Burnout: the struggle is real, and I felt it acutely on the heels of organizing this year’s Spirit of Toronto, so much so that I surprised even myself by decamping to NYC days later for a visit with family.
It was a much needed respite after a grueling couple of months, and I happily walked New York’s endless city blocks, losing myself in its many parks, delis and landmarks: Central Park natch, Katz for pastrami and latkes (touristy, yes, but oh-so-good), the Tenement Museum, Union Square in the Lower East Side, Riverside Park on the Upper West Side, Barney Greengrass for bagels and smoked fish, Madison Square, Columbus Circle, The Plaza, Fifth Avenue, The Met and its spring fashion display (meh), the New York Public Library, and the American Museum of Natural History with its permanent hall showcasing the brilliance and talent of Canada’s West coast indigenous nations (and sadly eclipsing anything to be found in Canada proper.)
The impressive rotunda of the Guggenheim was closed for the installation of its latest exhibit; next time. And a shout-out to the Hungarian Pastry Shop: a deliciously authentic konditorei that doubles as a sanctuary for the faculty and students of Columbia University.
I was riding the bus up Madison Avenue when I spotted the Park Ave Liquor Shop at the corner of East 39th, a block south of its previous location when I had visited twenty years earlier. Despite being on hiatus from all things whisky, I got off at the next stop and, like a moth to a flame, doubled back to see what had happened since 2003.
In those days Park Ave Liquor was the OG for whisky lovers stateside, as it laid claim to a selection of 400 plus single malts, as well as regular single cask bottlings exclusive to the store. They maintained a rudimentary webshop, but also took orders by email; my earliest correspondence with proprietor Jonathan Goldstein dates back to the summer of 2001, when I was looking to arrange a delivery to my in-laws’ cottage upstate. My needs then, as now, were simple, as I inquired after a Balvenie 1970, an Ardbeg 1977 and whatever Port Ellens they had laying about. “The Ardbeg 1977 may not be coming to the States,” replied Jonathan. (Thankfully it did somehow land at the SAQ.)
It was also by email that I purchased Compass Box’s first ‘commission’, a heavily peated blend of Caol Ila and Ardmore bottled at cask strength. Labeled simply as Monster, it was in keeping with the vernacular of the early aughts, as ‘sherry monsters’ and ‘peat monsters’ displaced subtlety and nuance. The back label included an origin story, alongside the usual TED-talk by Compass Box impresario John Glaser:
These guys at Park Avenue Liquor Shop in New York, they love big whiskies. Specifically, they love whiskies that are big, smoky, rich, cask-strength monsters. So that's what I made for them. And that’s what we decided to call it: Compass Box ‘Monster’.
It’s big, it’s smoky (very), it’s rich (we picked some really good casks), and it’s cask-strength (beware). It’s a monster.
I made this monster by vatting casks of malt whiskies from different distilleries and from different ages. In Scotland, we call this a vatted malt. It’s a term for the old style of whisky making that dates to the first half of the 19th century. Given the number of malt whisky distilleries in Scotland, vatting malts enables the blender to create whisky styles that simply can’t be made in a single distillery!
Counting myself as one of Park Ave Liquor’s customers, I was excited to finally pay my respects in person while visiting New York in December 2003. Looking forward to some bonding with kindred souls, I brought along my latest copy of Single Minded, the wee journal I had been publishing for the past three years.
I was flying solo when I entered the shop’s compact, no-nonsense space, with a complex labyrinth of shelves and boxes that reached for the ceiling. It was the kind of old school, legacy store that New York does so well, and I was immediately smitten.
To my left was Park Ave Liquor’s famed ‘wall of whisky’, with pride of place reserved for Scotland’s grand cru malts: Macallan, Ardbeg, Laphroaig, Glenfarclas, among others. A narrow counter ran its length, acting as a moat, while at the far end Jonathan held court for menfolk of a similar pallor and hairline. The tribe had gathered around an open bottle of whisky for what was either an impromptu tasting session, or a feral pack contemplating a fresh kill; in truth, the difference was negligible. As the door slammed shut behind me all heads turned to size up the interloper who had entered their lair. Determining that I was neither friend nor foe, they promptly deleted me from their existence and returned to the task at hand.
Discouraged but not defeated, I meekly approached the one person who had acknowledged my presence, a shop clerk doing his best impersonation of Isaac from The Love Boat. “Hi,” I said, handing him my copy of Single Minded. “I write about single malt Scotch.” His eyes were riveted, confused, and bemused, all at once, but he humoured me by taking my journal, nodding politely, and leafing through the pages.
I may have felt like persona non grata, but my thirst for the craythur was strong, and I cheerfully wandered the cramped and rambling aisles of my Cave of Wonders, though given the lukewarm reception, it was a relatively short visit. That said, my pilgrimage may have been anticlimactic, but wasn’t for naught, I thought to myself, as I left with a single cask exclusive bottling of Auchentoshan 1966, a refill sherry hogshead at 48.1% abv. At a mere US$150 for a 37-year-old Lowland malt, it was a steal, even by the standards of the day. It was also my last purchase from this store.
Fast forward to 2024 and Park Ave Liquor is well-lit by a facade of windows on the SW corner of East 39th and Madison Avenue. By all measures this is a much friendlier, more inviting space boasting all the aesthetics of a modern retail emporium, its liquid wares neatly arranged by appellation and geography.
For those in need of assistance, someone is always close at hand, and I was quickly asked twice upon entering if I needed help in finding anything. I opted to browse aimlessly, as I am wont to do, but it wasn’t long before the ubiquity of Park Ave Liquor’s fresh new look bored me, and I pined for the cramped surrounds of its previous location, its jumble of boxes haphazardly stacked on the floor with a panorama of bottles that competed for space on tightly packed shelves.
Its famed ‘wall of whisky’ now counts well beyond 400 bottles, albeit with the empty patches you can reasonably expect for sections such as Campbeltown and Japan — twenty years on and there are no accidental finds to be had here, not a bottle out of place, certainly not any bin ends of a single cask of 37-year-old Lowland malt ripe for the picking. And of course I didn’t expect otherwise, though that didn’t stop my eyes from scanning the shelves with laser precision, left to right, top to bottom.
Hope may spring eternal, but established retailers such as Park Ave Liquor have a long list of insiders cherry picking new releases as they arrive. Between these regulars and a well-trafficked location in midtown Manhattan, this is no longer where you’ll casually pick up some Springbank or a Pappy Van Winkle at MSRP. That said, if your credit card can take the beating, choice cuts of meat still hang on the top shelves — accessible by ladder — and at prices similarly beyond reach; a common practice for stores who have grown tired of seeing new releases flipped at auction for five times their retail price.
This top shelf further underscored how a whisky like Compass Box’s ‘Monster’ was well and truly part of a bygone era — a time when a store exclusive really was handpicked for taste rather than margin. A time when you could actually walk into a landmark store like Park Ave Liquor and be rewarded for your efforts, maybe even geek out with a kindred soul. And a time when single malt whisky attracted a much more narrow — and homogeneous — demographic.
I appreciate someone trying to do their job, so when approached by a staffer for the third time, I engaged by asking if the store was still owned by the Goldsteins. My guy beamed proudly as he nodded, gesturing to Jonathan who stood five feet away from us at the checkout counter.
I had no newsletter or magazine to drop off this time around. Nor did I feel moved to introduce myself and present my bona fides in hopes of finally being acknowledged as a member of their tribe — I have never been accepted into any whisky sanctum, and have made my peace with that.
Instead I recalled something that my brother-in-law, a native New Yorker, likes to say: “My city is transactional.” It was my reminder that I had no business to transact here, so I snapped out of my reverie and exited the store, turning left as I headed west towards Bryant Park.