POP STUFF: FIVE O'CLOCK SOMEWHERE

'Let me conjure a cocktail tour of Manhattan, one that those wordsmiths who were partial to the bottle might like to take'

- Soleil Nathwani

On a recent Sunday night, I walked down a short flight of steps on Grove Street in Manhattan’s West Village and through a door marked with a compass, as if to indicate I was in the right place. Inside, a hostess with a bright smile and kind eyes (that urban rarity) asked me a wait just a couple minutes till a seat cleared. I remembered the drill – just as many people as there were seats, my kind of bar. A few minutes later, I was seated on a tall chair in the center of a long wood counter, so cozy I could wrap my arms around it, looking up at a plump angel with the tiniest devil’s horns peeking out from his sleek black mop. He was wearing a blue velveteen robe, his eyes cast down towards the almost cloudless sky, towards ringleted cherubs, towards the bar from which he was likely inhaling the angel’s share. Angel’s Share (the bar’s namesake) refers to the alcohol lost to evaporation when a spirit is poured into oak barrels, an undefinable sliver – just enough to get a cherub high.