The Bar
Visited 3/8/21 @ 10pm.
The Drink
King Pin Kicker. Mango & habanero infused Lunazul tequila, Aperol, agave syrup, lime, orange, chile arbol, Tajín. $12.
Gotta love those spicy tequila drinks. This is effectively a paloma, or more precisely its cousin the
cantarito, with Aperol subbed in for the standard grapefruit juice. The idea behind these drinks is that you have some lightness and sweetness (and bitterness) to balance out the booziness of the tequila, and some additional spiciness doesn't hurt either. Lunazul is a solid middling tequila of the kind that infusion can drastically improve, so the mango and habanero in it were a great match for the syrup, citrus, and dried chile on top. Definitely recommended if you like palomas and other similar cocktails.
The Crew
Davis, Aaron.
Notes
Bull & Bowl has not been open very long at all, barely a month. It sits on top of the same building as TenTen. Interestingly, the building was supposed to have been developed as the new location of the
sadly shuttered Goodnight, much like Unbarlievable down the street, until
the vagaries of the Austin commercial real estate market led to its current development. Bull & Bowl is a similar concept, but as their website brags, they have "the first restaurant, duckpin bowling alley, bar, and mechanical bull venue ever established", and you know what, I'll bet that they're right about that.
Duckpin is a close cousin of the more familiar type of bowling that we all remember from The Big Lebowski, although it is evidently
dying out in part because it's more difficult than regular bowling. We didn't try duckpin on our visit, but it probably wouldn't have helped our concentration that there is a big mechanical bull in the dead center of the floor. As an entrant into the "boozy afterwork gaming hub" market along with Punch Bowl Social down the street and others, Bull & Bowl is solid.
