These days, it often seems like you can’t go to a nice bar without getting handed a drink menu that takes fifteen minutes to read.

If we have one person to blame for the mixologist retro-cocktail craze and the rise of so many amazing speakeasy bars (Please Don’t Tell in NY, La Descarga in LA, and Callooh Callay in London being my current favorites), it’s Sasha Petraske.

In 2000, Petraske opened Milk & Honey, and gradually it evolved into a great speakeasy. Though there were mixologists like Dale DeGroff and others spreading the gospel of the cocktail prior to its opening (not to mention several tiki-bar-style cocktail craze revivals), this was the flash point for the current one.

Among Milk & Honey’s charms:

1. It had no sign or clearly marked entrance. It was hidden in a seemingly shuttered storefront in Chinatown.
2. To gain entrance, not only did you have to call ahead and make a reservation, but you had to call from a payphone on the corner once you’d arrived on the block.
3. The phone number for reservations changed every few months in an attempt to ensure only regulars came to the bar.
4. There were specific rules for conduct posted on the bar, including the admonishment that men may not speak to ladies they do not know:

5. If you were lucky, Sasha would randomly serve you a plate of apples and honey.
6. The menu was strictly limited to cocktails that would have been made during Prohibition. At the time, it was one of the only places in NY to get drinks mixed with egg whites and giant blocks of ice intended to melt less into the drink.
7. Petraske was always dressed the part of prohibition barkeep and deadly serious about the integrity of what he was doing.

With locations in both New York and London, today Milk & Honey has turned into a “mostly members” club, though they still allow the stray straggler who finds the phone number to enter. Petraske has moved from purist to monopolist, either consulting for or opening many other spots, including Little Branch (probably the easiest to get into) in New York and The Varnish (a tiny speakeasy in the back of the French dip restaurant Cole’s in Los Angeles). All recommended.