You know it’s almost summer when you start seeing vendors hauling coolers through New York City’s parks and beaches, selling brightly colored, ice cold drinks. New Yorkers call them “nutcrackers,” but have you ever wondered why? And what distinguishes a nutcracker from any other fruity cocktail?
Led Black, the founder of the Uptown Collective news outlet, made a documentary about nutcrackers in 2012. He describes them as “underground street cocktails” that carry a certain mystique because they’re technically illicit.
“Every New Yorker has that ‘what’s a nutcracker’ moment,” Black told me. “Once you try it, you’re like, I got hammered for like ten bucks or five bucks and it wasn’t completely yucky.”…