Saturday, December 23, 2017

#118: Terminal 6

The Bar


Terminal 6. 302 E 6th St #101, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 12/23/17 @ 11pm.

UPDATE: Terminal 6 has closed.

The Drink



Adios, motherfucker!Tequila, whiskey, vodka, gin, rum, triple sec, blue curaƧao, sour. $6.

By now I'm getting to consider this drink a classic, and the fact that it's made with Dirty Sixth's typically peculiar blend of effort (lots of ingredients) and laziness (it's in a red solo cup) only enhances it, and so this edition of the Adios, motherfucker! lands with an even more heightened melange of sensations than usual: both the elevated mixology and slopping the hogs that defines a Saturday night out on the town. Various scientists have attempted over the years to quantify the precise effects that the shape of a drinking glass has on the contents within, to more or less plausible results. Like, I'd certainly believe that beer tastes differently from a Belgian glass than a boot, but there's no way you could tell the difference between every type of glass, even if there was some sort of contraption that let you drink from a glass without being able to tell its shape. I have yet to see a double blind study or numerical simulation apply itself to a red solo cup, but my affection for this affordable slumgullion only gets greater the more humble the drinking vessel. I wish they'd given me the lime garnish this drink had at the last place though; limes are always a plus.

The Crew


Aaron, Vince, Geoff.



Notes


I will never stop talking about the history of even the most mundane bars on Sixth, because an otherwise seemingly unremarkable 18+ dance club becomes something grander when looked at in context, as layers of grit produce a pearl inside the oyster. Terminal 6 has been a succession of clubs over the years, passing through several alternate identities (Crave and Exodus were the two names offered) before settling on its current form. When we were walking past this joint I thought at first that I had totally missed it, but it turned out that it had only decided to open up beyond just being a venue very recently. Phew! The interior was excellent - three stories of the really neat mortared stone that defines the 19th century Austin masonry style, lined with smaller side bars and packed with pre-Christmas revelers. In the windows out front they had girls dancing in the stone windows to the  music blasting from the sound system, and it really made me wonder: what would Stephen F Austin have thought of the scene? We valorize the architects of our society as having laid the foundations for our current existences, yet exactly how would Mirabeau Lamar have reacted to the knowledge that his bitter struggle with Sam Houston to establish a new seat of empire in the Texas Hill Country would ultimately result in girls getting down to Gold Digger on a chilly winter night amid a swirl of drunk people in ugly Christmas sweaters? We don't get to choose our ultimate legacies, but personally I think that's a success by any measure you want to call it.