plan A. I always have a plan A. It's poor form to burden somebody, especially somebody busy, with indecision. But being early buys me a monopoly on the bartender's attention.
Unless you have a better idea…I open myself to his input.
What do you like? he asks reflexively.
It's the obvious question, but obvious questions lead to templated answers and boring conversations. That's not me.
I clear my throat.
Listen good sir. Do not mistake me for some ordinary peasant. I am an intergalactic flavor conquistador traversing the stars for the galaxies greatest concoctions. Sweep the cobwebs of your secret flavor portal. Let us defy the gods and trespass into the realm where chaos and perfection collide.
It's not what I technically said, but his amused smile signals his understanding. In this ephemeral moment of space and time a perfect union of host and guest forms.
Saying nothing, he nods and begins his behind-the-bar ballet. His workspace is simple, sleek, and tastefully unchaotic. Stresslessly he dresses a simple glass with freshly carved ice and meticulous pours from mysterious bottles. He stirs methodically, tastes, stirs more, and tastes until he approves.
He hands me the glass. It's unassuming yet elegant. The ice disappears in a bath of amber. I take a sip. It's sharp, surprising, strong, and - most importantly - balanced. Not too this. Not too that. Just right.
It's The Perfect Cocktail.
Where are you from? Being alone, foreign, and armed with frothy words makes me a oddity.
Texas.
He's uses the opening to ask what I imagine to be long held curiosities. I indulge him the subtle nuances of gun culture, college football, barbecue and politics. He indulges me in the subtle nuances of my drink and secretly slides me pours from mysterious shelf bottles.
Try this, he says again and again. Every sip guides me to new realms. He is the perfect host.
Having earned my trust I set the menu down and leave my next drink in his hands. As he mixes and pours more enter the bar. I lose my monopoly.
A spicy redhead with a fiery disposition sits next to me. Irish, her accent says. Locals greet her. She sparks a cigarette from a freshly torn package. My nose knows it isn't her evening’s first.
She doesn't hesitate to order her first drink. Never one to ignore knocking on interesting doors, I introduce myself.
Eeefah, she seems to say. I have her spell it out. Aoife. After a minute of banter it becomes obvious there is no reality where we don’t become fast friends. Hilariously, I learn Aoife is a traveling whiskey salesman. The bar I obsessed about finding is just another business meeting for her.
Luckily, it’s a fun business.
My second drink comes served up in the stemmed tulip bulb glass known as the Nick and Nora. Of all of the cocktails glasses it is the best. Delicate. Simple. Aesthetically perfect, and functionally ambitious. There's no room for frivolous non essentials. It must be perfect.
And it is.
Recognizing the inner flavor conquistadors within each other Aoife and I explore Buck and Breck’s menu together. This is the best way. More drinks come. Each is perfect in it's own way.
I'm going to my next cocktail bar on the other side of town. Come with, she delivers with more command than request.
I hesitate. It's late and I'm on the tail end of a long day. But I am a leaf in the winds of adventure and Aoife is a compelling gust. We taxi to her next business meeting.
Relighting her cigarettes and Irishness, I watch her take command of our new bar. We banter and make new friends. Drinks, wonderful drinks, come and obscure the evening’s details. It’s unclear if anything of commercial consequence was accomplished.
In another life our night would have ended in breakfast, but that was not to be. Instead the embers or our evening dim gracefully.
Tonight was exactly what I wanted. A Perfect Bar. A Perfect Bartender. A Perfect Friend. Many Perfect Cocktails.
A Perfect Night.