#59: Thirsty Nickel

The Bar

Thirsty Nickel. 325 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 2/28/17 @ 9pm.

The Drink

Golden Delicious. Crown Royal Sour Apple, pineapple and lemon juice, ginger ale. $7.

I've already talked about how much I like the apple-flavored edition of Crown Royal, and I find myself liking it even more in fruitier drinks since it has a slight tartness that goes well against the spice of the ginger beer and the sweetness of the citrus juices. They make it strong here, but you'll hardly even notice because of the flavor balance. Complimenting Dirty Sixth bars on their mixology still feels a bit weird to me, but you have to give credit where credit is due. This was one of their specialty cocktails, and as always, it's nice to see a bartender standing by the menu. Why even call something a special if you won't recommend it? Of course, this wasn't the only drink I got. I needed a side beer, and there's only one reason you need a side beer....

The Crew

Vince, Travis, Aaron, Rome, Davis, Sonali.

Notes

... for beer pong! Any bar with beer pong is automatically a winner in my book, and we took full advantage of our status as some of the only people in the bar to strike up a quick 3 on 3 game using the table they had thoughtfully set up with water cups. TABC doesn't have a single rule explicitly forbidding bars from using beer, but they really don't like it, and they have a few weapons lying around to cite bars that host beer-inclusive tournaments: sanitation concerns, promotion of binge drinking, and violation of the rule that allows each person to have no more than two drinks. So the few bars that do have beer pong stick to water cups, and allow you to drink the equivalent in beer on your own time. We faced off, the Chi Phis beat the non-Chi Phis, and we adjourned to listen to a pretty rad funk band.

When it's not giving its patrons a forum to practice the greatest drinking game known to man, Thirsty Nickel is a Chicago bar, as you can see by all the Chicago-related paraphernalia adorning the walls. I'm always interested in how bars pick "outsider teams" to celebrate; in this case it's because a co-owner wanted to represent his hometown, but since Austin is not only home to a high percentage of transplants but is also the largest major city in the country without a pro sports team, you might expect a market opportunity for an unusual number of outsider team bars around town. I doubt statistics comparing Austin's number of outsider team bars to that of other cities exist, though you might have guessed the fact that the Longhorns are #1 in national revenue for college sports by the sheer amount of burnt orange across the city. It seems like there are fewer than you'd expect given the number of transplants, but perhaps most immigrants to Austin are not the kind of working-class sports fans who demand team bars. As long as they also show the Longhorns, it's all good to me!