#181: Soho Lounge

The Bar

Soho Lounge. 217 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 2/11/22 @ 8:30pm.

The Drink

Green tea. Jameson whiskey, peach schnapps, simple syrup, lime. $9.

I've had a couple of green tea drinks so far on Sixth, but they've all been shots. Since I had just spent an hour drinking 32 oz of Blue motherfucker at Wild Greg's, I was not exactly looking forward to a shot, so I was glad for this more manageable sipping drink served in a reasonable 16 oz volume. This rendition dropped the sweet & sour, but lime + simple syrup was a reasonable facsimile. Of course, now that I had the chance to drink a full green tea cocktail, it became funnier to me that this drink was just invented by Jameson to sell more whiskey, given that green tea is famous for its alleged health benefits. What if we gave you a drink with all of the taste, but none of the antioxidants? What if all you were really interested in was the scent of health, without doing the real work to partake in its full flavor? No one is upset that a Flaming Dr Pepper has no Dr Pepper in it, but shouldn't a trace of the true self exist in an actual cocktail? Heavy questions for a light, refreshing drink. 

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

I'm not sure exactly why, but this place took me like 5 tries to be able to visit successfully. Every time I would walk past this storefront in between the venerable Lit Lounge and the newer Gnar Bar, it wasn't open for patronage. Evidently it had had an ownership change in 2017 when I was doing the original crawl, and then a city-induced covid shutdown after that, which explained why I hadn't been able to swing by before, but it seemed harder than it should to grab a drink here now in the year 2022. Well that finally changed tonight, and when I finally entered, it was... fine, the typical backlit bar with a dimly lit dancefloor, the ideal generic blurry barhopping memory you'll end up backdating from bar tabs and group texts after a long night of Fireball rounds and singalong interludes. I was actually the only patron here for essentially my entire stay, although the owner/bartender told me that that was due to complex business conditions that I didn't really understand. To be honest, this seemed like the kind of bar that should be packed at all time. But far be it from me to tell a bar how to do its job. I was just glad to finally check off an elusive bar target before I went to the Agent Orange show, which turned out to be excellent. If you haven't listened to Agent Orange, you have to fix that posthaste. Everything Turns Grey!

#180: Wild Greg's Saloon

The Bar

Wild Greg's Saloon. 302 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 2/11/22 @ 7:30pm.

The Drink

Blue motherfucker. Vodka, gin, rum, blue curaçao, sweet & sour, triple sec, Sprite. $15.

Almost but not quite the same as an Adios, motherfucker!, the Blue motherfucker distinguishes itself by dropping the tequila and subbing in Sprite, though it maintains the all-important blue tinge that tells onlookers that you're not afraid to be drinking something that looks like antifreeze. The change in recipe means that all of you tequilaphobes can drink this up, secure in the knowledge that without that one deadly ingredient, your drink is now salubrious, invigorating, and hangover-free! Until, that is, you notice that you're still holding 32 oz of liquor drink that you've got to drain. While not quite the bargain that the $5.50 Adios, motherfucker! at Peckerheads was (still the gold standard for booze per buck), this drink does everything that you would want a quarter gallon of assorted alcohols to do. The keen-eyed among you might notice that the cup I'm holding (which I got to keep) says Minneapolis on it; the bartender said that this location is still new enough that they hadn't gotten their own merch yet, so just be patient if you refuse to drink out of a vessel with the name of another city on it for some reason.

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

Wild Greg's is an outpost of Florida culture on Sixth Street, as ominous as that might sound, the chain having been formed in Pensacola back in 2015. It showed up in Austin about a year ago, replacing Terminal 6, which closed just before the pandemic started. Apparently the owner likes to set up shop in college towns, which I suppose Austin technically still qualifies as. Not that the actual bar is particularly college-oriented - it's a similar permanent concert venue as Terminal 6 was, with a little more emphasis on the bar instead of the venue side of things, though there was the obligatory solo guitarist playing away on the ground floor stage. I don't know exactly what tips the scale for a concert venue to become a bar or vice versa; presumably if the revenue from hosting occasional large shows outweighs the revenue from continuously being open for drinks, then you make the change, but who knows how the pandemic has scrambled the equation for the typical Sixth Street bar. I didn't notice a dramatic change from the Terminal 6 setup (much like the US has flyover country, Sixth Street definitely has flyover bars), but here's to a longer life than the old joint.

#179: Canje

The Bar

Canje. 1914 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 2/4/2022 @ 9:30pm.

The Drink

Ti' Punch. 3 rums (El Dorado 8 year, Smith + Cross, Hamilton Jamaican pot still), vanilla, bitters, lime oil. $15.

We ordered some waiting cocktails so we would have something to sip while our table was prepared, but this was the drink recommended to me, so it's what I'll review. It's hard to improve on Canje's capsule summary of it on their Facebook page, so please allow me to briefly plagiarize: 

The Ti' Punch is the Old Fashioned of the Caribbean, and is the national drink of Martinique. We replace the rhum agricole made from sugarcane juice with three types of dark, aged rums made from molasses, creating a complex and balanced profile.

The first word in the name is the shortened form of "petite" in the French Creole language spoken in Martinique. The mixture of three different rums makes it impossible to taste any individual rum, like the philosophy of blended whiskey taken to the extreme, so while I am not sure I would use either "complex" or "balanced" as adjectives to describe the resulting "rum drink" product, I can tell you that it was sweet, strong, and tasty, though $15 is testing the limits of my willingness to pay, even for cocktails as good as this one. The other cocktails are similarly good, and similarly priced to match.

The Crew

Brent, Karen, Aaron, Neil, Kathryn.

Notes

Canje replaced unfortunate Covid casualty The Last Straw a few months ago, which itself replaced Chicon several years prior. I really liked the previous two establishments, but based purely on its own qualities, Canje is plenty good enough to soothe the pain of their absence. Austin is not exactly overflowing with Caribbean food, but the places we do have are generally quite good, and Canje is almost certainly the best of all of them. The Caribbean is an extremely culturally diverse region, reflecting the interaction of different native populations, the various colonial powers, and the immigrants (both voluntary and not) who later arrived, so you can find a little bit of just about anything at a good Caribbean place. Head Chef Tavel Bristol-Joseph is Guyanese, but much of the menu also reflects influences from other areas of the Caribbean, as well as the US and other countries. We tried just about everything on the menu, sharing family-style, and it was all wonderful (reflecting the Indian presence in the Caribbean, the Guyanese roti in particular was spectacular). I found myself comparing somewhat to Vixen's Wedding just a few blocks to the west, not merely because of the shared Indian connection, but in the dedication to a fusion cuisine, in the full sense of the term, as well as the great food and drinks at both places. If you're looking for a special occasion restaurant and want to check out some of the best Caribbean food in the city, look no further.