With Four Loko's danger past us, the NYPD is back to worrying about Nutcrackers. Last year the 34th Precinct in upper Manhattan declared war on the guys who peddle Nutcracker—a sweet homemade cocktail illegally sold to legal and underage drinkers—and this year they are planning on redoubling their efforts. "We want to get this off the street, especially when they are selling this garbage to little kids," Captain Jose Navarro of the 34th Precinct told DNAinfo. more ›

This recession is getting more ridiculous than we thought. Wooed by the trends of financial crises past, the nation's youths are looking to the 20s and 30s for lifestyle inspiration. And as if the raccoon hats and speakeasies weren't enough, the latest trend brings speakeasies right into the convenience of your own kitchen. According to BBC News, the kids are making moonshine. more ›

Remember "nutcracker" — the bootleg concoction of booze and fruit juice sold in barbershops and bodegas uptown? Did you know you can make $20,000 a year selling it? A man who has mixed and distributed the sugary street cocktail for the past six years sat down with the Manhattan Times and described the trade. more ›

Brooklyn's atavistic artisanal food fetish has reached its nadir or its zenith, depending on whether you want high-proof alcohol distilled in an old radiator from some bearded dude's Chevy Nova. At least, that's one way of making Moonshine. But David Haskell (an editor at New York) and Colin Spoelman (a Kentucky native) seem classier than that. They've applied for a license from the SLA to start producing their own "locavore liquor" in East Williamsburg, and Spoelman tells Grub Street he plans to make 80-proof, unaged corn whiskey that "will be more refined than anything in a jug or a mason jar." But will it still make us want to go down to the dump and shoot some rats? more ›

If you're a chili fanatic, this is definitely a weekend to stay in town. There are at least two chili cookoffs planned that we know about, both in Brooklyn and both going down in bars, where the beer will flow freely (well, not literally freely) to extinguish any raging fires in your scorched mouth-hole. Up first on Saturday, there's the 2nd Annual Debate Society Chili Cookoff at Moonshine in Red Hook, where $10 gets you unlimited chili from all contestants. Or bring your own chili to compete and eat for free. Email stinky cheese-eating champion Oliver Butler (oliver AT thedebatesociety DOT org) for details, or just show up Saturday at 2 p.m. with $10 and an appetite. more ›

Just a few feet off of the BQE’s Hamilton Avenue exit and next to the Battery Tunnel toll plaza is an assortment of auto wreckers and chain link fences. On Columbia Street between Ralpelye and Summit Street are a couple of neighborhood institutions like the venerable Moonshine bar, whose floor is paved with discarded peanut shells. In the last few weeks, (and somewhat stealthily), a new tapas bar and grocer called Reds Produce has also opened on the same stretch. more ›

As health-code inspections in bars and restaurants continue apace in the wake of The Great Rat Rodeo of Aught Seven, strange, unheard of violations are coming to light: a bartender at Red Hook’s Moonshine bar was recently cited for “having bare-hand contact with one slice of ready-to-eat lime while placing on top of beer bottle for patron in bar.” In other words, every time you see your bartender poke a wedge of lime into your... more ›