#77: Touché

The Bar

Touché. 417 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 4/26/17 @ 10pm.

The Drink

Hot apple pie. Fireball whiskey, apple schnapps, pineapple juice. $9.

Once again, a bartender tried to give us a Flaming Dr Pepper, and once again, we demurred in favor of a slightly different fire-adjacent drink. I don't know what your opinion of Fireball whiskey is: to me, it's a necessary evil at best. Its aggressive cinnamon bite over a cough syrup-y undertaste, in addition to its "shots for idiots" marketing strategy, makes it something I usually try to avoid. But I'll drink just about anything once, and our bartender was so good at his job that he had us practically champing at the bit to drink these flaming Fireball shots over a schnapps/juice base. What do you know, they tasted exactly like hot apple pie, or at least the gloriously deep-fried McDonald's version from about 25 years ago (feel free to mock me for that "Only 90s kids will remember this!"-type reference, but I ate about a billion of those as a kid and those memories are cherished). It was a great choice on his part, but I was also intrigued by all the other cheap drinks they had, including a this-can't-be-real $1 shots special. Normally I go for a one-and-done strategy at the bar, but our bartender was so convincing he got us to stay for multiple rounds of shockingly cheap drinks. If you insist!

The Crew

Aaron

Notes

Somehow I had always overlooked Touché, even though it's practically primeval in Sixth Street terms. It dates from 1986, meaning that of the non-Driskill bars, only Maggie Mae's is older. Like I already said, we had truly superb bar service here, so the onus is probably on me for not seeking them out (like our bartender said about a dozen times, they're a "regulars-driven bar"). On the other hand, there's just a ton of bars on Sixth, and while you might have your own views on whether the paradox of choice is true or not, it remains indisputable that often you have to choose something and just stick with it, since you can only drink at one bar at a time. Everyone else sitting at the bar looked fairly well-ensconced, so perhaps it's worth paying them a few more visits.

I liked Touché's layout. It was nothing fancy, just the typical long walkup to the bar, but the tiny group of tables next to the entrance was perfect for us, since after downing several rounds of the drinks we were cajoled into buying, we were able to sit down, relax, and watch the foot traffic go by. I'll always prefer rooftop views just for the sheer pleasure of gazing down at the lights of the street illuminating the thousands of drunk people in churning Brownian motion, but nothing beats sitting just on the right side of the glass from the seething mass of humanity that promenades down inebriation avenue. Well, not that seething, since it was only a Wednesday, but there were certainly enough curious characters to make it difficult to focus on Celtics @ Bulls. I wonder how a graph of the motion of street drunks compares to, say, ants in their colonies. There's a question for a $1 shot.