#35: Eureka

The Bar

Eureka. 200 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 2/11/17 @ 9pm.

The Drink

The Penicillin. Corsair triple smoked whiskey, ginger, honey, lemon. $13.

This bar was slammed, so we pursued a multi-pronged divide-and-conquer strategy to flag down a bartender. This recommendation was a house special, one of several which looked intriguing. They have an extensive list of all kinds of wines, whiskeys, beers, and so forth. I liked the drink, although I've never understood why people use ginger as a garnish when there are so many other things in the world. Ginger beer was so unpopular for a while that they had to invent an entire drink in order to get rid of it (it also spawned a fun court case), and raw ginger itself is better as a sushi topping than as a drink accessory, in my opinion. Nevertheless, it failed to ruin the drink, and that's about all you can ask from a garnish.

The Crew

Geoff, Aaron, Cat, Elijah, Travis, Rome, James, Vince, Ben (not pictured).

Notes

I knew this location as Logan's for a long time. I'm not sure what happened to the former occupant, but on Saturday night its replacement was jam-packed, which was unfortunate for our crew. Moving with a large group is logistically arduous even if everyone has the best intentions - whose round is it? do you have any cash to cover me? where'd X go, should we wait? can you hold up while I hit the restroom? is it okay if I get food? what if half of us stay for another round and meet up later? - but even though we'd had a few already, we were disciplined enough to queue up for our spot at the bar, like a well-oiled machine. In fact, we might have been a little TOO well-oiled - a group of drunk people can transform from a herd of cats to a herd of elephants in the blink of an eye - so the fact that it took us half an hour to get our drinks may not have been such a bad thing.

Regardless, once you do have a drink, you can take in the interior, which nods to the building's historic status as one of the oldest buildings in town while still providing all the expected comforts of modernity. Well, comforts and ginger garnishes.