So I’ve started a sneaky little cocktail club with my partner-in-crime (and drinking) and we’d like to share with you our favorite summertime mocktails (that you can easily make into cocktails) featuring our bubbly little friends at Topo Chico. Follow our adventures here and let’s shake things up this summer.

The Gilligan’s Island

A tropical fruit and Ginger punch you’d want to get stranded with

2oz Strawberry Rhubarb Puree

1.5oz Lemon juice

.75 Ginger syrup

Shake with ice

Dirty Pour into Highball glass

Top with Topo Chico Grapefruit soda

Garnish with Strawberry

Optional Spirit addition

2oz White Rum (be sure to use appropriately sized glassware)

The Cool Kid

Minty freshness and cucumber crispness without all the attitude of that kid you hated in high school

2oz Cucumber Juice

1oz Lemon juice

.75 Mint simple syrup

Shake with ice

Dirty Pour into coupe, or other stemware

Top with Top Chico soda

Garnish with Cucumber wheel

Optional Spirit Addition

2oz Gin or Vodka (be sure to use appropriately sized glassware)

The Teenage Crush

A berry-basil blast that you won’t get over… until September comes

Gently muddle four trimmed strawberries with 1oz Basil syrup

Add 1.5oz Lemon Juice

Shake vigorously with ice

Dirty Pour into Big Coupe, or Rocks Glass

Top with Topo Chico soda

Garnish with Basil and Strawberry

Optional Spirit Addition

2oz Vodka (be sure to use appropriately sized glassware)

Gallagher’s Revenge

A totally smashable watermelon-mint cocktail

2oz Watermelon juice

1oz Lime juice

.75 Mint simple syrup

Shake with ice

Strain into couple glass

Top with Topo Chico Lime soda

Garnish with watermelon triangle 

Optional Spirit Addition

2oz Vodka (be sure to use appropriately sized glassware)

What is the Sneaky Spirit Social Club?

We are Zach and Liz, two bartenders living in Brooklyn, and this is our club.

It’s a cocktail thing that we do on the down-low. Kind of like speakeasies when they were actually illegal, or cults without the dying, or gangs without the killing, or sleepovers without the sleeping and with booze that you don’t steal from your parents.

Want to book a sneaky, virtual cocktail class with us? Send me a message here and let’s get started.

Cheers, Brooklyn… from the Sneakies.

I think this is a sign, Brooklyn. A sign of things that are in your very near future. Cocktails and neon lights and bright ideas and good intentions and long nights that blend into mornings where everything is still buzzing.

Your weekend guide is here to light the way. Stick with me kid. Let’s do this.

Things to do in Brooklyn on Thursday

Stranger Wines Opening Party in Williamsburg

We live in a drinking town. And as such, there are many distractions all vying for our inebriation attention. Navigate your thirsty curiosity over to the new Stranger Wines tonight, for their opening party. Why should you get to know Stranger Wines? Because it’s Andrew Tarlow’s latest project and let’s face it, he knows what Brooklyn wants. Go, taste, by, drink, return. Info here. 132 Havemeyer St. After, stop by my favorite little wine bar, just down the street.

Le Diner Dali at Archestratus in Greenpoint

The work of Salvador Dali is just disarming enough to make you both desire and detach from it. You want to be in his head, in his world, but also safe outside of it. You want to be consumed by it, and, perhaps, consume it as well. Enter into the familiar yet magical space of Archestratus Thursday night and experience the very real and surreal world of Dali, inspired by his beautiful, bizarre cookbook Les Diners de Gala. There will be interactive artwork, live surreal portraits, and a dinner straight from the imagination of the artist himself. Tickets are selling out fast. Get yours here, and pull together your most outlandish outfit. Also, expect edible ants (at least, I hope.) 7-9:30pm, 160 Huron St.

Rushmore at Bushwick Inlet Park in Williamsburg

It’s not too late to see a movie under the stars with your lover and a secret bota of wine. And best of all, it’s also not too late for that industrial (jetty?) on the East River that was so close to being taken from us. (Come on, you remember the years-long #wheresourpark fight, right?) Come and celebrate what will eventually be the park we fought for, but for now, it will be a place to watch one of Wes Anderson’s best, for free. It’s happening Thursday night at 7:30pm. Info here. 50 Kent Ave (at the pop-up park!)

Cache Life’s NYFW Party at the William Vale in Williamsburg

Fashion week sucks. Come be above it or pay your way into the in-crowd at the William Vale, that building that put the nail in the coffin for Williamsburg. Come see and be seen, drink and be drunk, eat and be eaten. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, glitter to glitter. It’s free to go but invite-only. Claim your exclusivity right here. No cash accepted because we are all machines. 111 North 12th St. You literally can’t miss it.

Things to do in Brooklyn on Friday

Before the Dust Settles at House of Yes in Bushwick

So you didn’t make it to Burning Man this year and, once again, you’re super sick of hearing your friends talk about it and all the new friends they made and how much more enlightened they are now. Or maybe you did go, and the synapses in your head still haven’t reconnected enough to be able to do little more than mindlessly stare at sunsets while grooving to some unknown beat resonating in your body. Regardless of your reason, come to this 2-day continuation of the celebration at House of Yes. They’ll be hosting some of the best DJs from the playa, and trust me, no one will care if you still have dust in weird places. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, glitter to glitter. Info here, Friday and Saturday night. 2 Wyckoff Ave.

3D Movies After Dark at the BPS Clubhouse in Red Hook

That means they’re inviting ghosts, guys. You don’t go to an extra-dimensional theater experience held by the Brooklyn Paranormal Society if you don’t ask what that additional dimension is. Just, don’t be surprised if your popcorn is inexplicably popping into an invisible mouth or your neck is constantly prickly. You set yourself up for this one. They’ll be exploring films in anaglyph 3D, which allows you to see spirits and energies and other dimensions unintended by the director. You have to join BPS to attend, but that’s easy and also probably really helpful when you’re apartment hunting. Info here. 59 Coffey St. 

Lauren Early at the Sultan Room in Bushwick

If you haven’t yet heard of the Turk’s Inn, then make sure you tell everyone you heard it here first. (I mean it, tell them.) The Turk’s Inn was a kitschy supper club in Northern Wisconsin for 80 years and when it shuddered its doors in 2014 after the owner died, best friends Varun Kataria and Tyler Erickson bought as much of the decor and ephemera as they could at an estate sale and have been working for 3 years to reopen it, in Bushwick. This kitschy, dreamy, and not at all authentic Arabic adventure will transport you, if not anywhere, to the magic of the 1960s midwest. Best of all? They have a music venue on the top floor and Friday night they invite Lauren Early, Beau, and Rose Cologne to the disco-fabulous stage. Tickets available here. Go early, have dinner. Stay late, get a Kebab. 234 Starr St.

Things to do in Brooklyn on Saturday

The Lot Radio BBQ on that magical triangle between Greenpoint and Williamsburg

Remember in the beginning of summer when those friends who you know that own grills were like, “Oh yeah! We’re going to have cookouts alll summer! Like literally, the coals will always be hot and ready! Yes come over every single day!” And how many cookouts have you been to… yeah. People with grills fucking lie. And they are fucking squares. Come instead to this very triangular cookout where the doors are open to everyone and they’ll be playing all the best music and you’ll forget all about those lucid invitations. It’s The Lot Radio’s annual BBQ and you don’t want to miss it. Noon-4pm, info here. 17 Nassau Ave.

North Brooklyn Boat Club Extravaganza, secret location.

Just because our beloved boat club has been uprooted doesn’t mean that the parties, the paddles, the Brooklyn-style hootenannies have to stop. Now more than ever, we need to embrace the magic of the NBBC as they search for a new home. Come #revelwithacause this Saturday with Rubulad and all of your river rat friends. Music by The Listeners and Transistor Ray. Free paddle spankings, I’m sure, if you ask the right person. Tickets available here. $10 in advance, $12 at the door. 8pm-2am, location disclosed upon ticket purchasing. 

Afterlife at the Brooklyn Mirage in Bushwick

There is a space we enter, somewhere in the ether, usually on Saturday nights, with all of our best friends. That place you go where you aren’t really sure what side you’re going to come out on when it’s over and if they’ll still be there with you at all. Come, intentionally experience that delicate purgatory, that realm of the unknown of the afterlife (or maybe it’s just the beginning?) at the Mirage this Saturday night. They’ll bring their Ibiza residency once again to the magical, mystical Mirage for an all-night immersive experience that promises to engage the mind, body, and soul and keep you moving those hips, all night. Tickets are selling fast so get yours here now and then let’s all get lost there, together. 6pm-4:30am, 140 Stewart Ave.

Pig Island Pork Festival at Erie Basin Park in Red Hook

What happens when you spend a decade putting together the best, the biggest, the porkiest, and the wildest pig festival ever? An amalgamation of smokey BBQ, of bacon and bits, of brave little weenies, of sassy sausages, of buns and butts and smokers and smokers and drinkers. Now in its 10th year, the Pig Island Pork Festival invites you into its absolute revelry for this dynamic meat. Your $75 ticket gets you unlimited pork delicacies from 20+ world-renowned chefs, plus libations from Red Hook Winery and other local faves, Sixpoint brews, spritely local cideries, and some specialty mezcals at a special mezcal tent because nothing goes with smokey better than smokey. Tickets, here. It’s happening Saturday 1130-4pm, 1 Beard St. Beards encouraged but not required.

Makossa x FOMO at Elsewhere in Bushwick

If you’ve ever woken up on Monday morning and felt like over the weekend (and maybe all summer) you should have eaten more hotdogs, you should have danced more, you should have gotten a little sweatier on rooftops with strangers with nothing but the moonlight to illuminate your resplendence and the imminent sunrise to highlight your shame…then you understand what Makossa FOMO feels like. Come, experience it before it sets in, on the rooftop of Elsewhere. These two infamous party groups team up to bring us an end-of-summer blowout to help stave off all of those Monday morning regrets. Tickets $10, get yours here now.  2-10pm, 599 Johnson Ave.

Antiquarian Book Fair at the Brooklyn Expo Center in Greenpoint

This isn’t just old books, guys. It’s old books and also ephemera, kept. And art. One-of-a-kind signed songbooks. Hand-drawn old maps. All of the coolest gifts you can ever give all of the interesting people in your life. Plus, Peruvian pastries, cerveza de la tierra and so many other things to be discovered. Come. find rare books, gingerly touch their spines, smell their creases… I don’t know what you’re in to, man. But I guarantee you’re not the only one. It’s happening Saturday and Sunday. Info here. 76 Franklin St. at the Expo Center, expose yourself!

Things to do in Brooklyn on Sunday

Tiki Disco Closing Party at Elsewhere in Bushwick

I hate this. I hate this so much. This is the closing party for Tiki Disco, that outdoor party gift from the summertime gods. Go, because you promised yourself you’d go at some point this summer. Or go, because you promised yourself you wouldn’t miss one beat of tiki goodness this summer. Go because we only have like 2 more Mondays were it’s kind of ok to be sunburnt and hungover and maybe crying a little at our desks. Tickets, $15, available here.  Peformances 2pm-10pm, rooftop closes at 1am. 599 Johnson Ave.

The 1st Annual Brooklyn BagelFest at Bushwick Generator

Why? Because there wasn’t one before. Let’s be honest- if you live here, you have your bagel spot. And you also know that there is a very real, thick, impenetrable bagel threshold that you hit usually about 3/4’s of the way through your bagel, and there are only so many schmears that will convince you to step outside of your normal bagel routine. But this Bagelfest is here to try to convince you otherwise. Go, if for nothing else, to actively argue with other New Yorkers about the best bagel in town. Plus, unlimited food and drink for $10 (TEN DOLLARS!) sounds SO much better than brunch. Get yours here now. 10am-2pm, 215 Moore St.

Mezcal Mule

Blood Orange Mezcalarita

Mezcal Negroni

Mezcal Neat