The ongoing fight over flaming beverages at downtown cocktail lounge Apothéke is going to trial. You'll recall that last year one of the bar's owners, Albert Trummer, was arrested (not once but twice) for his pyrotechnic tricks, specifically his tendency to light the bar on fire in the process of making absinthe drinks. Today Trummer turned down a deal that would have let him go without doing hard time. “I am going to fight this all the way,” Trummer said after court. more ›

The ongoing battle between co-owners at Apotheke is turning into quite the downtown soap opera. To recap: part owner Albert Trummer has been arrested for starting fires on the bar (part of the establishment's thing). Owner Heather Tierney is suing Trummer for the firestarting antics, even though she supposedly encouraged the behavior to bring people in to the bar originally. Now Grub Street reports that while Trummer was allegedly arrested again in October, his rep says that is false, and that it was Tierney and her brother that were arrested for attacking him. more ›

The drama at Apotheke continues! Word got out earlier this week that firestarting bartender Albert Trummer is being sued by his partner for not quelling his dangerous alcohol-pouring antics, and now Eater reports that it was that same partner, Heather Tierney, that used those same antics to get people into the bar when it first opened. more ›

Chinatown bar Apotheke was in the headlines earlier this year after owner Albert Trummer was busted for lighting his bar on fire—something he denied, despite there being plenty of video and photographic evidence that this is a normal occurrence at the establishment. Well, turns out Trummer is just co-owner, and now he's being sued by the other co-owner, Heather Tierney. more ›

Back in June the owner of Chinatown hot spot Apotheke was under scrutiny for doing what he does best: setting his bar on fire. Owner Albert Trummer and his staff pulled out all of their tricks when The Real Housewives of New York were filming there, and soon after he was arrested for his regular pyrotechnic performances. (When we visited the bar and interviewed him in 2008, he was even getting fire on the floor!) more ›

The Real Housewives of New York City ruin everything. On a recent episode of the show, one of the stars, Luann de Lesseps, is taken out on the town by author Coerte Felske—their destination: Chinatown hot spot Apotheke on Doyers Street. The staff pull out all the bells & whistles for the cameras, which at Apotheke translates to huge fireballs lit by the owner himself. more ›

...and plenty of other cocktail tricks! Probably because everyone needs a drink of some kind (even Akon, who apparently favors Shirley Temples at the 40/40 club), the New York bartending scene has weirdly and suddenly graduated from flaming orange zests to intense, Jacob the Jeweler-style beveling: Having collected a gaggle of recipes from the current shortlist of beer cocktails around town, industry-centered StarChefs comes through with two instructional videos. One is a full-on, almost pornlike 10 minutes and 27 seconds of cocktail shaking from Tailor's Eben Freeman and Albert Trummer of Apothéke; you can select each bartender's clip separately from a menu underneath the video. It's weirdly fascinating (in a Discovery Channel way) to see how cocktail shaking styles vary depending on who's behind the bar. The crown jewel of bartending tricks, however, can be found in another video entirely: In a matter of minutes, Takaaki Hashimoto of B Flat transforms a solid block of ice into some kind of immense ice cube, cocktail-cooling dodecahedron using nothing more than a sharp sushi knife. This one's bound to take some practice; we wonder if cocktail enthusiast Rachel Maddow will be giving it a shot. more ›

In September, the bar Apothéke opened in an unmarked space on Doyers Street, a tiny alley in Chinatown that sort of plays hangnail to Worth Street's cuticle. Apothéke is one of those semi-private venues, a bar you can't get into; that it's close to a secret tunnel makes it all the more baroque. You half expect to find a minotaur preening in the bathroom mirror with a bottle of Binaca and a comb. The name Apothéke refers to the pharmaceutical-themed nature of its mixed drink menu. The idea is that the place raises the bar for bars, and that head chef (or lead apothéker, as it were) Albert Trummer is half-and-half supertaster and chef, and one part sage. His specially concocted, spiced-tinctures-botanical-elixirs might cure your woes, homesick blues, lovelorn heart, or gnostic turpitude, if you're into that kind of thing. more ›