#76: Cheers

The Bar

Cheers. 416 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 4/26/17 @ 9:30pm.

The Drink

Inception. Part 1 (blue shot): Vodka, lime gimlet, blue curaçao, grenadine. Part 2 (clear shot): Coconut rum, peach schnapps. Part 3 (base): Red Bull. $9.

Cheers is a shot bar, but not the kind of shot bar that gives its patrons Rumpel Minze; unless you were to request it, that is. They don't have one of those shot wheels, so you'll just have to rely on your friends to order you something good, and not a "my friends are jerks" scam drink like the infamous Blue Wave. At least, not more than once. On the contrary, we got a round of one of the most complex drinks we've had so far. The very first three-part drink I've had, the Inception was not only really nice-looking but nice-tasting as well. The bartender was all set to make us some Flaming Dr Peppers, but after learning that we'd just had some Flaming Dreamsicles at their sister bar Big Bang, he decided to mix it up a bit and give us a shot with a show. The way this works is that you pull out the blue shot, which makes the clear shot drop into the Red Bull, drink the blue shot, then drink the clear shot/Red Bull mixture. Easy. Perhaps a true Inception shot would featured a smaller version of the drink inside the larger version, or you would have to listen to an Édith Piaf song while drinking it. Either way, I cannot emphasize enough how much more pleasant this was than another Rumple Minze shot.

The Crew

Aaron, Davis, Hannah, Travis.

Notes

Cheers is the third in the TV show-themed bar family we've visited, after Friends and Big Bang. It's been on Sixth for a long time - 24 years, according to the bartender, which doesn't make it quite as antediluvian as the Driskill, but still far more venerable than almost any other spot on the block. Yet another one of my college classic hangouts, Cheers is "just" a shot bar, but with 99 different varieties to choose from it goes quite a bit beyond your typical shot bar. That might seem like a dead-simple subgenre of bar to specialize in, but if it's so easy for "just an average shot bar" to stay around for nearly a quarter of a century, where's all the others? Clearly they're doing something right, and Cheers has certainly earned its place on Sixth.

In fact, while we were being served I had a major nostalgia moment, and once we were done with our drinks, and even though a good chunk of the bar was closed for renovations they let me wander around to indulge myself. Back in college I spent a lot of time here, almost as as much as at The Library. Cheers is huge, with four different bars arrayed on multiple levels of roof and balconies amidst large leafy trees, and when I was surveying the temporarily empty landscape outside I had flashbacks to my younger drinking years, when we'd get round of shots from one of the outside bars, standing in a floodlight-bathed semi-circle wearing weeknight best and drunkenly toasting to school, life, each other, and whatever came to mind. Over a decade later, I feel like I have more to toast to, but I do it less often. Maybe all toasts are aspirational, and as time goes on you have less to aspire to, whether because your wishes have come true, or because you've stopped wishing. Either way, I'm glad Cheers is still around.