take cocktails at Bua

Before hitting East Village Cheese and Trader Joe's Wine Shop, to finish my shopping for the week, a few Sunday afternoon cocktails were the word. We settled into Bua, in the East Village. Red exposed brick, old oak tables and concrete floors fuse the old structure of the building to the modern updates.



Shecky's notes Bua as a late night make-out spot (not surprisingly as Jeff Buckley used to strum his guitar and sing every Monday night), but the afternoon crew was compromised of mostly bros with logo tees sloshing Miller High Life bottles back. For my first round, I sipped the Habanero margarita, which the lanky and boyishly good-looking bartender sampled, "More spicy than usual. These get sent back a lot. Do you like spicy?"

"I ordered a Habanero margarita, I should think so. Where are you from?"

"Australia."

"I might be asking for a glass of milk, but let me get in there."

He placed the cocktail down with a grin somewhere between devilish and precarious and I took it in. Gorgeous. The peppers do hit you in the back of the throat a bit, but a wonderful cocktail. I sipped it a little too fast, to which he picked it up to inspect, "Is there a hole in this glass?"

I transitioned with the pickle martini. He noted that this was also spicy and began to thoughtfully craft the cocktail. Garnished with pickles, I pushed, "Would it be sacrilegious to ask for an olive too?"

"It would, but..." he stabbed three massive Spanish olives on a toothpick and placed them on my glass. "You're not tainting the pureness of the drink?" "It's OK. There's olive juice in there as well."

I could have been eating a pickle. It really is that good. As I attempted to pace myself, I heard a bang behind me. A vagabond in a rose print dress began slamming a tin box on the corner of the open air bar to drum. I lost my composure and held my chuckles into my hands, to which the Aussie snickered and began to shoo her away. Well done. Let's do this again.