There's a new bar on the Lower East Side just for Hec:
Painkiller New York City opened this spring, an oasis of fruity and flowery tropical cocktails on a stretch of Essex Street better known for accordions and menorahs. Bamboo, leis and tribal masks are scattered around the place, instantly annexing the old East Side Company Bar to the Paper Umbrella Archipelago. There are even paper umbrellas. Unlike other latter-day takes on Polynesia in the city, Painkiller is a lounge where kitsch is an element of décor, not a principle of mixology. Bad taste is welcome, but it stops when you take your first sip.
As the bartender feeds scoops of ice and jiggers of rum — one, two, three, four? — into a machine designed to whip up smoothies, doubts may swirl. Ignore them. Frozen daiquiris, like the grapefruit-and-lime Papa Doble, display more clarity and purity than a cocktail the size of a Jacuzzi has any right to. (Cocktails are $12 to $16.) The same is true of the 151 Swizzle, a mix of absinthe and overproof Demerara rum drunk from a straw at eye level. You admire the drink’s backbone as your own begins to slump.