today on eat!drink!snack! we have the return of natthelibrarian, who's previously profiled a few nyc businesses here on the blog in her "les foodtrepreneurs" column. this time around, she's got a TOTALLY EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with the ladies behind a BRAND NEW EATERY/DRINKERY!
i have some great news! there's an amazing new sweets and booze venture on the horizon and two of the most delicious ladies i know, allison kave and keavy blueher, are behind it. it's butter & scotch, soon to be the first craft cocktail and dessert bar in brooklyn!
both of these of these talented bakers have been profiled here for their individual businesses in the past. i've interviewed allison about first prize pies and keavy about kumquat cupcakery. i've also gone boozin' a time or two with these chicas, and they know their liquor as well as their sweets.
i recently sat down with them over some fancy cocktails on a blustery evening to discuss their new adventure and test one of their dessert prototypes (poor me).
natalie: hello again ladies. before we discuss your new gig, maybe you can say a few words about what each of you have been doing up to this point.
keavy: well, i have owned and operated my own mini cupcake business for the past five years. kumquat cupcakery. i do mainly catering for parties and weddings as well as selling them at the brooklyn flea and smorgasburg. it's ALL mini cupcakes.
allison: i have owned and operated first prize pies, which is a dessert pie company, for the last two and half years. i also do the smorgasburg on weekends as well as catering for weddings and parties.
n: so, tell me how you got together to combine forces to create butter & scotch.
a: we knew each other socially and have a lot of mutual friends through the brooklyn flea. i was even there the night that keavy met her husband, so we have been friends for a while. we hadn't talked too much about collaborating until this year. we both realized we wanted to have a brick and mortar space and one afternoon over some sangria we began brainstorming and throwing around ideas. we wound up with this idea combining two things we are both good at--baking & boozing--to create a craft cocktail and dessert bar. we both really liked the idea of the interplay between what ingredients are used behind the bar, as well as in the desserts.
n: lovely. would you like to talk about how you came up with the name?
k: well, i was in washington (state) a few months ago and i sort of presented this question to my family during a drunken lunch and we were throwing around names, but none of them really stuck and most were silly. the next morning we were sitting around having breakfast and someone mentioned scotch...and i started thinking about butterscotch. and then it just hit me. BUTTER & SCOTCH. and it equally touches on both the dessert and drink components. we didn't want to be all about the sweets or all about the booze. i came back and told allison, and at first i was just like, "this can just be a place holder until we think of something better…"
a: she told me the name and i was like, "are you insane?! that's it! it's not getting more perfect than that!"
n: and so i heard you went through the process of getting it trademarked?
a: well, we got it cleared. so we know that no one else has it trademarked. we are still in the process.
k: but we are an LLC.
n: so, how about a space? how is the search going?
k: we don't have a place nailed down yet. we have two areas we are focusing on, which are greenpoint and prospect heights/crown heights area.
n: i have been impressed by your embrace of social media at such an early stage in the process. you have a twitter handle, a facebook page, an instagram feed and a tumblr!
k: yeah! we just decided to do it all and set up accounts in everything and basically bomb it.
a: i feel like keavy is really good at maintaining these things. i always forget to snap photos while i'm baking or to update anything.
k: yeah, i've been forcing myself to just document everything.
n: speaking of social media, i saw the 'S'moPumpCan' on instagram today...and i see you brought it with you.
a: well, it's based on the cherpumple created by a guy named charles phoenix. it's a CHERry, PUMpkin and apPLE pie. the apple pie is baked in spice cake, the pumpkin in yellow and the cherry in white. we figured that we could do a far better version with my pies baked into keavy's cake, since mr. phoenix used store bought pies baked into boxed mix cakes. so, our version is made from my bourbon ginger pecan pie baked into keavy's maple cake, my pumpkin pie baked into a layer of keavy's spice cake, and then my s'mores pie baked into a layer of keavy's chocolate cake. we frosted it with vanilla frosting and drizzled it with caramel and bourbon pecans.
k: it's impossible to slice the whole thing, you sort of to have a slice of each layer. it also weighs about fifteen lbs.
natalie interlude: here is when i tried the magnificent S'moPumpCan. it was amazingly decadent, and each layer was really unique and delicious. i could only take a few bites because it was probably the richest dessert i've ever put in my mouth. i would definitely recommend it, but just share it with about four or five friends, and have a huge glass of milk on hand.
shawn interlude: i got to try it soon afterwards at keavy's bday celebration & it looked like this...
...with peanut butter frosting & i carried a slice of it throughout the streets of prospect heights & park slope & people looked at me in awe & it was ridiculously decadent. DECADENT I SAY. anyway, i definitely second natalie's "four or five friends" emotion.
n: do you guys have other desserts that you have tested and have made the cut?
k: we are still working on a lot of ideas. we have our corn sundae that won the kings county corn bowl with this year. (n - it was am-aze-ing).
a: we want to have a big lebowski themed milkshake...like white russian based.
k: we are concocting recipes for things that can go back and forth between the cocktails and desserts.
a: yeah, i've been bartending on the side for as long as i can remember, and i'm a pretty big nerd about it. i like making my own bitters and things like that. so, as much as we can make our ingredients from scratch, we will. we want to make our own liqueurs and syrups that can be used in both cocktails and the desserts.
k: we also want to have upscale JELL-O shots! we don't want to be just a serious cocktail bar. and we will have a $3 beer.
a: and we want have a lot of nostalgia based desserts. like shakes and sundaes, cotton candy, caramel corn, banana splits and things like that.
n: oh man, yum. well, that answers all my questions. where can we find you before you set down roots in a brick and mortar space?
a: we will be at the brooklyn flea when it moves back into one hanson place for the winter (nov. 24th).
k: yup, that's when we make our debut! follow us on any of our social media outlets and you'll be able to find us.
n: awesome. well, it was lovely talking to you, and you two know how to find me for more recipe testing.
natthelibrarian resides in brooklyn where she dreams about chickens (live ones), gardens, cheese, beer and libraries. she is employed as a research librarian in manhattan. for further nosing around, see her on twitter and at her blog.