Taste the Vodka Rainbow, or Maybe Not

Home bartenders have been busy riding out the recession with crafty survival tactics like tapping the full flavor potential of plastic jug vodka with essence of Skittles, for example, and it seems fitting that a new wave of cocktail books is now being unleashed on the public. The good news is that Food & Wine has just published Cocktails ’09, a soft-cover easy read that combines bar listings (NY is represented by spots like Apothéke, Employees Only, and newcomer Dutch Kills) with lots of make-at-home recipes including some compiled by the talented Jim Meehan of PDT. The bad news, as noted by the Wall Street Journal, is that there aren’t a lot of vodka-based drinks in the volume (down 50 some recipes from the ’05 edition).

Prospect Park Showdown: Bird Watchers Vs. Dog Owners

Post has an exclusive about "Brooklyn's canine vigilante"—a man who documents dog owners who illegally let their pooches go leash-free in Prospect Park as well as other parks. Bird watcher Orrin Tilevitz has a website—Committee for Responsible Dog Ownership—that apparently has photos and videos of dogs going free in areas that are not designated as leash-free. One example shows pups off leash at 1 p.m. (off-leash hours are before 9 a.m. and after 9 p.m.), plus "After one of the dogs stole food from a baby and smeared our correspondent's friend with his wet, muddy paws, the owner and another dog owner continued into the Ravine with their dogs unleashed, right past a sign that prohibits off-leash dogs in the Ravine." Tilevitz tells the Post he was once attacked by a dog so now he's armed with pepper spray (some other birders also pack pepper spray), "I have become militant, and that itself is the Parks Department's fault" for not enforcing the off-leash rules. Dog owners simply say that their dogs need freedom, but one admitted undercover parks officers busted him and other people for having their unleashed dogs earlier this month.