#138: Suerte

The Bar

Suerte. 1800 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 12/30/18 @ 9pm.

The Drink

Don Dario. Reposado tequila, tamarindo, sarsaparilla, lime. $11.

The name of this drink is a homage to a former occupant of this address. I never went to Don Dario, but it still lives on at its new location down at I-35 and Slaughter. Its namesake drink is kind of like a boozy root beer: a bit sweet, thanks to the sarsaparilla (which my brain insists on rendering as "sasparilla", for some reason), and tart, thanks to everything else. "Balance" is one of those subjective critic's terms that are as slippery to handle as your cutlery after you've had a few too many cocktails, but it fits here - both main flavors were distinct yet not overpowering, and when the bartender asked if I wanted another one when I finished it, I agreed immediately. I regret not coming here for happy hour (or "Lucky Hour" as they call it, a play on the restaurant's name, which means "lucky"), since the drink would have been almost half-off, but it's tough to get down to Sixth Street before 5:30pm, when it ends. No matter, craft cocktails don't usually come cheap.

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

By day, Suerte is a highly-acclaimed Mexican restaurant dedicated to raising the consciousness and expectations of Austinites about how good proper corn tortillas can be when crafted with care and artistry. By night, it still does that, but it's a bit more acceptable to also drink a lot of high-end cocktails along with your elevated repast. I remember the buzz about this place immediately upon its opening earlier in the year (the food, the vision, the decor), and the hype has not relented one bit - it was popping when I was there, and indeed the other time that I went previously, which I alas was not able to incorporate into the Sixth Street Complete, it was really difficult to get a table. Some of the fellow clientele there seemed like they were here just to Be Seen here, which I didn't like, but I refuse to get into a debate on if there's a wrong way to visit a restaurant, so I'll demur. You should absolutely check this place out though - they genuinely do have some phenomenal corn tortillas, and though they're a bit pricey (you could probably do an interesting comparative socioeconomic study of Suerte vs Cisco's, the historic Mexican restaurant I had visited just prior), they occupy a unique niche in the Austin restaurant landscape and are worth visiting for that alone. 

Plus, even the sports hecklers at Suerte are a classier breed - on my way out I ran into a guy who took one look at my Bills shirt and made a good-natured reference to The Comeback, a traumatic event in his Houston childhood, so we stood in their parking lot and talked about the Bills, the Oilers, Austin, our lives, and everything, for well after we each should have been going. It was one of those great serendipitous encounters with a friendly stranger, and as a bonus I got to introduce him to the Houston Oilers Fight Song, almost certainly the greatest fight song ever recorded.

#137: Cisco's

The Bar

Cisco's. 1511 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 12/29/18 @ 6:30pm.

The Drink

Michelada. Negra Modelo, homemade michelada mix. $4.50.

I would love to tell you more about the exact ingredients in this rendition of the michelada, but I can't since it's their own house recipe. The michelada is often thought of as a sort of Mexican equivalent of the Bloody Mary, as they both involve tomato juice, booze, and spice, but I have yet to see micheladas get the same gimmick/gentrification treatment, probably due to the slightly more exotic flavors that go into them -  no burgers, beef ribs, or fried chicken here! I think the biggest philosophical debate I've seen is whether clamato is mandatory, or whether it's acceptable to mollify the gringo palate by sticking to plain tomato juice. Cisco's version is about as straightforward as you can possibly get: a simple dark lager like the Modelo, a pleasing mixture of slightly savory/spicy flavors, some seasoning, and a lime. Perfect! Here I was foolishly drinking it inside at a bar on a winter night instead of outside on a patio in the summer afternoon, but it really hit the spot all the same. Whether or not this was the best michelada you've ever had, I'll bet it's the one you could drink the most of without getting sick of them.

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

My visit to Cisco's came immediately following several momentous changes for the restaurant, which I had traveled past many times but had never visited. Cisco's, which has been around since 1950 (!) is one of those classic East Austin joints like Perla's which are valued as much for their persistence as neighborhood institutions as their reliably good food, though Cisco's also boasts an extensive collection of photos of the famous politicians who have visited, which Perla's does not. They had always served booze with their meals, but it was only after an ownership change (which now connects them to the ubiquitous McGuire Moorman Hospitality Group) that they reconfigured the interior for actual bar service, in addition to extending their hours. I'm sure it was a big decision financially and emotionally to shift their focus from a pure restaurant to also offering bar service, since aside from the revenue shift concerns you also have to worry about upsetting your loyal customers while chasing fickle new ones, but I hope it doesn't hurt them, because in addition to my drink I also got a dinner of some migas breakfast tacos and their famous biscuits and they were excellent. When a restaurant has been around for nearly 70 years, it's a good sign they know what they're doing, even when they change it up a little.

#136: Edwin's Sports Bar

The Bar

Edwin's Sports Bar. 700 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 12/27/18 @ 9:30pm.

The Drink

Hops and Grain Haze County Double IPA. $8.

Now this is a beer. After having gone through my requisite college hopophilia phase I don't drink many Double IPAs these days, but I always appreciate them when they show up in my hand. You expect a strong bite and a strong pour, and 8.2% is nothing to sneeze at. Hops and Grain wants you to pair it with "dried meats, grilled salmon, and a chocolate caramel cheesecake". I didn't pair mine with anything, but maybe I should have, since it did have a little bit of sweet fruit flavor to it that I bet a cheesecake would have gone well with, although to be fair there's probably not many things that cheesecake doesn't go well with. I have issues these days with mainlining multiple hop bombs in a row, however, so after this beer I switched to something a bit easier on the palate. 

The Crew

Travis, Aaron.

Notes

Edwin's Sports Bar replaced the Waller Ballroom, which makes me smile a bit - why even bother to change the name of the venue if you're just going to go from someone's last name to their first? It's the same guy! But I suppose the owners wanted to maintain a little bit of continuity between their old joint and their new one after they reopened it as Edwin's, since whereas Waller was a concert venue, Edwin's is a sports bar, with the requisite bar food and flat screen TVs that you expect from a sports bar (evidently the original structure began life as a feed store for horses). The interior was quite nice actually, and an interesting example of how small changes in decor can make a big difference in how an audience perceives a venue. There wasn't much sports chat for us, though - we sat next to some New Zealanders in town to visit their friends and somehow ended up talking for like an hour about how New Zealand transitioned from a closed UK-focused economy to an internationally-focused open economy in the 80s and 90s via the amusingly-named (if somewhat less amusing in actual effect) Rogernomics and Ruthanasia economic reforms. Whatever your stance on macroeconomics and regulatory policy, you have to appreciate the wide variety of people you can run into who are happy to chat about anything at all with complete strangers. I am not sure that that was exactly what Edwin Waller had in mind when he was surveying the small plot of land along the Colorado River that became the city known as Austin, but hopefully he would have appreciated it just the same.

#135: Teji's

The Bar

Teji's. 616 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 12/27/18 @ 9pm.

UPDATE: Teji's has closed.

The Drink

Dream tea. TW Samuel's bourbon, peach schnapps, sweet & sour, ginger beer. $4.

One of the most cost-effective drinks I've been served yet, discounting gimmick booze tureens like the Adios, motherfucker!, this hefty Moscow Mule variant that I got for practically nothing was quite solid. For a long time peach schnapps was one of those "never again" liquors for me thanks to one of Those Nights back in college, where poor planning on on my part meant I entered the night with nothing but a bottle of the syrupy liquor and then exited the next morning with a saccharine migraine, but I gradually rebuilt my shattered relationship with schnapps (relationschnapps?) thanks to its inarguably excellent taste, at least if you like peach as much as I do. I had never had TW Samuels before and I liked it a lot. This was one of those drinks that made the phrase "well-balanced" pop into my head as I was drinking it because of how well the three supporting ingredients backed up the bourbon. I was initially confused why it was called "Dream tea", because it couldn't have tasted less like a tea, but it turned out that Dream was the name of the bartender! I'm all for naming things after yourself, logic be damned - a great name for a great drink.

The Crew

Travis, Aaron.

Notes

I'm not sure what the minimum number of locations to be considered a chain is, so let's just call Teji's a local mini-chain of Indian restaurants/groceries, though unlike the others this location eschews the grocery part of the business model. This location is a bit over a year old, and it brings a welcome change of pace from the other neighboring bars by virtue of its existence as a fairly normal and quiet restaurant. You'd hardly even know there were people drunkenly staggering around outside, except for the occasional person entering and leaving. We did not eat during our visit, but I have eaten at the location on the Drag and enjoyed it. Austin hasn't historically had a strong focus on Indian food, though that's now changing; I haven't made it part of my drunk food rotation, but I could easily see myself tearing through some curry after a few bar stops, especially at a convenient safe haven location like this. I love bars as much (or more - let's be real) than the next guy, but it's nice to change it up every once in a while.

#134: Buck Wild

The Bar

Buck Wild. 310 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 12/27/18 @ 8:30pm.

The Drink

Power Hour. Ketel One Citroën vodka, Grand Marnier, Velvet falernum, lime juice, sugar, 5 Hour Energy. $15.

Regular readers are all too aware of my low general opinion of frozen drinks, the sainted frozen Irish coffee being the lone exception, but when you deliberately leave your drink choice in the hands of your bartender, you drink what they pour and you might as well try to make the best of it, even if this massive icy pile of ooze does look like the sad remains of a snowman on a hot day (or a cold day - I'm not sure why I was recommended a cold drink in December). These drinks are not rigid enough to be a snow cone yet not fluid enough to be a milkshake, so all you can really do is patiently slurp them like you were a Northeastern homeowner trying to clear the snow off of a large driveway armed only with a small vacuum cleaner. Your reward is a big pile of vaguely tropical citrusy sweetness - the velvet falernum, Grand Marnier, and straight-up sugar ensure that your teeth will battle your forehead to experience the greatest amount of pain as you race to finish it before it dissolves into sludge. This is no fault of the bartender, because there's only so much you can do with a concoction like this; at least the caffeine infusion you get from the 5 Hour Energy will get you ready for more. I am not sure who the target audience for this type of frozen drink is, but I will say that I have had worse ones, so if you're the kind of person who likes these, then you might as well give this a shot. Damning with faint praise is better than damning with no praise at all, right?

The Crew

Aaron, Travis.

Notes

Buck Wild used to be Trophy Club, being transformed into its current incarnation by the same folks who also operate Buckshot and Two Bucks (I'm not sure if there are any more Buck bars being built - the obvious Buck name of Starbucks seems like it would have some copyright issues). It had been open for about 8 months when we stopped by, and was settled in enough to where you'd never know it was anything different. The mechanical bull is still present, although the big inflatable outdoor pool protective thing that surrounds it is now blue instead of red. The interior is fairly similar, and the most major change is the addition of some bar games like skee-ball - Trophy Club seemed to operate under more of a cram 'em in philosophy, whereas Buck Wild seems like they want you to linger and goof around for a while. That's just what we did, taking advantage of the lesser traffic on the Thursday night to wander around the interior and chill - or warm up, in my case.

#133: BBG's

The Bar

BBG's. 214 E 6th St A, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 12/27/18 @ 7:30pm.

The Drink

Texas Mule. Tito's vodka, ginger beer, lime. $8.

A Moscow Mule is not quite the simplest cocktail you can make, but it's not far off. It's also one of the least likely cocktails to offend, as ginger beer is hard to hate (remember that it was included in the Moscow Mule to help sell the vodka, not the other way around), which makes the drink a wise choice for a bartender to offer to a strange patron, particularly when it's made with the vodka most associated with Austin. I know Tito's gets ragged on for being made with corn (true), for being mass distilled (true), and for being a hipster choice (also true), but I will never hate it. I have never been a vodka connoisseur to the point of actually caring about "body" and "character" and "notes" the way I do with something like scotch or mezcal, and I am fine with have a pedestrian, functional, downright proletarian relationship with the liquor that generally offers the straightest route to getting drunk out of all of the "major" types. Poured into the standard copper mug, it's just enough to trick your brain into thinking you're getting a unique drinking experience instead of an exactly average Moscow Mule. Is there another cocktail with such a low ceiling and high floor as a Moscow Mule?

The Crew

Travis, Aaron.

Notes

What's the easiest way to deal with a branding issue? Rebrand! ATX Brands, which owns Bikini's, was evidently unhappy with Bikini's self-selected image as as breastaurant bar, so they overhauled everything and reopened under the new name. The name itself is actually the first hint that the redesign was not quite as dramatic as it could have been - the acronym officially stands for "Burgers, Beer, & Games", though you could be forgiven for thinking "Bikini's Bar & Grill", as there is still the unmistakable stamp of the sports bar on its interior. Gone are the skimpy uniforms and basic bar food, in are slightly less skimy uniforms and an upscaled menu, but nothing is too unfamiliar. If you'd drunkenly passed out on your barstool in 2017 and blearily awoken a year later, Rip Van Winkle-style, the logo and the bartenders' outfits would be essentially your only clues that your surroundings had changed. Whether you'd find that comforting or not is up to you.

#132: Maiko

The Bar

Maiko. 311 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 12/20/18 @ 9pm.

UPDATE: Maiko has closed.

The Drink

Cherry Blossom. Hennessy VS, Absolut Lime, grenadine, Sierra Mist, lime juice, cherry. $9.

I have never in my life been served a cocktail with cognac AND vodka before; not even in my most degenerate moments as college student was I struck by the urge to cross those streams. Part of it is the classiness incongruity: Hennessy is of course the world's most consumed, most cross-cultural, and most rappable cognac brand, whereas Absolut flavored vodka is not really on that same level. I had also never really had much cognac outside of the occasional Sazerac, which I love. However, it turns out that the Cherry Blossom is a real drink, which you can find on Absolut's own website. Weirdly, Absolut forgot to include any of their own product in the recipe, but the bartender, who thought long and hard about my request, helpfully remedied that with the Absolut Lime, making a few other minor substitutions along the way. The result was strong but fairly sweet, exactly as you'd expect, with only the 2 citrus ingredients pulling against the sugars. Multiple trips to New Orleans have taught me to approach brightly colored sugary drinks as one would a species of Amazonian frog - enticing, but with a high downside risk. I'm happy to report that I didn't wake up the next day convulsing, desperately fumbling for antivenom, but this is kind of a tourist drink, no matter how impeccably and thoughtfully crafted. Next time I get a Hennessy drink, I'd prefer it a bit more minimalist.

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

To my eternal shame, I missed this place the first time I was walking up and down Sixth. My shame only lasted about a year, until I figured out that there was also booze here, but still. Maiko's humble exterior belies the excellence of its food, most notably its mac and cheese. Yes, I know, it's a sushi restaurant that everyone who works downtown loves, but I don't work downtown, so I've never had a reason to stop in. Maiko has a fantastic rendition of the simple classic, with excellent white Cheddar and a sake reduction in the mix. Immediately upon trying it, it became one of my favorites. I'm sure the sushi is excellent as well, but that will have to wait for another time. The bar/lounge is split off from the more normal restaurant section, with cool Chinese lanterns illuminating the art over the brick walls. The whole place had one of those cozy, comfortable vibes that made me want to linger. It felt like one of those places where I could have hung out indefinitely, just chatting with the bartender, sipping on increasingly hallucinogenically-colored drinks until the sun rose, but this was the last stop on a long night, so eventually I reluctantly departed this overlooked gem for the world outside.

#131: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

The Bar

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. 701 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 12/20/18 @ 7:30pm.

The Drink

WTF Old-Fashioned. Nine-Banded whiskey, piloncillo, Angostura bitters, Luxardo cherry. $10.

This was the ninth Old-Fashioned I've been served so far, and it continued a streak of great Old-Fashioneds, with Clearport's version being the only real dud along the way, or maybe the Slow & Low bottled version. You can't win em all, and there's bound to be some stray steps off of the Golden Path of cocktail evolution, so I don't really mind the misses too much - it just makes the hits all the sweeter, and this was definitely a hit. Speaking of sweet, I really did appreciate WTF's decision to substitute the tradition simple syrup for piloncillo, AKA "Mexican brown sugar". Piloncillo imparts more of a caramel flavor than simple syrup does; it reminded me of the demerara syrup in the Old-Fashioned I got at Whisler's. It went really well with the whiskey, which I was pleased to see was Nine-Banded. I'm a sucker for anything Austin, Nine-Banded is so Austin it was founded by former Longhorns: QED. Add Angostura bitters (AKA the best bitters) and Luxardo cherries (AKA the best cherries), and you have a perfectly enjoyable Old-Fashioned, though there was a bit too much ice in this one to keep it from top-tier status. I guess it is West Sixth, after all. You may have heard of the phrase "premium mediocre"; think of this as "budget luxury", if that makes sense. But you don't really appreciate great ingredients until you don't have them anymore, so I savored it all the same.

The Crew

Kyle, Aaron.

Notes

WTF, as they like to be known for obvious reasons, replaced the decrepit shell of a long-dead Mr. Gatti's. This is an unusually clear case of development without gentrification on this street, although longtime Austinites who can still sing the "dial 459-2222" jingle might still regret the loss of even a single Gatti's outpost. I like the new space a lot - very clean lines, everything you'd expect out of the current wave of modernist interior design that incorporates the brick and stone of the building into a space that subconsciously communicates "you should spend a lot of money here" without also setting off the "too rich for my blood" alarms. I really liked the gigantic outdoor patio, which shouldn't surprise you. Austinites are stereotypically extremely passionate about patios even (especially?) given our godawful summer weather, and so a haze of "best patio" listicles hangs permanently over our heads. This is a great entry onto the list, since it's huge and open; well-shaped for the throngs of people who no doubt populate it on a night of heavier patronage than when we were there. A fine addition to your West Sixth rotation.

#130: Kung Fu Saloon

The Bar

Kung Fu Saloon. 716 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 12/20/18 @ 6:30pm.

The Drink

Pickleback. Tito's vodka, pickle juice. $7.

The pickleback is still a standby, and I still don't like paying more than $5 for one. I still like Tito's vodka, haters be damned, and I definitely still like pickle juice as a chaser, so I was still at least mildly-enthusiastic about the bartender deciding that a pickleback was what best showed off the strengths of the bar. It was a solid rendition of what I would call an old classic, except that it was invented in 2006! In addition to a quick shot like this saving the bartender a lot of time thinking and crafting a cocktail, another advantage that serving a shot has for them is that you're almost guaranteed to order another drink right after it, either to wash the taste out of your mouth (unnecessary in this case, given how much I love pickle juice), or just to have something else to sip on while you converse. If that was the bartender's bet, it paid off, as we immediately got some Coors Lights while we engaged in some deep life/career discussions afterwards. 

The Crew

Aaron, Kyle.

Notes

Kung Fu Saloon is locally infamous due to its historically racist dress code policies, and also apparently for over-serving. They seem to have stopped being racist, however, so in the spirit of forgiveness we checked it out. It moved to this spot from just a block away on Rio Grande, where it was ineligible for inclusion in the Sixth Street Complete project due to not being directly accessible from Sixth. It's now in the lower half of what used to be Benji's, which I never went to, right below Green Light Social Club. Kung Fu Saloon essentially transported its original layout exactly to the new joint, keeping all of the adult drunkard amusements - skee-ball, connect four, shuffleboard, Jenga, arcade games, etc - in a more or less similar arrangement around the edge of the interior with the bar at the center. Kung Fu Saloon was also notorious on Sixth even apart from the racism for bro-y-ness (which come to think of it might not be unrelated to the racism), but happily during our visit it was mostly unpopulated and therefore unbro'd. I've talked before about my "it's not about the bar, it's about the patrons" mantra of quality, but I suppose at some bars the patronage is a reflection of the ownership; you get the clientele you're looking for. Maybe it's not fair to judge a bar by its worst moments... actually, that does seem pretty fair. I gave them a second chance, but you're totally within your rights not to, even if they were perfectly mediocre when we were there.

#129: Lin Asian Bar

The Bar

Lin Asian Bar. 1203 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78703

Visited 12/20/18 @ 5:30pm.

The Drink

Shanghai Famous. Mezcal, green chartreuse, Aperol, lime. $12.

This cocktail wasn't on their menu at all, which is typically a good sign - you always want the answer to "what drink best represents the bar?" to involve a bit of thought, and what could be more thoughtful than a bespoke cocktail? This drink was puzzling for a few reasons, though:

1. A mezcal drink is an odd choice for an Asian bar but whatever, I am always in favor of cocktail syncretism/ecumenism/globalism. 
2. The name has nothing to do with the ingredients, none of which are from Shanghai, or indeed anywhere in Asia with the exception of the lime. 
3. The bartender described it as being a variant on a Last Word, which intrigued me, except that this drink shared only two ingredients with that excellent cocktail. 

No matter; how was the final product? Delicious! I had never had green chartreuse before, and though it took a few sips to really explore it, I liked it. Much like with orange, the color is named for the liqueur, and not the other way around. I can't claim that I was able to taste all 130 secret ingredients, but it was complex enough, especially in between the Aperol and the mezcal, to be worth coming back for. It seems to pair well with just about anything, so for those of you playing along at home, go nuts when you're making a cocktail of your own.

The Crew

Kyle, Aaron.

Notes

Lin Asian Bar (a funny name which reminds me of that scene from The Cable Guy) replaced the venerable Rounders pizza joint on West Sixth with a nicer and newer and more Asian ambiance that complements the similarly-new Bar Peached nearby. Rounders was more of a "family" joint, in that you could take your kids there and drink some beers while they stuffed themselves with pizza; Lin is more of a date night spot, in that this is where you'd go if you were still trying to impress someone. They've really lightened up the interior and made it almost completely different than the homey, well-worn pizza joint it used to be. Lin is as much a restaurant as a bar, as we could see from the gigantic stacks of wooden dim sum boxes next to the open kitchen, and we tried some of their appetizers. They were excellent, although we did not try the dim sum, which like most places in Austin limits it to the weekend. Since I didn't grow up in Clarksville I didn't have enough childhood memories to really mourn Rounders, and all I can say is that Lin is great on its own. Since the bar area is kind of close to the front door I don't know that I would stay here for a lot of rounds, but I had a blast when I was here.

#128: Pour Choices

The Bar

Pour Choices. 401 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 12/12/18 @ 10pm.

The Drink

Adios, motherfucker!. Tequila, whiskey, vodka, gin, rum, triple sec, blue curaçao, sour. $5.

Is your favorite liquor "all of them"? Is the preferred strength of your drinks "more"? Do you have a powerful thirst for cocktails that look like antifreeze? Did you never truly outgrow the suicide sodas of your youth? Grab one of these and you're set, with all of your questions answered. I'm rapidly running out of interesting things to say about this variant of the Long Island Iced Tea, which is now coming to embody Dirty Sixth for me, more than Old-Fashioneds or even Lone Stars do the rest of the street, but it is noteworthy how consistent each iteration of the Adios, motherfucker! is from one bar to the next, despite what I'm sure is a huge variance in the exact mix of well liquors. They all taste... blue, basically, since all the liquors blend into each other, and even the sweeteners are essentially the same thing. The only differences are the shape of the glass and the number of ice cubes. Oh, and the price - at $5 this was the cheapest of them all, even though by volume it looks like the largest. If you need your weekly fix of blue-tinged liquor and you're on a budget, or if you just feel like muttering "I am the liquor" at the patron next to you, come on down!

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

Pour Choices recently replaced Old School, which itself had been around since sometime in the 00s. This struck me as odd, as I'd recently been to Night Owl on Burnet, which is owned by the same people, and it seemed fine, but perhaps the vagaries of Sixth Street rents meant that they decided to focus on the cheaper stretch of Burnet safely up north. Or maybe the new owner, who literally hit the jackpot to get funding money, just gave them a really sweet buyout offer. However it happened, I have to say that the new place looks nicer than Old School did. The changes are mostly just cosmetic, as they would have to be with a historic structure like this, but it's amazing what a simple dusting will do to an interior inevitably over time comes to look every minute of its 100ish years old. Even if it's mostly the same, it's nice to see everything looking a bit more up to date, you know? Pour Choices is more of a dance club than Old School was, but even though I don't hit these places up to dance (I'm on a serious mission here!), there were few enough people here that I got to jam to the music while I was sipping my blue away.

#127: Sake Mama

The Bar

Sake Mama. 519 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 12/12/18 @ 9:30pm.

The Drink

Mango tango shot. Vodka, Monster Mango Loco. $6.

As with so many other cocktails, the exact definition of a "mango tango" is somewhat flexible, and in fact it might be better to think of the name as merely a flag of convenience under which a motley crew of any vaguely tropical ingredients at hand can sail. I know that most of the more famous versions of the mango tango use some variety of rum, yet vodka showed up in the smaller shotglass perched atop the chopsticks that separated it from the waiting vessel of Monster Mango Loco below. We were nowhere near the Dia De Los Muertos season that Monster Energy somewhat mystifyingly claims powers the drink, but I'm sure with enough sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate you can preserve just about any amount of spiritual energy you'd like for the winter holidays. The resulting shot was not particularly Japanese, but it got the job done. Like a lot of crowd-friendly shots, this one has a routine, where the employees pour you and your bros a row of precariously perched shots, he counts down from three, and then slams the bartop, causing the liquor shots to fall into the mixer, which you grab and then chug as fast as possible. Since I was the only person there, I bought the bartenders a few rounds and we practiced our technique. It takes a few to tango.

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

Shot bars make for a fun detour from your regular bar rotation because the focus is totally on you and your friends, not on the drink or even the bar. Since you can't really savor shots in the same way as regular drinks, and are in fact encouraged to pour them down your gullet as rapidly as possible, the drinking becomes a spectacle. Often at cocktail bars I find myself admiring the craftsmanship of the drink, even trading them with my friends, in order to share something of my individual experience with them. Not here! There is no such thing as an individual experience, it's all about the group, and nowhere else will the rounds system of drink-buying get you into trouble faster than at a bar where it takes half second to finish your whole drink. Sake Mama had only been open for 8 months when I stopped in, a sake bar concept that's apparently very popular in Japan having replaced an oddly-shaped convenience store. Since I was the only patron, the extra space that was formerly occupied with racks of products looked lonely, but you only have to look at how packed Cheers or Buckshot get to be grateful for the extra breathing room. One notable gimmick was that the employees have blinking LED nametags, which initially struck me as vaguely demeaning, but after a while you get used to being hypnotized as each round is poured and you wait obediently for your bartender to yell at you to drink your shot. Some bartenders are servers; these guys were drill sergeants. They also serve Japanese-style street food, which I didn't try, but which smelled delicious.

#126: Ramen Tatsu-ya

The Bar

Ramen Tatsu-Ya. 1600 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 12/12/18 @ 8pm.

The Drink

Red Beard. Rye whiskey, red shiso, pomegranate, ginger, citrus. $10.

Much like at many of these bars, the cashier/bartender immediately thought to direct us to the special menu when asked for the drink that best represented the establishment. I was half-expecting them to suggest the shochu-based option, given its relative rarity and greater connection to Japan, but I enjoyed my whiskey-based special just the same. When you see a rye whiskey-based cocktail, you naturally think to compare it to an Old-Fashioned, but this really didn't taste anything like that, thanks to the other ingredients. Shiso is a member of the mint family, used in cocktails for the flavor and color, and it gave a nice cool offset to the bite of the rye. Ginger is slightly less unusual, though it's also not your average cocktail glass inhabitant, and it helps fill out a robust range of taste from the sharpness of the rye and the brightness of the shiso all the way through to the sweetness of the citrus and pomegranate.

The Crew

Kyle, Aaron.

Notes

Ramen Tatsu-Ya is locally famous in Austin for being one of the first places to get real "authentic" Japanese ramen, an interesting concept in its own right. There is a long and fascinating story to be told about how the varying cuisines of Asia have been accorded greater or lesser status in the US based on the historical timing and composition of the individual waves of immigrants from those countries. Japanese restaurants in the US have long enjoyed a price premium over other cuisines due to the perceived higher status of Japanese food, but Austin did not have many Asians for most of its history, and so we didn't have a lot of Asian restaurants, even for such a humble everyman food like ramen. Now we're bigger, richer, and more diverse, and when we finally got Ramen Tatsu-Ya in 2012 it was an immediate hit. In fact, it was such a big success that just 4 years after it opened it was hailed as the #1 ramen restaurant in America, which might be some more absurd Austin hyperbole ("Austintation"), but that it placed at all tells you something about our transformation in just the past few years.

This is the 4th installment of their rapidly growing empire, and it maintains the excellence of their ramen while affording a bit more space and a better drink menu than the OG location up on 183. This location replaces Qui, and they even expanded next door with Domo Alley-Gato, which we had visited a few hours ago while waiting for this place to open up. Domo Alley-Gato is a bit more suited to sitting and drinking than Ramen Tatsu-Ya is, as this place has a bit more of the "quick in and out ramen joint" vibe, but do not miss their ramen - if you remember the slim pickings for ramen in 90s Austin it will seem like it came for another planet, and even if you were fortunate enough to grow up in another place with more ramen I'm assured it's still quite worthy of a stop. I've never eaten at any of the other places on that ramen list, or been to Japan at all for that matter, but Ramen Tatsu-Ya is just fine with me all the same. I'm told that in Japan, ramen joints are among the most treasured drunk food establishments, so how thoughtful of Ramen Tatsu-Ya to place Austin best ramen in such close proximity to Austin's greatest drinking corridor.

#125: Il Brutto

The Bar

Il Brutto. 1601 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 12/12/18 @ 7pm.

The Drink

Feliz Navi-Gatto. Mezcal, Rammazotti amaro, Cynar, orange bitters. $13.

When I asked the bartender for her drink of choice to serve, she thoughtfully selected a Christmas-themed cocktail off of their special menu in light of the season; the name is punning off the fact that "gatto" is Italian for "cat", an animal that's all over their menu. I would not say that there was anything particularly Christmas-like about the drink itself, or at least it wasn't very similar to drinks like egg nog, etc, but in much in the same way that movies like Die Hard can become Christmas-like through sheer stubborn repetition and cultural will, you can put this cocktail on a Christmas menu and sure enough, it'll soon taste like yuletide. Mezcal is a unique choice for a Christmas cocktail base, but it worked well with the anise-like Cynar and orange bitters, and especially the Rammazotti amaro, which added a nice root beer-ish tone to the drink.

I love learning about the histories of ingredients, but it seems like the Rammazotti one might have a more interesting backstory than its official page is letting on, seeing as how it was first created in Milan in 1815. That's right when the Napoleonic Wars finally ended in exhaustion and the constituent client states of France dissolved back into monarchy after the Congress of Vienna; surely the replacement of Milan as sole capital of the Kingdom of Italy with the new Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia's unusual co-capital scheme, adding Venice, should give this liqueur a more singular provenance. But apparently 1815 was merely the year that Ausano Rammazotti decided to distill a liqueur with 33 herbs and spices, like a Milanese Colonello Sanders, starting an empire of liqueur-brewing, bar-owning, and liquor-distribution that fortuitously endured until I was able to drink the distant descendant of his original creation 203 years later at a restaurant that despite being Italian most likely didn't serve a single dish he would recognize. 

The Crew

Kyle, Aaron.

Notes

Il Brutto is an upscale restaurant in the base of The Arnold, one of the new apartment complexes that have turned East Sixth into one of the most desirable mixed-use neighborhoods in the city. As a fellow bearer of that noble surname, I was glad to see that the restaurant at its base did us Arnolds proud, especially one of fractional Italian descent, like myself. Italian restaurants in the US generally smear all of the distinct regional cuisines of Italy into a comforting impasto of familiar dishes. This is honestly perfectly fine, and Il Brutto does a great job serving the higher-end Italian dishes that we all know and love. I think the layout of this place does a good job combining the requisite outdoor patio with date night-friendly interior decor, and the bar was perfectly comfortable for us to sit and chat with the bartender on an off-night. Visiting the bar of a restaurant always gives me a bit of a conundrum on this project - am I judging this place fairly if I don't also eat food? should I be recommending specifically the bar part of a restaurant? - but I've always had a great time at these places, who generally serve great drinks skillfully, and here was no exception. Sadly I did not get to eat here, but I will definitely be back.

#124: Domo Alley-Gato

The Bar

Domo Alley-Gato. 1600 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 12/12/18 @ 6pm.

The Drink

Melon Ball Z. Silver tequila, Midori, honey, lime. $10.

If you like puns, have I got a bar for you. The Melon Ball Z is only one of many great puns on their drink list, its name referring to the melon ball cocktail and of course Dragonball Z. I don't think I had ever had a melon ball before, which is made specifically to use the Midori, a Japanese melon liqueur that is even more specifically designed to taste like the Japanese musk melon. Melon is pretty sweet already, melon liqueur is sweeter yet, and adding honey on top might seem like overkill, but you eventually end up with something that's fruity without being overly tropical, and sweet without making you wonder when your next dentist appointment is. The tequila was well, which was fine. I normally focus on the drink at hand, but I do have to give a shoutout to another drink they offer - the frozen Kirin Ichiban. Longtime readers know that I'm not wild about drinks that devolve into a race between brainfreeze and melting into mush, but even if it is somewhat gimmicky, it is a pleasant way to drink Ichiban, a fake-imported Bud Light. There are flavor floaters you can get as well; the root beer flavor is best, then the vanilla, then last and least the ginger.

The Crew

Aaron, Kyle (not pictured).

Notes

The punned drinks are matched by the name of the bar itself, which takes a little unpacking. Domo Arigato means "thank you very much", and of course the phrase is famous as the title of the ridiculous Styx song we all know and love. The "alley" part of the name refers to the layout of the entrance, which sits across a narrow alley-like passage separating it from parent operation Ramen Tatsu-Ya, and "gato" is Spanish for cat, which refers to the hundreds upon hundreds of cheerfully-waving Maneki Neko cats plastered in every square inch of the atrium, which signify good luck in Japan and East Asia in general. This is the bar for cat lovers! Also lovers of Japanese culture in general, because in addition to the decor inside, they have an outdoor patio with the bar and a food truck kitchen, titled Kare Ban-Ban, that serves really great Japanese-style curry, which is distinct from Indian/Thai/etc curries and unique as far as I can tell in Austin. Those who have been to Japan assure me that it's as close to authentic as you can get here, and the service is insanely fast. I highly recommend the spicy Texas Mud curry, which the frozen Kirin will nicely offset while you sip and snack under a big tree at one of the outdoor picnic tables. There are a handful of tables indoors, if you really really need to be surrounded by cats, but it's too annoying to have people walking in and out past you all the time. Better to relax under a big pecan tree at the kind of open air patio that's probably a lot rarer in Tokyo. 

#123: Hen House

The Bar

Hen House. 1012 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 11/3/18  @ 12am.

The Drink

Sophia. Vodka, elderflower liqueur, champagne, grapefruit juice. $11.

The drink is flanked by the intensely and impressively inked fingers of the bartender, who also happens to be the owner. As you might expect, this VIP attention meant it was excellent. Vodka cocktails are a nice break from Old-Fashioneds, and I have always thought that champagne gives drinks a nice touch. What was most distinctive about this drink was the elderflower liqueur (possibly St. Germain, the heavy hitter of that category, but I didn't ask). Elderflower is a rarer ingredient; one of those floral derivatives that brightens up anything it's added to. I hadn't thought of this comparison, but I read a comparison of elderflower to lychee and I think it makes total sense to consider elderflower an Alpine relative of that flavor. Combine that with the grapefruit, and this cocktail was superb, although it was served in my least favorite of all possible cocktail glass form factors. What kind of moron designs a glass that spills when you try to cheers someone else? I love cheersing! My enduring grudge against the martini glass, the worst of all glasses, continues unabated. All of the cocktails have girl's names, and they all looked great.

The Crew

Aaron, Karen.

Notes

Hen House is one of those interesting success stories on Sixth Street that I love to see: Gabrielle, the owner (and crafter of my cocktail), worked at Rhino Room, the previous bar in this location, and eventually decided to buy it out to start her own place. It's great to see someone be able to follow their passion and open up their own bar; the transition from working at a bar to running one is hard, and it's nice to see that there's still a constant stream of new faces bringing their own ideas to Sixth. Hen House keeps what I liked about Rhino Room - the wood interior, the sense of intimacy - and simplifies it a bit by removing some of the knickknacks and adding some fun flair like ceiling lights. It's cozier than the old layout was, somehow, yet you still feel like you could sit here peaceably drinking quality cocktails for a while. I'm also glad that the tree-lined upstairs patio remained intact; we went upstairs to relax with our drinks and enjoy a bit of quiet. I don't know if the "hen house" name refers to anything in particular beyond being a place that shouldn't be guarded by a fox, but the chick who owns it did a good job.

#122: Attabar

The Bar

Attabar. 1300 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 9/7/18 @ 11pm.

UPDATE: Attabar has closed.

The Drink

Spicy margarita. Lunazul tequila, jalapeño syrup, agave nectar, lime juice, tajin. $9.

The spiciest drink I've gotten so far was the Bloody Mary at Casino El Camino; this was nowhere near as spicy as that, but you can't compare a prank cocktail to a daily drinker like this. Lunazul tequila has been a popular selection for margaritas on this quest, and it continued to ably fulfill its role as the "premium mediocre" tequila of choice. I'm not sure exactly which sugar they used for the syrup, or the sugar ratio, or any of the background details behind their syrup creation process, but I loved the balance between spicy and sweet and the acid of the lime, and of course tajin, king of seasonings, is always welcome. The bartender was REALLY excited about our project, having a total blast as she recommended and mixed our drinks, and you can see her frantic gesticulations in the background as we got ready to try our respective concoctions. 

The Crew

Aaron, Travis, Geoff, Karen (not pictured).

Notes

Attabar replaced the late, great Sputnik, one of my favorite stops on East Sixth back in the day. Sputnik was an unshamed dive bar/restaurant, with cheap drinks and great food. The new spot is absolutely not a dive, but since we're all about celebrating the present and not mourning the past, we will focus on the virtues of the new spot. They'd been open for slightly more than 6 months when we visited, and it seemed like had gotten into a solid groove. The new layout is more open-plan than Sputnik was, ditching the thick wood coziness (RIP to the sexy pinup posters) in favor of more space and an atmosphere of conviviality. One thing that I've noticed I like about bar interiors is what I call "chatting tables" for lack of a better term - the long thin double-sided countertops that let you sit closer to your friends to drink and talk than full-width tables, but still have room for your cocktails and snacks. Attabar has one of those front and center, and it's interesting how they allow both for intimate discussions with your friends, as well as for serendipitous encounters with friendly strangers who are just an elbow away. Everyone we saw was having a good time, so Attabar is as good an example as any of how individual bars can come and go, but even though it's appropriate to mourn the fallen, what better place to do it than at the counter of the living?

#121: Little Big Burger

The Bar

Little Big Burger. 1630 E 6th St #100, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 9/7/18 @ 9:30pm.

UPDATE: Little Big Burger has closed.

The Drink

Zilker Marco IPA. $6.

I last had this beer straight from the source at Zilker Brewing just a few blocks down the street. In a glass or a can, it's a fine American IPA. You might think that three dudes showing up to a fast food burger joint just to pound some brews would get odd looks, but fortunately for us, we were the only ones there! If the staff thought anything was amiss about our mission, they kept it to themselves, and as a result we were able to relax and savor this not-quite-sessionable 7% IPA, sipping our cans at our leisure. I really like the art on their cans - a product of Zocalo Design, an Austin firm that is itself just a few blocks further on East Sixth, the pattern is meant to evoke Saltillo blankets. This discovery could lead us on a further quest investigating more chains of references to things like Plaza Saltillo, and so on, but it's enough to say that it's a great can design, and a great beer.

The Crew

Travis, Geoff, Aaron.

Notes

Little Big Burger is based in Portland, Oregon, and this is their first outpost in Texas. Austin doesn't lack for excellent burger joints, but it's still nice to see what other parts of the country have to offer, even if ultimately they end up disappointing somewhat. Yes, I am referring to when In-N-Out showed up, everyone went nuts, and then we had to pretend like Whataburger was the greatest thing our state has ever produced in prideful self-defense. Not that I hate Whataburger (I have indelible college memories of happily devouring their breakfast biscuits at 2am), but let's let's keep some perspective here. Sadly we did not gain any additional perspective on this Portland product by actually consuming their burgers (be healthy - save those calories for beer), though from what I understand they're quite good. I can't claim that the restaurant itself makes for a top-tier drinking location - it has that familiar harshly echoing, oddly-lit, plainly functional fast-casual interior decor - but we're hardly the typical patrons, and it's probably not such a big deal when you're sitting down for a real meal. Sometimes it does occur to me, when I visit stops like this, how untypical our mission is, but all I can report is what I experience. Not every business is truly a bar at heart some are born a bar, some achieve barness, and some have barness thrust upon them. Little Big Burger is in the latter category.