Maximilian Caraballo - Apothéke - NYC

At Apothéke, the presentation of a cocktail is just as dramatic as the cocktail itself. The bar is no longer a bar. It’s a stage. A chemistry lab. A theatre. A unique-shaped Austrian crystal glass is carefully selected for each cocktail, and into it, is poured a beautiful, jewel-colored liquid. This is much more than a cocktail bar – this is a cocktail apothecary.

FAIR met Maximilian Caraballo in NYC, a famous "Apothékarist".

Tell us a bit more about you... 

My name is Max. I’ve been a part of Apothéke for 3 years now. I grew up in California, in the bay area and moved out to New York 9 years ago to go to school. I got a degree in philosophy from Columbia and wanted to challenge myself. And found the perfect venue in the perfect industry to do so and to learn about cocktails. I found it very interesting, I love to drink and a lot of people in NYC do as well. I was a kind of in the right place at the right time and I found some great teachers to guide me and teach me about spirits and cocktails, including my brother.

What about Apothéke itself?

I love this place. I don’t think I would really do this anywhere else. The space, the energy, the people, the crowd, that is just an amazing experience in itself. And when we come together to actually create cocktails and put a menu together that’s something really special.

What is the formula to make a spot like Apothéke successful?

That’s our little secret! We’ve been open for just about five and a half years now. Which is something that is really special and unique for New York City, especially with the turn around in the service industry where there would be restaurants, bars and even cocktails loungers. I guess it is just testament that we are doing something very special here and people enjoy it. 

High quality service, amazing cocktails and fast delivery define Apothéke. You guys are pretty quick! 

We definitively do high volume here! And sometimes it’s difficult, especially to pay attention to the details. It’s just an amazing thing that everybody here is able to do so that we can provide high quality service.

And high quality is translated into simplicity as well, but it is not really your case because simplicity means to have only 4 or 5 cocktails on a list. You have literally 30 cocktails on your list: a bunch of juices, you cook and you keep all that juices around, it is a lot of work! 

Yes, it is a lot of work. We run a special system here at Apothéke from the back of house to the front of house. We are very fortunate to have a very talented Bar chef and Kikky who does all of the prepping, all of the purees and juices we need. It makes a huge difference.

During service we do something that is really unique. We have expediter : we run our bar like most kitchens run, we have one or two guys depending on the night, that are taking all the orders and feeding the orders to the bartenders, and dealing with order cash so that leave the bartender open to just make cocktails, and they don’t have to worry necessarily about taking orders, going to the register, giving people change... We wouldn't be able to do it otherwise. 

We have a huge menu, we have 33 cocktails, but we split it up between 3 bartenders, and each bartender makes 11 cocktails. It makes it easier and allows us to do something very cool. 

So what is the thing you like the most about your job? 

Getting to sit down and have a cocktail during the day. That's amazing!

What is your mantra?

My mantra is my favourite drink. It is the drink I make for myself.

What do you like about FAIR?

I think FAIR is an amazing product. I love the vodka itself. For me we carry a lot of different vodkas in our back bar, but it is my favourite hands down. It’s very nice and smooth just to drink it by itself, in a vodka soda or even in a vodka tonic. But I love mixing with it. I think it plays very well with any type of herb, spice, fruit, vegetable, as well as it is gluten free. There are many people who are coming in and ask if we have many gluten free vodkas and that’s my go to form and they really enjoy it.

What is your favourite cocktail you’ve made with FAIR? 

My favourite cocktail with FAIR is the ‘Forget me Now’. I infused FAIR with basil, the cocktail also includes a banana puree that is made in house and a butterfly Sencha Tea. It is very peachy in flavour. I also add a little bit of lime. It is not to sweet, it is very light and refreshing, especially in summer. The banana really levels out any other sweetness from the tea. 

We also have the same vision initially because you source a lot of your ingredients from local farmers.

Not all of them, we cannot do everything locally because it is obviously not sustainable, especially with local farms because they can’t provide us with the volume that we need. Everything that we can we do source locally. All our teas are purchased from local tea shops in China Town and we are really making an effort to make it local and support local businesses.