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News Wed Aug 08 2012
The Aviary's Porthole Launches via Kickstarter
Crucial Detail, the design studio behind many of the beautiful service pieces at Alinea, Next and The Aviary, has been hinting that they'd be making a consumer version of the Porthole, one of the vessels they created for The Aviary, for quite some time. That time has finally come: today the company launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the initial production of the piece.
If you've ever been to The Aviary, you know what a showstopper this cocktail service piece is. The cocktail chefs at The Aviary unscrew the side of the shallow, circular teapot-like flask to compose beautiful arrays of fruit, fresh herbs and other botanicals that flavor both hot and cold drinks. According to Crucial Detail's founder, Martin Kastner, "On many occasions when The Aviary's guests were told that the Porthole was not available for purchase, they tried to 'liberate' it on their own."
If that was you, you now have the opportunity to take the Porthole home without risking a visit from the police. Early backers were able to preorder the vessel for $75. That level -- and the $85 level-- sold out right almost immediately, but it's still possible to back the project at the $95 level and receive a Porthole and a seasonal cocktail recipe to fill it with. If you've got the money, you can get one of 250 white Porthole (analogous to the white iPhone vs. the standard black, I guess?) for $250, or get multiple (black) Portholes for larger pledges.
There are also five $5,000 packages (three left as of this writing) for which you get two signed Portholes plus a day spent with Grant Achatz and new Aviary chief Charles Joly. According to the campaign page, "You will work the bar during service, learn recipes and techniques, and enjoy cocktails at the Aviary with the chefs."
Get your pledge in now.
