Gothamist76%
Tracking the legend of the New York City Nutcracker 34%
By Elizabeth Shwe0%
6/11/2026, 5:34:49 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 17 faulty reasoning types, including Framing Effect, Hasty Generalization, and Post Hoc (False Cause), with Anecdotal as the most egregious example at 22.3% saturation with 127 hits. Analysis detected 779 faulty-reasoning hits from 569 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 42.2% and a BS Rank of 34% (14,009 of 21,172 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 66.20% of the article peer group.
The column first appeared in Looped In NYC, a newsletter to help New Yorkers make sense of the city.
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You know it’s almost summer when you start seeing vendors hauling coolers through New York City’s parks and beaches, selling brightly colored, ice cold drinks.
New Yorkers call them “nutcrackers,” but have you ever wondered why?
And what distinguishes a nutcracker from any other fruity cocktail?
Led Black, the founder of the Uptown Collective news outlet, made a documentary about nutcrackers in 2012.
He describes them as “underground street cocktails” that carry a certain mystique because they’re technically illicit.
“Every New Yorker has that ‘what’s a nutcracker’ moment,” Black told me.
“Once you try it, you’re like, I got hammered for like ten bucks or five bucks and it wasn't completely yucky.”
But the nutcrackers found in the city’s parks and beaches today stray far from Flor de Mayo’s original because they use completely different liquor bases and fruit mixers.
The name is what keeps it viable and “street official,” Black said.
It allows anyone with a strong entrepreneurial spirit to put their own twist on the drink and start a hustle, Black said.
To Black, the nutcracker’s evolution is “a story of immigrants' innovation — taking a bad situation and finding a way to make a living and rise above the situation that you're currently in.”
That hustle still exists among vendors like Jerome Guthrie, who was selling various different drinks in an ice cooler at a cookout at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem.
He said nutcrackers, which he started selling in 2013 as a hustle, are his staple drinks.
But now his business — Head Bangaz — has turned into one of his main sources of income.
His motto is “if it’s whack, you get your money back, and that’s a fact,” which he says helps him stand out from other nutcracker sellers.
To Guthrie, a nutcracker is like a tropical drink that “packs a punch” with a light liquor base.
He uses different Minute Maid juices, fruit cocktails and vodka.
Guthrie told me he’s never had Flor de Mayo’s original nutcracker, but that he’d love to try it.
On hot summer days, Guthrie told me he’s guaranteed to sell out, especially because he’s willing to deliver his drinks to all five boroughs.
He told me he can make around $2,000 or more a month and hopes to start selling them wholesale one day.
Despite living in New York City for most of my 20s, this was my first time trying a nutcracker.
Jose’s tasted exactly how he described it, like cherry cough syrup, but not in a bad way, and I could barely taste the alcohol.
Jerome's was refreshing, fruity and strong as well … kind of like an upgraded version of a cocktail you make for yourself at a party.
And as someone who loves sweets, it was the perfect drink for a hot day.
Both were definitely strong and hit after a few sips.
Whether you drink them or not, nutcrackers are the New York City staple drink because they only exist here, Guthrie said.
Black agreed.
New York City is constantly innovating and adapting to changes, and the nutcracker is an example of that, he said.
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