Do Good Spirits (Prohibition)

Drinking Seriously in the Catskill Corridor

The western Catskills have long existed in a particular kind of American in-between: close enough to New York City to attract weekenders, far enough removed to develop its own character without performing for them. Roscoe, a small Sullivan County town historically tied to trout fishing on the Beaverkill and Willowemoc rivers, sits at that intersection. The drinking culture that has taken root here in recent years reflects the same tension between local identity and outside appetite that defines much of the region. Do Good Spirits, operating under the Prohibition name at 10 Union Street, is a winery and spirits venue in Roscoe, New York, with a Pearl 2 Star Prestige designation (2025).

What the Name Carries

Naming a bar after Prohibition is not a neutral act. Across American drinking culture, the Prohibition reference has been deployed so often it has nearly lost meaning, from speakeasy-themed venues in every major city to cocktail menus that lean on the era's aesthetics without engaging its substance. The more pointed reading of the name here is different: it suggests an orientation toward craft, scarcity thinking, and the idea that making something well under constraint is more interesting than making it abundantly under none. Whether that reading holds inside the glass is the question a visit answers. What the Pearl 2 Star Prestige rating from EP Club signals, at minimum, is that the program has been assessed as operating above the regional baseline, in a category where most rural New York bars are not being rated at prestige tiers at all.

Terroir as a Frame for Spirits

The Hudson Valley and Catskill region has become one of the more active zones for grain-to-glass distilling in the Northeast, where distillers are working with locally grown corn, rye, and wheat in ways that mirror what wine producers do with site-specific viticulture. The idea that a spirit carries the character of its source material, its water, and its fermentation environment is not metaphorical here; it is the operating premise of a number of producers whose output circulates in better regional bars.

Do Good Spirits sits within that regional conversation. A bar in Roscoe that takes its name and apparent orientation from the spirits tradition is, by geography, adjacent to some of the more interesting terroir-driven production happening in New York State. The parallel with what Au Bon Climat in Santa Barbara did for cool-climate California Pinot, or what Alban Vineyards in Arroyo Grande did for Rhône varieties on the Central Coast, is instructive: regional identity built through conviction about what a place can produce, rather than what it is supposed to produce based on elsewhere.

The Roscoe Context

Roscoe is not a large town. Its profile as a destination rests substantially on fly fishing, with the confluence of the Beaverkill and Willowemoc making it a longstanding draw for serious anglers from the Northeast. The hospitality infrastructure that has grown around that base tends toward the functional rather than the theatrical. A bar earning a prestige-tier rating in this environment is not competing against a deep urban field; it is, rather, filling a gap that the regional hospitality scene has historically not prioritized. That context matters when calibrating the Pearl 2 Star Prestige designation: it reflects quality that registers on a national assessment rubric, not merely local esteem.

Situating the Rating

EP Club's Pearl 2 Star Prestige (2025) places Do Good Spirits in a tier that, across the platform's assessments, reflects a program operating with clear intention and above-average execution. The producers and venues rated at prestige tiers tend to share a common characteristic: they are making decisions based on a point of view about quality rather than volume or accessibility. Accendo Cellars in St. Helena, Aubert Wines in Calistoga, and Alpha Omega Winery in Rutherford each operate in that register within their respective categories. The frame applies to a bar as readily as to a winery: the question is whether the program reflects a coherent position on craft, sourcing, and presentation.

Producers like Alexander Valley Vineyards in Geyserville, Andrew Murray Vineyards in Los Olivos, and Artesa Vineyards and Winery in Napa have each built reputations that rest on that kind of position. The same logic governs how a prestige-tier bar in a small Catskill town earns its rating: not by default of being the only serious option, but by meeting an external standard of execution.

What to Expect and When to Go

The Catskill season runs heaviest from late spring through the fall foliage period, with peak weekends in July, August, and October drawing the most significant visitor volume to the region. Roscoe's fishing season opens in April and the town sees steady traffic through November. A visit to Do Good Spirits aligns most naturally with the shoulder seasons, when the town is present but not at capacity, and when the atmosphere of a serious bar in a small place carries a different weight than it does during a crowded summer weekend.

That is the kind of thinking the Prohibition name, and the prestige rating, suggests is at work at 10 Union Street.