#169: The Venue

The Bar

The Venue. 516 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 12/12/20 @ 11:30pm.

The Drink

Peach cocktail. Deep Eddy peach vodka, peach schnapps, orange juice, pineapple juice. $8.

This was sort of a cross between a Fuzzy Navel and a Sex on the Beach. Peach is one of Deep Eddy's newer vodka flavors. I am a BIG fan of their lemon vodka, though the lime flavor is also excellent if I'm wanting something less sweet and more tart. You might think that peach vodka + peach Schnapps would be too much, but it was not at all. Back in college I had one of those awful night where all we had to drink was peach schnapps, but it did not lead me to hate the drink the way that the infamous tequila nights did for so many. The more peach the better! Thus this drink, which lives up to its name perfectly.

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

The Venue ATX replaced Clearport quite a while ago, but I didn't really notice because Clearport was  essentially a concert venue that you could walk up to and drink at on off nights, so it wouldn't really be part of a normal person's drinking rotation even though it did fulfill the function of a regular bar. Sadly tonight was not an off night, and I had the choice of either paying a $15 cover for the Rob Knowledge EDM show that was going on or walking away and trying again on a night without a show. Well never let it be said that I don't suffer for my audience, so I opened my wallet and went in (also, they are only open 2 or 3 days a week for some reason and I didn't want to have to figure out the complicated logistics of timing my return right then and there). 

The physical layout of the venue (ha) is essentially identical to how Clearport had it, with upper catwalks overlooking the concert stage and dance floors, so I didn't have much recon to do. Instead I just sat and grooved to the music while I drank my cocktail and people-watched. In high school I listened to a lot of trance/electronica and went to a decent number of raves, and I find the evolution into EDM culture to be pretty interesting, both in how the music has evolved (or not) and in how its greater popularity has pulled in a different crowd. There's plenty of literature on the sociological aspects of techno out there, likewise the economics, but I like that Austin's live music scene has room for everything.