Rogues On The Road

We met up with Zac a local historian & bartender at The North Plank Tavern in Newburgh, NY. We sat down over a couple of classic prohibition-era cocktails (recipes below) and proceeded to learn its rich history dating back to the mid nineteenth century. The original tavern was built as a hotel and became a tavern and boarding house by the turn of the twentieth century. During prohibition the tavern continued to sell alcohol and operated as a speakeasy complete with illegal stills and trap doors to hide production and alcohol. Mitch Nixon, owner at the time of prohibition was reported to make the finest applejack in the Hudson Valley. Similar in flavor to a fine French calvados. Zac's father bought the dilapidated tavern from Mitch in 1980 where he began a rebuild. This is when his father found moonshine stills, trap doors filled with prohibition era bottles (still filled), gambling equipment and guns. This is when the true history of the historic tavern became very apparent. We ended the episode learning