#38: Friends

The Bar

Friends. 208 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 2/11/17 @ 11pm.

The Drink

Rumple Minze shot. $8.

I was trying to think of how to best convey the taste of this peppermint liqueur, but esteemed purveyor of quality journalism TotalFratMove.com once described it as like "blowing Santa Claus", and I can't hope to improve on such a phrase. It's rarely a sign of a quality bartender if, when asked for your best drink, you respond with a this kind of tourist bait, and an even worse sign if the tourist bait is $8. However, I can't claim that we didn't deserve it, and I suppose any bartender who treats his patrons with the contempt they deserve is only doing his civic duty. Would I have done the same in his position? Asking yourself if you would serve you Rumple Minze is the kind of question that could keep you up at night, especially on those dark nights when the answer is yes.

The Crew

Ben, Cat, Elijah, Aaron, Vince, Travis, Geoff, James, Rome.

Notes

Friends has NO COVER printed prominently on its sign outside. Before you start making "don't judge a bar by its cover!" jokes, know that cover charges on Dirty Sixth are extremely common, especially on certain nights. This is either a legitimate method for ensuring bars don't get too crowded for comfort and safety while providing a stable income stream for the band playing, or a sinister ruse to extract more money while controlling the demographics of who's inside. Or both at the same time - Sixth Street is full of these fun little puzzlers.

Another fun puzzler: given that most of us were on at least our sixth or seventh drink of the evening, should we have been filed into the riffraff column and been shown the door? I guess there's a real difference between a profitable drunk and an unprofitable drunk, and after our second round of shots in two bars, we were certainly in the first category. To be perfectly honest, I don't recall much about this bar, although it seems like the kind of place I would generally avoid. We took our drinks, goggled at the fishtank that is the interior's star attraction, and shuffled onwards through the night, stopping only to get some pizza. "It's not great pizza, but it's pizza, so it's great."