Milk & Honey founder Sasha Petraske dead at 42

Sasha Petraske, the Manhattan-born founder of popular cocktail bar Milk & Honey, has been found dead in New York at the age of 42.

Sasha Petraske and his wife Georgette Moger. Photo c/o Facebook

As reported by The New York Times, Petraske was found dead on Friday morning by his wife Georgette Moger at their home in Hudson, New York.

While the cause of death has yet to be determined, the Daily Mail reports that Petraske died of a suspected drug overdose just three months after getting married. An autopsy was carried out on Friday night, the results of which are expected this week.

Petraske pioneered the cocktail revival in New York via his high-end bar Milk & Honey, which opened in a small space on the Lower East Side in 1999.

The bar was one of the first to champion pre-Prohibition era cocktails, operating a strict reservation system and exacting house rules that had to be adhered to.

Milk & Honey helped usher in a new era of classic cocktails with a modern twist and speakeasy-style design quirks like hidden entrances and secret rooms.

After the success of Milk & Honey, Petraske went on to open a London outpost in Soho with British entrepreneur Jonathan Downey, who also counts Match Bar, The Player and Trailer Happiness among his ventures.

Petraske also opened a number of other bars, including Little Branch in Greenwich Village; Dutch Kills in Long Queens; Middle Branch in Manhattan; the Varnish in Los Angeles; and the Everleigh in Melbourne.

Sasha Nathan Petraske was born in Manhattan on 16 March 1973. After dropping out of high school he spent three years in the army and then started working for Von bar in New York’s East Village.

In December 1999 he opened Milk & Honey in a narrow space on the Lower East Side after borrowing money from friends to launch the venture.

A lover of jazz and vintage clothes, with his slicked-back black hair, Petraske lent Milk & Honey a vintage feel with a rose-tinted vision of a bygone era of cocktails.

In 2012 two of his longterm bartenders took over the site and renamed it Attaboy, with Petraske moving Milk & Honey to a new site on West 23rd Street.

According to The New York Times, he planned to open a third version of the bar called Falconer this fall autumn in Red Hook, Brooklyn.