Keeping Death and Company an interview with David Kaplan and Alex Day of Death and Co. New York

David Kaplan (left) and Alex Day

Keeping Death and Company

AUSTRALIAN VENUE CO (AVC), ALONG WITH AVIATION GIN AND VANGUARD HOSTED ALEX DAY AND DAVID KAPLAN, THE SMART AND SAVVY DUO BEHIND NEW YORK DEATH & CO, ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BARS TO EMERGE FROM THE COCKTAIL BOOM IN AMERICA. THE TWO SHOWCASED THEIR COCKTAIL PROWESS AT THREE EVENTS AT AVC VENUES - WOLF LANE IN PERTH, THE WINERY IN SYDNEY AND TRINKET IN MELBOURNE’S FLINDERS LANE. YOUNG AND HUNGRY, THEY WENT FROM FRESH OUT OF COLLEGE TO KICKING IT IN THE HIGHLY COMPETITIVE AMERICAN BAR SCENE. WE GOT THE GRIT ON THEIR SKYROCKETING SUCCESS.

Tell us a bit about your backgrounds and where you came from?

David: Looking back, it seemed a clear trajectory. My mum always wanted to be an artist, and my dad always wanted to be a chef. He was a businessman and mum was a pharmacist. I went to school for Fine Art, and I’ve only worked in hospitality. Everyone in my family is a fantastic host. They can throw together a party or a dinner at the drop of a hat. I grew up loving that. I’d rather be putting the party together than attending it. Alex: Yeah you are really bad at attending.

David: I went to school for Fine Art in Upstate New York, and I knew I didn’t want to be a working artist. I was doing large installations and gallery art. A lot of my stuff was based on how people act and participate in the art within a room that made sense for what we do now. I knew I wanted to do something where I had a little more control over the success of my career. I moved to Las Vegas straight after college and got a job in a big hospitality group there called The Nine Group. Then I knew I wanted to open bars. I read a tonne. Every book I could get my hands on; Opening a Bar for Dummies, how to write your first business plan, everything about cocktails and spirits. Then I moved to New York where I met my business partner Robbie and a year after we started Death and Co. That was the year I turned 24. It’s just been this wild thing.

Alex: I moved to New York for Oregon. I went to NYU and was studying European Studies; a very useful Major. I wanted to

be a diplomat or go into academia, but I was working in bars. My first job ever was cooking in the kitchen. I fell in love with it. The smile on people’s faces as they enjoy their night was intoxicating for me. It was about fifteen years ago in New York when things started to change. There were a couple of bars doing meticulous cocktails and putting a lot of care and professionalism into it; and then there was a second wave, and that was Death and Co. I came in and sat down at the bar. I have told this story so many times that is seems like I made it up but it truly changed my life. Death and Co’s philosophy was the quality of the product and the experience, but there was a livelihood to the bar that spoke to the community. It was a place that was sophisticated, and I was determined to get a job there.

David: Alex and I had a very similar upbringing growing up in these mountain towns. I grew up in Jackson Hole. We became fast friends. He got a job because he absolutely blew us away. Everyone at the bar knew who he was because he was incredibly bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and wildly passionate so clearly he was in the industry. I went to the bar that Alex was managing with our bar manager, Phil Ward, who was one of the most influential most recognised bartenders at the time. Phil opened Pegu, was head bartender at Flat Iron; he was a creative, brilliant, bizarre man. He didn’t want the responsibility or recognition. He is still quietly humming away in bars today. We went and had a tasting with Alex. Phil opened the menu that Alex put together and closed the menu. I said, you don’t even want to try a drink? After we left he said, anyone who can put a menu together like that we should probably hire.

Alex: I was terrified mind you.

David: That was that. We hired him, and a couple of years later Alex and I put together Proprietors LLC and established a full fiftyfifty partnership. Alex: It was pretty quick.

Talk us through the partnership?

David - I had the realisation that I wanted to get better at this thing that I loved doing. My real experience was opening Death and Co, which was a fantastic edifying incubator, but I felt there was only so much we could do and learn there. But if we started consulting to other people, then we could do a lot of it on their dime. So I thought this was a smart way to get better at this thing that we loved, get paid and selfishly apply those learnings to our operations as we grew. It has become a much larger thing that we envisioned in the early days. So as the ink was drying on my LLC papers and the formation of that company I got a call from someone in Philadelphia who said Death and Co. was thier favourite bar. They said, we want to do something exactly like it in Philadelphia. I said, well I have a consulting company, and we do just that!

How many consulting projects do you work on?

David: We probably do about 20 to 25 consulting projects a year. We now have five full-time employees and a national team of eleven. We also have three Death and Co’s now - New York, Denver and LA, which we opened five weeks ago.

So why does everyone want you? What is your secret?

David: People are attracted to Death and Co. because we are a true representation of the individuals within it. They are creative; they have drive and ambition. One of my known dirty little secrets is that I have never been a bartender. Because of that, it was a very much an egalitarian process of ‘we are building this thing together’. As such, there has always been this ‘band of brothers’ thing

People are attracted to Death and Co. because we are a true representation of the individuals within it.

We think of our job as creating the fertile ground for that kind of creativity. We want to forge our path through our collectiveness.

where we all push each other further. That happens with the service, with the culinary, with our brand of hospitality and with the cocktails.

Alex: In addition to the exciting collaborative process, we have over 1000 original cocktails on the list at Death and Co, and they are all meticulously workshopped. They are thoughtful constructions, and that exists because we have this focused collaborative process that works for us.

Tell us about the vibe and the ambience and the name?

Alex: It’s incredibly dark.

David: It looks like it has been there forever. We have this beautiful façade that is unassuming and incredibly recognisable. The interior is small and yes, incredibly dark.

What is the capacity?

David: We say 55 seats, seated only. We try and shove everyone in. There is no standing because of the pathway around the bar.

Are you following cocktail trends or creating your own?

David: It’s less about trends and more about personal interest. We had one bartender, Brian Miller, who was mad about Tiki, a rum nut. He now co-owns this fantastic Tiki bar in New York called the Polynesian. His love for Tiki influenced all the drinks that he did, but then it would inspire other cocktails. So everyone starts to pull ideas from everyone else. So more than trends, you would see personal narratives begin to be expressed in their drinks and then it’s the amalgamation of it. That is what creativity is. It’s the mix of all these things that may not be new but is reassembled into a new form and start to take a new life.

Alex: We think of our job as creating the fertile ground for that kind of creativity. We want to forge our path through our collectiveness.

David: Some things I think you could safely call trends are the mini-drinks. It’s a great trend, and I love it. No ABV and low ABV are trending, but they also make sense. Smaller drinks mean people can try more and drink slightly less, which is excellent. No and low I think we should be putting as much thought, care and creativity into our no-alcohol drinks to democratise the experience further. So are we interested in this because they are fun, shiny and new or because they give us a different tool to elevate our hospitality for the guest?

Finally, where did the name come from?

David: There is all of this fantastic prepropaganda, temperance movement stuff because you can’t be a fan of cocktails unless you are a fan of the pre-prohibition golden era of cocktails. I am a fan of this era, the late 1800s. The temperance movement started gaining speed, and they created a lot of fun and interesting propaganda. A lot of this at the time would depict death on the drunkard’s shoulders or this idea that if you were a man and a woman hanging out and canoodling after dark, then it led to drinking, gambling and death. You were keeping company with death. So we are tipping our hat and saying, yes we are Death and Company.