A laboratory of elixirs opens in Industry City

By Hannah Berman

Up on the second floor of Building 6 in Industry City, a grouping of small distilleries spills out onto a central corridor. Most are bright and inviting, with live music and the bustle of laughter; only one business has opted instead for a dark, almost hidden entryway, lit by an quasi-religious glow.

Bitter Monk, a newcomer to Industry City that opened in March, is the alchemistic little brother of Sugar Monk, a serious, artful cocktail bar way uptown in Harlem. The newer Monk is both a cocktail bar and a tasting room for its connected micro-distillery, Atheras Spirits.

Elixirs on offer at Bitter Monk include liqueurs made from fig leaf and yuzu (Photo by Hannah Berman)

The original Monk location opened nine months before government lockdowns, then was shuttered for a period of three months. Over that period of inactivity, co-founders Ektoras Binikos and Simon Jutras wanted to start experimenting with making spirits using foraged ingredients.

“I decided to keep three bartenders, and we turned the bar into a sort of a laboratory,” Binikos says. “It’s something I wanted to do anyway for a long time: I wanted to create a line of products. We started developing some ideas, some recipes for my herbal elixirs and bitters.”

Their original goal was just to supply Sugar Monk with new specialty drink ingredients, but soon, they realized production was limited by working out of the tiny basement below the bar.

So they decided to open a mini-distillery where they could create larger batches was born.

An ecclesiastic feeling
Once the partners found a space in Industry City, Jutras designed the room. The warm glow that greets you as you enter the space comes from a north-facing stained glass window inlaid with the mark of the philosopher’s stone.

“We play with the idea of monks and the long history of distillation,” Binikos explains. “[Jutras] decided to look at creating a space that has this kind of ecclesiastic feeling — he built this beautiful stained glass, installed on the windows, and it looks like you’re in a temple.”

The partners then decided to apply for a farm distiller license, which comes with a set of what Binikos calls “great incentives but also limitations.” To uphold the terms, 75 percent of the ingredients that they use in production must come from New York State.

This restriction meant that a lot of the drinks on their original menu couldn’t be served.

“We had to simulate a lot of flavors and spirits that we use at Sugar Monk,” Binikos says.

In the process of ingredient simulation, Binikos and Jutras have created several innovative new spirits, which they call elixirs. Once the months-long maceration process is done, Atheras Spirits will offer a range of elixirs, featuring familiar flavors like orange and cardamom bitters along with more eclectic ones like lemongrass and génépy.

They’ve also developed a refreshing new 15-ingredient amaro that they’re calling Amaro Palatine, which will retail at $60 for a 750 milliliter bottle.

At both Monk locations, cocktail recipes fold in custom elixirs and take their inspiration from art. Binikos and Jutras are both artists by training; Binikos worked in film direction, and Jutras worked in photography and as an actor.

“For me, making a cocktail is really the same process as making a work of art,” Binikos says. “I call it my liquid art.”

Bitter Monk has developed its own amaro called Amaro Palatine (Photo by Hannah Berman)

The devils in the details
Every drink at Bitter Monk is named in reference to an artist or work of art. The Atheras Kelly ($20) is a surprisingly delicate charcoal-black drink, designed for the opening of the new Sean Kelly Gallery in Hudson Yards; the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea ($20) is an aquavit-based drink with custom patchouli bitters graced with an engraved ice cube, named after the American standard first performed by Cab Calloway and later re-popularized by George Harrison.

The Marie Laveau is named for the Louisiana folk hero, a Creole practitioner of Voodoo, herbalist and midwife, and is itself worth the trip to Bitter Monk. At $21, the cocktail is a Manhattan-like bourbon concoction with wild mint, housemade Palatine amaro, green and black cardamom, fig leaf and patchouli served under a glass dome that billows forth applewood smoke when lifted.

A menu of small bites — chicken empanadas, hummus, dumplings — provide a little something to nosh on between sips.

The first new batch of Atheras Spirits will be ready to take home in a couple of months. Until then, customers will have to be content getting their elixir fix at Bitter Monk, either requesting a tasting or sipping cocktails under the sanctified light of stained glass.

Bitter Monk is located on the second floor of 68 34th Street, Building 6, and is open Thursday through Friday 3 to 10 p.m., Saturday 2 to 10 p.m., and Sunday 1 to 9 p.m.