Natasha David and Jeremy Oertel, consultants behind cocktail programs at Hotel Kinsley, Little Goat, and Pez, are stepping behind the bar for the first time in a long time at Bad Times in Tivoli, August 7 and 8.
Photo by Christian Harder.
If you've had a good cocktail on the New York side of our region lately, there's a decent chance Natasha David and Jeremy Oertel had something to do with it, even if you never saw their faces. The Red Hook-based husband and wife have designed the cocktail programs at Inness, Wildflower Farms Auberge, Lola Pizza in Kingston, Little Goat in Rhinebeck, and, just this spring, Pez in Hudson, to name a few. But they don't usually stand behind the bars they design. That changes August 7 and 8, when the two take over Bad Times Bar in Tivoli for a rare pop-up.
David and Oertel met in New York City, working together at the Corner Shop Cafe in the mid-2000s. Both went on to well-regarded New York City bars: David at Maison Premiere, Mayahuel, and Danny Meyer's Maialino before co-founding Nitecap, the Lower East Side cocktail bar she opened in 2014 with Death & Co.'s David Kaplan and Alex Day.
Oertel came up by way of Death & Co and Mayahuel too, before becoming beverage director at Williamsburg's Donna. Together, they started a consulting company, You & Me Cocktails, now a busy, industry darling they run from their home.
Nitecap closed for good in 2020, one of the pandemic's many casualties. After closure came David's book, Drink Lightly: A Lighter Take on Serious Cocktails (2022), a collection of low- and no-alcohol recipes.
David's interest in lower-proof drinking is less a trend she's chasing than a habit she lives by. "Having options for people is the thing that I actually find very interesting," she says. "Of course, there's people who are sober and deserve delicious options that aren't just ginger ale. But also there are so many times, I go and have dinner or a drink with a friend, and I maybe start with a glass of wine, but I also know I have to drive later, or I have to be up tomorrow morning, and I don't want to get too tipsy. I don't just want to have seltzer water.I want to enjoy my night. My second drink might be a non-alcoholic cocktail. We live in communities where we all have to drive."
The move to this community traced back to an early job at Rivertown Lodge in Hudson. "We had this sort of magical Hudson Valley trip up here," David remembers. "We actually went to have dinner at Gaskins, and we were like, wow, maybe we should really start considering moving up here." David and Oertel moved north with their first child. A second kid and David's mother have since joined the household. "The focus very much changed from just career to wanting to create a more sustainable life for our family," David says. Oertel finishes the thought: "Where we don't have to work nights."
A friendship with restaurateur Taavo Somer, of Freemans in Manhattan, became the connective tissue of their Hudson Valley client list. Somer owns, or co-owns Lola Pizza,Inness, and Little Goat.
At Little Goat, the pair built a Mediterranean-leaning list anchored by an elegant $25 martini service—vodka, gin, dry vermouth, dried tomato, olive and lemon bitters that easily serves two—alongside options like the Caravan (blanco tequila, pomegranate, lime, cardamom, $16) and the beet-and-cassis Crimson Promise ($16).
Their latest project, the cocktail program at Pez, is one David is especially proud of, partly because for once she and Oertel built it side by side. "This was a project where we got to actually work on the drinks at the same time, together, live, which hasn't happened in a long time," David says.
Oertel found the restaurant's specific focus—coastal Mexican seafood—freeing rather than limiting: those strict parameters, he says, "let me be a little more creative."
The two built the list almost entirely around Mexican-owned tequila, mezcal, and sotol producers, with a preference for women-owned labels where they could find them, turning out drinks like the Smoke Show ($18) with mezcal, guava rum, pascilla pepper, grapefruit, lime, and club soda; the Husker Du ($18) made from white & Oaxacan rum, Flor de Azul, blue corn and lime; the Loose Lips ($18) includes blanco tequila, sotol, yellow Genepi, cucumber, lime, pineapple, and Jalapeño. These are heavily considered and tested drinks that lean on ingredient quality as well as storytelling.
What actually goes into a program like this is more than dreaming up a few signature drinks. "Ideally we get in at the very beginning, and we design the bar for them," Oertel says. "And then we help with tool selection and glassware.” From there, they curate the spirits a bar will stock and write out house specs for classic recipes, a compendium of standard drinks so a rotating staff makes the same Old Fashioned or Negroni the same way every time. David adds that even those standards flex from room to room: "A martini in this bar is maybe better this way than it is in this bar. So much of it is about feeling an atmosphere."
The Bad Times pop-up came together almost by accident. "We were actually at Bad Times having a very rare date night," David says. "And [owner Natalie Sosnowski] was like, 'I need somebody to cover some shifts for a weekend.'" Oertel had been thinking about doing a pop-up anyway. "Jeremy and I haven't worked behind a bar together in a little while," David says. "We were like, that might be fun. It's very innocent. It just kind of happened." Part of the appeal, Oertel adds, is how the homey, casual bar operates: "If we were ever gonna open a bar, it would be like this."
As consultants, David and Oertel also rarely meet the people actually drinking their cocktails. "We make the drinks for people, but we don't ever really get the chance to interact with them," David says. "Which is kind of a strange thing."
The menu will lean into the hits they're known for. "We've got a nice little martini, a fun, spicy tequila situation, and some of Jeremy's famous drinks," David says. "We'll have some non-alcoholic options too. We're just super excited to be there for a couple of nights, and we hope to make some yummy drinks, meet some new people, and have some good vibes."
Natasha David and Jeremy Oertel take over Bad Times Bar Friday, August 7, and Saturday, August 8, from 5 to 10pm, at 63 Broadway in Tivoli (up the porch, doors on the right). Follow along at @badtimesbar, @natashadavidxo, and @jroertel.
