A drink before dinner? Try a drink for dinner with meaty libations that are a boozy meal in a glass.

Meat mania has set in so hard that we’re no longer content to just eat the stuff. Or maybe it’s just that flesh is the last frontier for mixologists, who’ve already added all manner of botanicals and offbeat vegetables to liquor. These days, we’ve fully entered the carnivore cocktail craze, a boozy parlor trick popping up on drink menus across New York City.

As with many trends, East Village curve-racer PDT takes partial credit for getting the party started—their Benton’s Old Fashioned is famously done with bacon-infused bourbon, maple syrup and Angostura bitters. And Brooklyn Brewery even cooked up a bacon beer, though they’ve never sold it for public consumption (brewmaster Garrett Oliver told us about it in January).

Here are five carne cocktails we’ve decided to chew on.

Read the rest of the story, and see more pics, on Metromix.

Photos by Melissa Hom. Pictured: Boqueria’s Gilda Maria.

.

Take note, avowed carnivores: Dickson’s Farmstand Meats might seem like an unassuming storefront at the Chelsea Market, but this butcher pushes 5,000 pounds of artisanal meat each week. We’re talking three-and-a-half steers, plus up to 10 pigs and 10 lambs—all all butchered in-house.

“Because we butcher the whole animal, you’ll see a lot of things you don’t see in other [meat] cases,” explains owner Jake Dickson. “We push people to experiment.” The approach makes charcuterie “integral,” he adds, and it’s easy to chomp down on the mystery parts in a rich sausage or terrine knowing the animal was raised on a small farm with a vegetarian diet free of hormones or antibiotics.

Dickson’s recently introduced a grab-and-go lunch service whose menu changes daily—another way they make sure everything gets gobbled up. Pork shoulder might become pulled pork sandwiches, and if spare ribs aren’t selling briskly, they could appear with a mound of coleslaw on your lunch plate, to delicious effect. We sank our teeth into some of the goodies.

Read the rest of the story on Metromix.com