You, Too, Can Be (at) McLeod

As someone who grew up outside of Chicago and had a pop who was Vice Poobah (sp?) of the Moose Lodge, I am all into the concept of a members only, or members benefit club. Not in the Spitzer way, but definitely in the McLeod Residence way. A community built on the principal of good company and cheap drinks.

Starting tomorrow, McLeod Residence will open to the public six nights a week (Tue-Sun, 6pm to 2am). Now everyone can enjoy this enhanced art space that goes a few steps beyond gallery and maybe a slight jag to the left from your normal bar or social club. Members will still get the benefit of cheaper drinks and special admission prices to events, but now everyone can enjoy the fantastic art that rolls through this space on a regular basis.

Enjoy DJs this Friday and Saturday, and karaoke on Sunday. But if you want to check out the space, I'd almost say wait until next weekend, when McLeod Residence will hold quite an art opening featuring the always fascinating Diana Falchuk (now, with frosting!), and skatedecks curated by the cute and Schmancy Kristen Rask.

McLeod Residence
2209 Second Avenue, upstairs
Lounge: Tuesday-Sunday 6:00pm to 2:00am
Art gallery: Thursday-Saturday 12:00noon to 6:00pm
www.mcleodresidence.com

Topics: Boozamahol

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...And One Day I'm Gonna Be a Law!

The Washington State Senate just passed Bill 6496, concerning in part what I consider to be equal rights for craft distilleries (more on that HERE). Right now, this just effects Dry Fly Distillery in Spokane, champions of this bill for a special craft distillery license.

Beginning in July, Dry Fly will be able to sample THEIR product from THEIR distillery and sell THEIR product direct, just like any winery or brewery. A small step against 70 years of proof prejudice, a giant (well, 2 oz.) leap for you and me.

Topics: Boozamahol

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It's Just a Bill, Yes It's Only a Bill, But...

At the end of last year, Washington State gained its first licensed distillery, Dry Fly. It didn't take a genius to smell a Hooch Rush on the horizon. Now that someone's finally broken the 80 proof barrier, many interested parties lie in wait to bottle the next hot spirit. Rusty Figgins, wine guy extraordinaire, has an operation waiting for licensing approval, and XXX marks spots in both Woodinville and Ballard for future gin mills. So many people now have many different interests in a wee little bill on our Capital Hill concerning craft distilleries. Bill 6496 seeks to further define what will be a Washington State craft distillery and also grants distilleries certain rights enjoyed by breweries and wineries, namely 1 and 2 below. The bill has already made it through the House, now it just needs to make it through the Senate.

Continue reading "It's Just a Bill, Yes It's Only a Bill, But..."

Topics: Boozamahol

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Bellying Up For Valentine's Day

If you don't have a reservation at your favorite restaurant, count yourself down but not out.

Have you ever considered sitting at the bar? Do you know how lonely we bartenders get on Valentine's Day? Maybe you don't care, but let me put it another way. All the servers are running like chickens with their heads cut off trying to make sure everyone has the Most. Special. Night. Ever! The bartender is only a pit stop. And this is what works to your advantage on February 14th. When you sit at a table, you are not in control. You are at the whim of the server. And on an amateur night like Valentine's Day, anything can happen. When you sit at the bar, you are in control, and you can stay as long as you want. Your server is right in front of you at all times.

The bartender will be too busy to interrupt any canoodling, but very appreciative you chose to sit with him. I used to style the hell out of people who sat at my bar on V-Day, Extra bonus: Bar food is usually sharable finger food, which is far sexier than single servings for all.

If I may air my own personal laundry, my hubbie and I have been carrying on the bar versus table argument for eight glorious years. Even if he is completely wrong, I see his point. If one is spending a good chunk of change, one wants to feel taken care of, special. Your own table feels more special than a bar stool. He likes his own space and doesn't want to sit next to anyone. Me, I'll ignore you. Sitting at a table eating the same set menu as every other two-top in the room, getting treated the same as every other two people in the room, has never felt special to me.

But best of all, sitting at the bar better let's you invade your date's personal space, no pesky table between you and yours. It promotes knee knocking, thigh squeezing, and leaning in reeeeeal close. Don't worry about the bartender, he won't eavesdrop....much.

For your clandestine consideration:

- The cramped (in a good way) boite of Sambar
- The pitch black "where are your hands!" room of El Gaucho
- Food that'll get you sharing and moaning at Carmine's
- Suggestive matrimonial backdrop of Betty

Topics: Boozamahol and Valentine's Eats

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Generic Beer's Ripe for a Comeback

You'd think now that PBR and forties have recaptured some cool, Generic Beer would be ripe for a similar renaissance. Come to think of it, Pabst is probably the likeliest to exhume the black and white block-type grenade bottles, since that brewery's business model is centered around buying up the rights and recipes for nostalgia brands like Olympia and Rainier, and rolling 'em back into coolers in all their vintage glory. Marc Reutter, can you hear me?

Topics: Boozamahol

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Jinx! Buy me a...one of these

I am the queen of Champagne cocktails, mostly because my bubbly habit far exceeds my bubbly budget and therefore requires me to enlist many creative solutions.

I've dressed up my cava before, oh yes I have. But cava is so dry it usually ends up taking on the flavors of whatever you add and tasting more like punch than sparkling wine. That's why the Jinx bubbly cocktail(s)I had the other day at Brasa happy hour made such an impression on me. A simple mix of Tuaca (an Italian liqueur with light vanilla and orange flavors) and cava with an orange twist, there was just enough Tuaca to lend deeper, creamy notes to the cava, like it was playing dress up in vintage Champagne's clothes. The proportions in Brasa's Jinx cocktail are far righter than anything I ever tried with the much orangier Grand Marnier. It is my house cocktail of the moment.

Brasa, 2107 3rd Ave, 728-4220, www.brasa.com

Topics: Boozamahol

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Drink of the Year: Alaskan Polar Bear Heater

That'd be the cocktail Jerry Lewis' Buddy Love favors in The Nutty Professor, proclaimed by Modern Drunkard to be one of the greatest stealth lush movies of all-time. Below, from the pages of MD, is a description of the drink. Don't try this at home. Try it at your friend's home, on New Year's Eve, with tarp on the carpet:

Many movies have featured hard-kicking cocktails, but the “Alaskan Polar Bear Heater”� may be the most infamous. Below is the recipe taken verbatim from the film...“Two shots of vodka, a little rum, some bitters, and a smidgen of vinegar...a shot of vermouth, a shot of gin, a little brandy, lemon peel, orange peel, cherry, some more scotch. Now mix it nice, and pour it into a tall glass.”� Why the recipe calls for “some more scotch”� at a point when there is no scotch in the cocktail is a mystery to me. I can only assume that Jerry was ad libbing the recipe on the spot. By the way, I’ve never been brave enough to drink one myself — the vinegar is the deal breaker for me. However, a good friend of mine filmed himself mixing one up and downing it. He described the cocktail as tasting like “bitters-soaked ass.”� When I commented that a lot would depend upon whose ass was soaked in bitters, he responded, “Ernest Borgnine’s ass.”� You have been warned.

Topics: Boozamahol

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One Less Tavern in Seattle

Targy's, a longtime Queen Anne institution with a horseshoe bar and very few windows, is now serving hard booze. Good for Targy's, bad for purists who lament the ongoing demise of the true blue tavern, which is truly an endangered species in our cocktail-crazed metropolis.

Topics: Boozamahol

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I Drank This: Tsingtao Lager at Yen Wor Village

There are times, usually when you're up a couple hundred bucks at a blackjack table, when you feel like you deserve a lager of finer quality than Budweiser. In such situations, the happy gambler usually opts for a Heineken, and is usually disappointed by the skunk-like quality of the vastly overrated Dutch beer. So what are the alternatives? Tsingtao, for one. Don't be put off by its general lack of availability at all but the seediest Chinese restaurant lounges. Or, better yet, don't be put off by seedy Chinese lounges. Case in point: SW photog 'Lil Scoop and I hit the notorious Pagoda Room at Yen Wor Village in the Admiral Junction last night. Here, we took in the first half of a truly dreadful Sonic game, ate some lemon chicken, and listened to a tough-ass barmaid named Toni school a crusty regular for his aversion to tipping properly. But the best part was the Tsingtao, so clean and refreshing (maybe I should moonlight as a beer commercial copywriter, eh?).

Topics: Boozamahol

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World's Most Expensive Cocktail

Hey, Maggie—

A couple weeks ago you were complaining about how the $12 cocktail isn't worth the splurge. How about a $70,000 one?

Topics: Boozamahol

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