#242: Big Slick

The Bar

Big Slick. 1017 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 9/11/2026 @ 5pm.

The Drink

Pale Coyote. Wild Bark gin, cypress seed pod syrup, grapefruit bitters, sumac bitters. $21.

Wonderful stuff. As it happens, the bartender here was the very same person who last year had guided us through the food and drink menus at Shokunin next door, and here he was still at the height of his powers, in full command of the cocktail bar, the menu of which he had designed personally. I'm not sure what cocktail genre you'd file this particular drink under (perhaps a variant on the Pegu Club?), but thankfully despite resembling a martini it was served in a coupe glass, the thinking man's cocktail glass. It was Texas to the last drop, as every ingredient had some sort of local connection, even the grapefruit and cypress. The gin in particular was intriguing, using juniper from the Davis Mountains (which I had just visited for the McDonald Observatory), but more importantly it tasted fantastic, especially with the accompanying earthy/floral/botanical ingredients. We had a long discussion about his syrup and bitters concoctions, which are all tinctures (not the RPG staple), and how deciding to focus on local ingredients can inspire creativity from a bartender who is trying to adapt standard drink templates to local tastes. There is also the persistent belief that tinctures can palliate allergies, so perhaps the profusion of infusions in this cocktail presents a marketing opportunity: rather than promoting it as hair of the dog, it should be hair of the coyote.

If you like to learn new things via drinks, and who doesn't, then this incredible gin cocktail is definitely one to try. I'm not pleased to have finally broken the $20 barrier for an individual cocktail (though it is "only" $16 in January 2017 money), but it fully justifies its price.

Rum cocktail. Rum, overproof rum, natural flavors. $20.

Time for another peek behind the journalistic curtain here. The first cocktail was so good, I had to have another, and the second option seemed like the natural choice. Unfortunately, I was having such a good time chatting with the bartender and downing rounds that I completely forgot to copy down the ingredients or even the name from the menu, so I have no idea what's in it (other than rum) or what it was called. I know, I know, what do you even pay me for. But you have got to try this one, as despite being vaguely hurricane-ish it was also superb. 

Last Word. 

I didn't get a picture of it, but after the drinks above plus a few side rounds he also made me the best Last Word I've ever had. As the chartreuse shortage stretches on and shows no sign of abating, every time I see a bottle on the shelf it starts calling to me like the Green Goblin mask. I don't know what wizardry he infused into this Last Word, the Prohibition-era classic from Detroit, but it was truly spectacular. I almost wanted another, but I had been here for three hours and it was time to go home. 

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

Big Slick is the latest restaurant/bar concept from Scratch Restaurants, a multi-city Michelin-tier group whose other venues in this same building NADC Burger and Shokunin I have already chronicled. About two weeks ago Big Slick replaced its former sister restaurant Pasta Bar, a $200+/person prix fixe pasta joint which closed in February. I was secretly glad I didn't have to cover it for this project since they didn't take walk-ins, thus violating the "you must be able to walk in and order just a drink" clause of my personal bar definition. Aw shucks!

I'm really glad this place does take walk-ins, however, because it was spectacular even though I didn't even eat here, which is like the whole point. Big Slick's primary selling point is that is an extremely high-end steakhouse. You can read all about the food angle at serious respectable publications, but this is a bar review blog, and even though everything that the actual diners ordered seemed incredible from where I stood, I did not venture beyond the bar area, which is a neat candlelit front alcove lined with art that gives off a cathedral/shrine vibe, kind of like Mezcalería Tobalá. Instead I hung out at the bar, and I had a blast. 

When I walked in I was immediately served a cup of hot yaupon tea, which was informed was the only naturally caffeinated plant native to North America (here's a fascinating paper on the history of the multiple independent evolutions of caffeine in cacao, citrus, guarana, coffee, tea, etc). This set the stage for the next three hours of ordering round after round and chatting with the bartender in between him concocting cocktails for the actual restaurant patrons. He really knew his stuff about cocktails in general and local ingredients in particular, as you can tell by the drink reviews above, which is what a big chunk of our conversation centered on. I got a really top tier direct experience with craft cocktail bartending at the highest level, and the evening flew by in the blink of an eye.

By now you are probably sick of me finding different ways to bring up the recent socioeconomic/demographic changes on Sixth Street in the direction of more luxe bars, of which this represents one of the biggest examples. Well, I will bring it once up once more to say that I am glad that places like this exist. In an era of mass affluence, where the vast increase in wealth among most segments of society means that more people than ever can chase experiences which were limited to the elite within living memory, venues like Big Slick are another step on the journey the US is taking towards the ever greater affordability of luxury. I know it sounds crazy to use a place with $21 cocktails and $200 steaks in the same sentence as "affordability", but in relative terms, in previous eras a deluxe experience like this would simply have been unavailable at all to someone in a normal-person income percentile. While it's fair to debate the extent of inequality, extremely nice places like this show that, counterintuitively, access to the higher-end of life is only increasing for many people.

#241: Hermanas

The Bar

Hermanas. 1100 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 9/2/2026 @ 5pm.

The Drink

Date Old-Fashioned. Casa Mexico añejo tequila, date + orange turbinado sugar, mole bitters. $18.

Buckle up, because there are a lot of drinks to come. 

Since I was the very first customer (more on that below), the discussion of "what is the drink that best represents the bar" was a little more fluid than usual, if you will pardon the pun. I was given two main options, and between them the bartender selected Old-Fashioned #21 as the first round. I will pull out the (semi) standard rating scale for this one:

• Base liquor: 6/10. Tequila, huh? This continues the proud tradition I've experienced ever since Café Josie's "Mezcal Manhattan" of bartenders using the name of a standard cocktail to make whatever the hell they want. By definition añejo is aged, and therefore has a softer flavor than other tequilas. While fine in itself, this is not actually what I want in an Old-Fashioned, so it left me wanting more. 
• Other ingredients: 9/10. Props on using the flavor of date, as its caramel sweetness perfectly complemented the turbinado sugar. 
• Preparation: 9/10. Nothing but skill here. 
• Value: 8/10: This is $13 in 2017 dollars, which is fine. 

The overall drink was good but so laid-back and subtle that I had a weird reaction to it: if I hadn't been told that it was an Old-Fashioned, I would have said "man, this is really drinkable, another round please!", but as an Old-Fashioned it just didn't have the "this is a stiff drink" factor that makes you order one in the first place. I have since learned that the date Old-Fashioned is a well-recognized riff on the classic, but I think it should rebrand and stand on its own. It turns out that expectations matter, and there can be a lot in a name!

Makrut + Arbol Daquiri. Union mezcal, makrut lime, arbol infused curaçao, agave. $15.

This runner-up for the "drink that best represents the bar" that I ordered for round 2 was my actual favorite drink, although as above it was also only very loosely related to its namesake. A standard daquiri is rum + lime + sugar, but if you swap out the rum for mezcal, the sugar for agave, and add just a hint of arbol spice in a splash of curaçao, then you get... something pretty great, actually. Makrut lime, also known as kaffir lime, is ubiquitous in Thai cuisine, and it gave the mezcal a delicious citrus tang. I was really tempted to order another of these but was persuaded to broaden my horizons for round 3. Amusingly, this was actually quite close to the drink that Ah Sing Den served me nearly 10 years ago, so perhaps some spirit of the spirits remains in the walls of this establishment. 

Mango + jasmine white negroni. Casa Mexico añejo tequila, Suze bitters, lillet, mango fruit + jasmine tea tincture. $16.

Yet again we have a highly enjoyable cocktail that is related to its textbook definition in name only. A negroni is gin + sweet vermouth + Campari liqueur, but just between us, let's say it was tequila, bitters, fortified wine, and jasmine tea - would it be so wrong to call it a negroni anyway? Assuming you said yes, you would be rewarded with an excellent drink. The refreshing jasmine tea flavor in the tincture really stood out; it reminded me of Austin Beerworks' delicious Eastern Philosophy specialty beer that they need to make more of. 

It was while drinking this "negroni" that my discussions with the bartender centered on the role of creativity in the cocktail crafting process. I mentioned that I had really enjoyed The Treasury's use of carrot juice in their cocktails, and she mentioned that she had a bunch of cabbage, so we started riffing on how one might use it as an ingredient, whether fresh, boiled, fermented, extracted, etc. So if you show up here in a few weeks and there's some bizarre sauerkraut or kimchi cocktail on the menu, I will accept partial responsibility.

Chang Classic lager. $7.

After 3 rounds of cocktails I needed a cooldown drink. Fitting neatly into the Southeast Asian part of the restaurant's theme, Chang, which means "elephant" in Thai, is evidently legendary for its "Changovers" if you get the volatile domestic version in Thailand itself, but the export beer you see above is a tame and reasonable 5% ABV. Thailand's domestic economic landscape is quite colorful in part due to its unique situation as the only Southeast Asian nation to never be colonized, and so there is apparently a tale behind Chang's battle for market share with rivals Singha and Leo, but as that is obscure to an oblivious American drinker like myself, I thought it was a solid malty lager regardless of provenance. 

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

Replacing the suddenly departed OKO, which in turn replaced Ah Sing Den, Hermanas (Spanish for "sisters", it has several more personal meanings for the restaurant) is brand new - so new, in fact, that with this stop I achieved a rare and singular honor: I was their very first customer! I have never gotten in on the ground floor of a venue like this before, which is why there are so many drinks up above. Hermanas is a high-end Thai/Mexican fusion restaurant that has an interesting lineage, and represents another step forward in the ongoing upscale restaurant redefinition of East Sixth even as the understated interior (basically the polar opposite of the opium den theme of Ah Sing Den) made it appear to have been here for quite some time. I didn't eat here, but as I was drinking my way through their cocktail menu the bartender and I discussed how neighborhoods grow and change and what that meant for East Sixth as distinct from Dirty or West Sixth. Cultural districts don't just fall from the sky, they are gradually accreted and refined through the same creative destruction processes that govern other economic sectors, and little by little this stretch of Sixth Street east of I-35 is becoming ever more noteworthy for its drinking and dining scene. As you can tell by how unique and creative their drinks were (and their food looked too), there is still plenty of room for new ideas in Austin, and Hermanas is a welcome part of the ongoing story.

#240: Somewhere On Sixth

The Bar

Somewhere On Sixth. 409 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 8/22/2026 @ 7pm.

The Drink

Green tea shot. Jameson whiskey, peach schnapps, sweet & sour. $6.

I hate when reality falsifies a good drinking hypothesis. I wrote a whole thing in my review of Medusa's green tea shot a few months ago expressing surprise about how constant shot prices have remained at $5 since I started this project in January of 2017, only for the very next green tea shot I received (#5 in total) to be a whole $1 more expensive, making a mockery of my shot theory. Ah well - $6 is still only $4.36 in 2017 dollars, so it remains mostly relatively affordable (at this point I try to treat the fond memories of the prices of the 00s as merely pleasant dreams). There's not too much to say about this iteration of the green tea shot, other than that it was a faithful rendition of the classic, which sometimes is all you need. When I tried to come here last week at the height of the Friday night rush I was given something else entirely, but I can't decipher my notes, so this is literally round two here.

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

This is one of the more baffling rebranding decisions I've ever seen. First: Somewhere On Sixth is Toulouse. As in, it's the same bar. As I mentioned in my review of Toulouse way back in 2017, it has a long and storied history on Sixth Street, physically occupying multiple locations throughout its multi-decade existence but always culturally occupying a prime place in the street's lore and image, on the level of Maggie Mae's or one of the other long-running anchor bars. However, for reasons unknown to me they have evidently decided to drop the name and character entirely, replacing the New Orleans theme with an identity so generic that it had me worried for the venue's future. It reminds me of nothing so much as the infamous "Thai Food Near Me" restaurant in NYC, although SEO-wise this is even worse, as I only noticed the change when I was on foot because it is basically impossible to find the venue online even if you know what you're searching for. The staff there couldn't tell me much more about the rebrand either, so your guess is as good as mine - maybe this was a Life Cereal pitch situation. In the ownership's defense, when I tried to visit here last weekend it was absolutely packed to the walls, so perhaps my concern is misplaced and they'll be just fine - they're the ones who've been serving drinks one way or another since I was in elementary school, after all. Let's hope they're right. 

#239: Driskill Bar (again)

The Bar

Driskill Bar. 604 Brazos St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 8/15/2026 @ 11pm.

The Drink

Driskill Old-Fashioned. High West bourbon, Rittenhouse rye, demerara, Angostura bitters. $18.

This Old-Fashioned is exactly the same as the Old-Fashioned that The Victorian downstairs serves, even down to the use of both bourbon and rye, with the sole detectable exception of having a single giant ice cube instead of multiple smaller ones. I will be honest that I don't think that the ice cube form factor makes a huge difference taste-wise, but I will be even more honest that myself and my companions were quite a few rounds deep at this point, so to do this cocktail proper justice I had to come back here again a week later to give it a proper tasting. The things I do for my audience! My perhaps excessively well-researched conclusion is that this gets exactly the same 9/10 as The Victorian's version. Even if Old-Fashioned #20 is technically the same as #19, it is well worth the trip up the stairs.

The Crew

Aaron, randos.

Notes

The previous iteration of the Driskill's bar was one of my most-anticipated stops when I first began this project nearly a decade ago, and it had remained one of my downtown favorites even several hundred bars later, so when it reopened in May after a year-long renovation project under new management (the ubiquitous MML Hospitality), I had to stop back by to make sure it was still good. You can read actual journalism for more details on the full scope of the renovations, but rest assured that they did a great job, and it is still an incredible vibe, perhaps even be better than it was before. The main differences from a bar patron perspective are that the bar is closer to the front, there is a bit less lounge seating due to increased dining space, there is some snazzy new art on the walls, and the new carpet is more vibrant than the old, which all means that the overall sense of being in a seriously impressive and welcoming environment remains fully intact.

That also means that this is a great place to take newcomers. Next to me in the photo are two fellow bar patrons I'd met at Happy Bar and invited along to this stop since they were relatively new to the city. One of the things that people who aren't from here mention over and over again whenever I have a discussion about Austin with them is what a surprisingly friendly city it is, and evidently I fully embody that stereotype, since this is not the first time on this project that I've made friends and invited them along on my bar-hopping, and (as you might be able to tell from the picture) it is always a sign that I am having a good time. Maybe too much of a good time, as even though we were many rounds in, once we had finished our drinks here we tried to make another bar our third stop, promptly got separated, and I never saw them again. Oh well, it was a blast, and they were suitably impressed by the Driskill, which will always be one of my top recommendations to anyone looking to have a great cocktail in a great setting, whether a veteran Austinite local, a recent Austinite newcomer, or a temporary Austinite tourist. 

#238: Happy Bar

The Bar

Happy Bar. 701 W Sixth St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 8/15/2026 @ 7pm.

The Drink

She's From Texas. Western Sons cucumber vodka, Deep Eddy lemon vodka, lemon juice, simple syrup, Sprite, cucumber, lime, Tajín. $14.

Good gracious, that glass is curvaceous. Sorry, wrong song. Named after the hook from Ella Langley's megahit song of the summer Choosin' Texas, this cocktail is essentially a complicated vodka soda - a delicious one, thanks to the cucumber and my beloved Deep Eddy lemon vodka, the best vodka - served in an amusing custom glass. Forget settling for a copper mug like a Moscow Mule, why not make your drink stand out by serving it in a fertility idol? Its resemblance to a religious icon like the famous Venus of Willendorf statues prompted some joking discussion on what if us patrons were at a post-apocalyptic Fallout-type bar and these glasses were used as chalices to serve whatever the future equivalent of Eucharist sacramental wine would be, or what if Indiana Jones had picked this as the Holy Grail in The Last Crusade, etc. Like all good riff sessions, maybe you had to be there; plenty of folks would just see them as mildly tacky/tasteless/touristy novelty items, but they made for a fun 5 minute conversation piece, and that's more than you can ask for from most cocktail glasses. Strongly recommended if you own a replica of the leg lamp from A Christmas Story.

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

Happy Bar had only been open for a few weeks when I visited. The bartender was not sure exactly what happened to Space Fox, the previous occupant of this building, and did not have much to say about the ownership either, so your guess is as good as mine about what caused this transition; I am not even sure it is still owned by Gold Fox Hospitality like its predecessors Space Fox and WTF were. The layout is basically the same as Space Fox, with the primary difference in décor being a determined application of the smiling happy face motif all over the place. Something that did strike me on this visit is that while having the bar facing away from the street is good for people walking by, who can easily see the screens and the patrons, we inside the bar have to turn around in case anything notable comes along our way. It was mainly just bachelorette party crawlers, which prompted some good discussion between myself and my barstool neighbors, who were fairly new to town, about the differences between how tourists and locals view Sixth Street, since there is a well-known tradeoff between bars whose strategy is to churn through price-insensitive visitors who will never return and bars which depend on repeat patronage from price-conscious locals. The conversation was good enough that I sat drinking with them for four hours, and eventually invited them along to the Driskill, the next stop of the night, and the rare example of a bar that can cater to both visitors and locals at the same time without compromising on quality. 

#237: Lefty's Day & Night

The Bar

Lefty's Day & Night. 1813 C E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 7/31/2026 @ 7:30pm.

The Drink

Green Heat. Poblano-infused blanco tequila, mezcal, pineapple, agave, salt, lime. $14.

As is so often the case these days, the official best drink did not come first, as while I was waiting for my friends I asked for the drink that SECOND-best represented the bar, and then circled back to the best drink on the second round. I did prefer this mezcal-drenched take on a margarita to the runner up on account of the well-balanced flavors; it's hard to go wrong with pineapple, especially with mezcal in the equation needing a balance. I also enjoyed the spice level, although like all spicy drinks it's best taken in moderation; I would not want to go more than a few rounds with these, particularly with heat like we've been having - despite not having so many triple digit days locally as previous years, nationally this has been the hottest July ever recorded. I should probably learn to love frozen drinks more. 

Lychee Lemonade. Ford's gin, lychee, lemon, elderflower. $14.

My verbatim reaction to this variant on a Bee's Knees was "Man, that is a potent potable", as it was very strong initially and then mellowed out, which maybe meant I should have given it a stir or two first. If you by chance have never had lychee before, it's a Southeast Asian plant that has the distinction of being domesticated multiple times, and it has an interesting sweet/tart/floral flavor that could probably go in basically any cocktail without seeming too out of place. Despite its strength, a few rounds of these would most likely go down more easily than a few rounds of the Green Heat due to the lack of spice. Refreshment with strength.

The Crew

Ishani, Elijah, Aaron.

Notes

Lefty's is another fun edge case of a "new" bar that is really an existing bar which has rebranded under mostly the same name, much like Thirsty Nickel changed to Thirsty's or Mooseknuckle became Moose Bar, etc. To get some terrible jokes out of the way, the difference here is hardly night and day, nor does it come out of left field; instead the former Brick Bar has undergone a fairly subdued transformation to Day & Night thanks to the folks from Emmer & Rye, quietly shedding its Cajun/Caribbean aspects in favor of a less-specific neighborhood event space vibe. You'd be forgiven for hardly noticing the changeup, however - pretty much everything aside from the menu is exactly the same as it was before, down to the weird wolf mural behind us in the photo above. However, the menu change is evidently a big hit, specifically their chicken caesar wrap, although we sadly did not partake. If they ever decide or are forced to change concept again, I hope they take a page from Nickel City's delightful yearly Moe's Tavern cosplay and re-emerge as the Leftorium. In the meantime, we found the vibe just as fun as advertised, providing us plenty of opportunity to sit and discuss the exciting FIFA privatization debacle (hence my shirt) over a steadily increasing number of rounds, which is a sure sign of a successful bar in my eyes.

#236: Mayfair

The Bar

Mayfair. 501 W 6th St Ste. 300, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 6/20/2026 @ 6:30pm.

The Drink

Mayfair frozen. Frozen piña colada. $10.

Yes, a frozen drink, although I didn't begrudge the recommendation given how incredibly hot it has been lately - too hot. There wasn't anything particularly notable about this frozen drink, which was made with "well everything" according to the bartender, but that was fine with me. I don't really have strong feelings about piña coladas one way or the other, except that I always get that famous adultery song, which apparently was originally about Humphrey Bogart, stuck in my head every time they're mentioned. My one complaint is that I was still a little hungover from the previous night's marathon bar crawl, and the resulting intermittent brain freeze I got did not help it one bit, but obviously I have no one to blame for that but myself. 

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

Second time's the charm. I had tried to get in here last night as my fifth (!) and final stop, but there was some sort of ticketed event and they wouldn't let me in, unlike at RIO back in 2017 where I was able to sort of wander in undetected. It's probably for the best, as whatever was going on there was most likely not for the likes of me, since at night Mayfair caters to a high-end crowd expecting NYC/Miami/Las Vegas club vibes. It's in the same complex and owned by the same folks (Nova Hospitality) as TenTen and Bull & Bowl, who also run Devil May Care across the street. As if there wasn't already enough going on at this address there is also Skybox Lounge one floor above, but it's an event venue and therefore not eligible for this project. Mayfair was originally planned back in 2018 but only opened four years ago, which makes it part of the COVID rebound demographic; the bar equivalent of the baby boom, which the bartender and I spent a good chunk of time discussing. As you can see I was the only patron, which gave him and I plenty of time to chat about Sixth Street while simultaneously watching Germany vs Ivory Coast. He gave me good tidings: next door neighbor Unbarlievable, who seriously recommended me 96oz of Moscow Mule, had recently closed. I try not to gloat at the misfortune of others, but it's hard to mourn such malice. Hopefully Mayfair, with its clear conscience, will last a good deal longer. 

#235: Benny's Room

The Bar

Benny's Room. 720 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 6/19/2026 @ 10:30pm.

The Drink

Espresso martini. New Amsterdam vodka, cold brew coffee, Frangelico hazelnut liqueur, cream, honey. $15.

As I was typing up this post I was wondering how this was only the fourth espresso martini I've catalogued so far, but I remembered that a good chunk of the rest have been second/third drinks and therefore not "official" for the purposes of this blog. By now you should be familiar with the three basic ingredients of an espresso martini:

1. Vodka.
2. Coffee.
3. A ton of sugar + maybe some other stuff.

It's notable that while the vodka vs gin battle still rages to this day among traditionalist martini drinkers who insist upon gin, when it comes to espresso martinis the battle has been decisively won the other way by the vodka partisans (though I did appreciate when Marfa Lights and Roe Bucks used mezcal and peanut butter tequila, respectively, as their base liquors). This makes perfect sense, because whereas the gin botanicals would be completely overwhelmed by the coffee and sugar, flavorless vodka slides in perfectly unobtrusively behind all that. Benny's Room did wisely to choose New Amsterdam vodka for that role, as I have been fond of it for many years. I don't know that there's anything special about their cold brew coffee, but it did the job caffeine-wise, which was appreciated. 

Where the Benny's Room rendition of the espresso martini distinguishes itself is in the third leg of the ingredient tripod with its use of not only cream, and not only honey, but also Frangelico, an absolutely delicious old Italian hazelnut liqueur. I have made a lot of joking references to how espresso martinis have a tendency to turn into milkshakes, since if the liquor part is essentially fixed, and there's only so much you can do with coffee part, most of your creativity budget is being spent in the sweet part. It's like if that infamous silt-sand-clay threefold chart had only one of the types vary, leaving you lost in loam land. Well, this version plants you firmly in the milkshake sector, and you know what - the milkshake sector is actually pretty great. This is the best espresso martini I have had so far. 

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

My fourth stop of the night. I'd been sitting on this place for a while because I wasn't sure if it technically qualified as its own independent venue, but after a bartender at the main Green Light Social bar assured me that a different name would appear on my receipt, I was sold, and walked right in. Benny's (not Bennie's) Room is a side project of Green Light Social that they use as both a venue for events as well as a lure for customers who want something different from downstairs, with either a more speakeasy-like atmosphere inside or a rooftop view outside. It's not particularly hidden (just go upstairs and head leftward/northeast), so assuming that there's available seating you can just go walk in like I did. I confess that I don't have a lot to say about this place other than that it fulfills every requirement you could ask for from a nicer cocktail bar. Sometimes it's okay to just quietly excel in your chosen field, and that's exactly what this place does. I was very strongly tempted to stay for another round, but I had dreams (sadly dashed) of checking out Mayfair, so I departed. 

#234: The Lobby Social Club

The Bar

The Lobby Social Club. 710 B W 6th Street, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 6/19/2026 @ 10pm.

The Drink

La Paloma. Tequila, triple sec, agave, grapefruit, Tajín. $15.

Drinks in a dance club tend to be either basic yet functional, because you need just something to drink, or flashy and expensive, because you're trying to impress someone. This paloma was in the former category, although it was better than functional. This was the fifth paloma I've been served and I think it was among the best even though I don't know what well tequila they used. Part of that might have been presentation, as it came in a nice-looking glass rather than the plastic cup you sometimes get at clubs, but the other part was that the bartender was preparing it with skill even as I was annoying her with my spiel and questions about the bar. Dance clubs can be dehumanizing places to grab a drink, but not here, even though I had to drink it standing right up against the bar like a weirdo because while I was chatting with the bartender, immediately after I took my first sip about a million people descended upon the dance floor behind me and there was nowhere else to go. It all worked out though.

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

My third stop of the night. When I was being waved in up the stairs by the doorman, my Simpsons-addled brain had the overwhelming urge to tell him "I have to go to ze lobby", but thankfully I was able to suppress it. Ze Lobby opened about a month ago, replacing The Ranch, which closed at some point within the last year. I have to say that in my opinion The Lobby looks way cooler than The Ranch was, no shade on the former occupant. The homey roadhouse interior has been replaced wholesale with a glittery infrared laser disco setting that impressed even a non-dance club-going schlub like me, and even though I still had more stops planned I was tempted to stay and just soak up the vibe/music. I was also impressed with the crowd; having just come from the essentially empty Medusa a block away, the throng of patrons made for quite a contrast. But the thing that I was perhaps most impressed with was the music, which was quite good EDM (props to the DJ), but even more importantly was at an actually reasonable volume that was just fine to listen to without being blasted into submission. In this modern era of ubiquitous painfully loud music, any venue that respects its patrons by not giving them permanent hearing damage deserves praise. 

#233: Medusa

The Bar

Medusa. 706 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 6/19/2026 @ 9:30pm.

The Drink

Green tea shot. Jameson whiskey, peach schnapps, sweet & sour. $5.

Even though even a great shot can only be so good, as a general rule, after adjusting for the form factor and grading on the appropriate curve, this was a great shot. Preceded by its three cousins at Lux, Voodoo Room, and Bijou Lounge, this was the fourth green tea shot I'd been served so far; the fifth if you count the full-sized version I got at Soho Lounge. I've talked before about using certain drinks as "standard candles" in order to compare bars to each other, and though this is often not possible given the wide variance between bars, despite minor differences from bar to bar (much like real standard candles), the green tea shot is as good a contender as any, barely behind the trusty gin and tonic, since it's a simple shot that's really hard to mess up even compared to other shots. Jameson did well when they invented it! 

One fun benefit of using shots as standard candles is that I've noticed for some reason that there has been much less inflation in shot prices than in other drink types like cocktails. I got a green tea shot at Lux in February 2017 for $5, and almost a full decade later it is still nominally $5, or $3.64 in 2017 money - a full 27% cheaper! Maybe shot deals are just unusually sticky for psychological reasons, or maybe it's just a cosmic anchor (Bijou Lounge had the gall to charge $8 for this shot in 2020 and now they are out of business, hmm), but either way it's much appreciated in this ever-changing world in which we're living. To be clear, I don't recommend switching to drinking only shots when going out, but unlike your doctor, your accountant might not object to your strategy. Lil Jon certainly wouldn't mind.

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

My second stop of the night. Add Medusa to the list of bars I only found out about by physically walking past on the way to another bar. It replaced WYLD about a month ago, which itself replaced Brew Exchange back in 2020. I'm not sure what happened to WYLD, as it seemed to be plugging along as recently as March of last year, but such is life on Sixth Street. Medusa is not related to the old Medusa's that was located on Dirty Sixth back in the 90s, instead being a new venture attempting to bring some of the Latin dance club vibe you see at places like Mala Vida or Mala Fama to West Sixth, which does not currently have that exact type of dance club. As I was the only patron there for some reason, I was able to chat with the bartender for a long time about what it meant to have a more Hispanic-oriented bar on this stretch of Sixth, and how places like Medusa might differ from the other new Mexican bars like Chupito's on Dirty Sixth, to say nothing of the older stalwarts like Cisco's or La Perla on East Sixth. As we were discussing the sadly-departed Rabbit's Lounge that sits in the building now occupied by Whisler's, it was worth reflecting on how while patrons make the bar, bars also shape their patrons, and it's conceivable that Medusa might carve its own place into the history books someday if everything works out. Here's hoping. 

#232: The Treasury

The Bar

The Treasury. 1012 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 6/19/2026 @ 7:30pm.

The Drink

From Monument to Masses. St. George Valley gin, Yebiga "Bela" plum brandy, Comoz blanc vermouth, China-China Amer. $15.

The Treasury takes the exploration part of craft cocktails really seriously, as both this cocktail and the other I tried had unique ingredients I'd never seen before but really enjoyed. The name is a reference to spreading the gospel of Monument Valley (which the owner is evidently a big fan of), but I am not quite sure what cocktail genre this falls in - the combination of gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari/another Italian liqueur would make it a negroni, but the plum brandy adds a really different spin on it, and all of the other ingredients have some sort of citrusy overtones, including the gin. The bartenders are big fans of the Balkan plum brandy, also known as rakija; this was the unaged version. The Amer, which dates back to 1875, was a solid addition; as you can tell by the name, it can play the role of amaro or vermouth in a cocktail. I have had the Comoz vermouth before at Swedish Hill and liked it. Overall this was just a really well-made cocktail with multiple ingredients that would each be great in other cocktails. 

A fun behind-the-scenes detail is that the drink picture above is actually of my second round; I was so absorbed by my conversation that I totally messed up the picture, and was therefore forced to order it again so I could get a clean snap of it. I don't like to dwell on just how much suffering I endure on this journey for you, the loyal reader, but sometimes I am practically forced to order multiple cocktails in order to provide the level of service that you deserve. 

What's Up, Doc? San Cosme mezcal, Primo Aperitivo, pineapple gomme syrup, carrot juice, lemon. $15.

I liked the first drink but loved the second. In my opinion drinks like this single-handedly justify the existence of the entire craft cocktail scene/movement/wave, as the idea of using carrot in a cocktail would never have occurred to me but fully converted me once I tried it. Like many great ideas it was based on an inventory problem: one of the bartenders had a bunch of carrots lying around and - just like in the famous anecdote of the Moscow Mule being designed to unload a ginger beer surplus - decided to see what could be done with the excess root vegetable. The result is a triumph; even its name is both a fun reference to Bugs Bunny, arguably the greatest cartoon character of all time, as well as the fact that San Cosme is the patron saint of doctors. San Cosme is evidently more of a mixing mezcal than a sipping mezcal, and that works well here when poured alongside the citrusy Primo Aperitivo, which is also from Mexico. Gomme is just syrup with a thickener in it, so when the pineapple is combined with the lemon, the carrot juice, and everything else, the resulting cocktail was so good that I immediately wondered why you don't see carrot more often. The answer: carrot juice doesn't stay fresh for very long, so it's usually not worth it to keep it around. If only all inventory problems had a solution as drinkable as this one.

The brilliance of carrot juice as a cocktail ingredient in conjunction with the sight of a bottle of Malört on the shelf sparked a lengthy discussion about how Austin needs its own prank liquor equivalent to Malört based on some local flavor or ingredient of our own. We have the Indian Paintbrush, invented at Garage Bar, as our "official" city cocktail, but that's way too pleasant for our purposes. Malört's horrible taste draws deeply on old European folkways, but Austin is too new for us to have thought up our own terrible local distilled disaster (I have had menthol tobacco-flavored vodka, but that's imported), so the best we could come up with was to make our hypothetical gag spirit savory, reminiscent of breakfast tacos somehow. Upon further reflection, I think a good candidate would be a chorizo liqueur:

• Even the sound of that is disgusting, which is just what we're after.
• At least one person has made a chorizo negroni and not died instantly, so there is precedent.
• Filipino cuisine has not one but two types of pork sausage - Chorizo de Cebu and Chorizo de Macao - made with anise, which strengthens the Malört connection.

I'm not directly asking someone to make this horrific meat liqueur nightmare come to life, like Prankenstein's monster, but wouldn't it be fun if it did exist?

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

Somehow I had not noticed that Hen House had closed - maybe because the paint job on The Treasury when the door to the outside is closed camouflages it seamlessly with the rest of Shangri-La - but close it did after COVID, departing for a new life on Fourth Street back in 2021. This sad closure gave Shangri-La the opportunity to stealthily open up a more intimate high-end cocktail bar adjacent to their existing more laid-back dive bar. They call it a speakeasy, but it only sort of is - though the most common way to get in is indeed to follow a circuitous and non-obvious path through the bar and outdoors to travel up and down flights of stairs and then wait to be buzzed into the cocktail chamber, another way is simply to walk in whenever they have the outside door open during happy hour. 

Through some trick of interior design, the space itself somehow seems much smaller and more intimate than when it was Hen House. Perhaps it was the treasury/bank vault theme (not like a Fallout vault), but I felt securely ensconced at my front seat bar perch in a comforting way that I didn't at Hen House. One really cool thing they did that stood out was that on their menu they have recommendations for other cocktail bars to go to if you liked the vibe here. I have never seen a bar advertise other bars on their menu like that, but I really respect that attitude of friendly competition and mutual support for fellow establishments. That carried over to the bartenders too, who were all very well-connected and happy to be a part of Sixth Street. I felt like I could have stayed here and drank for the whole night, but I had places to be. This is a great place to drink, and you can take that to the bank!

#231: Jo's Coffee

The Bar

Jo's Coffee. 221 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 4/24/2026 @ 11:30am.

The Drink

Four Corners El Chingón. $6.

There's a funny beer selection here, as despite Jo's being a proudly Austin chain, basically every beer they had was from Four Corners, an equally proudly Dallas brewery. When I posed my standard question about the drink that best represents the bar, the staff collectively vacillated between this and the Local Buzz, their honey blonde, before eventually choosing the IPA. I was glad they did, as El Chingón (a cheerfully affectionate vulgar Spanish term meaning something like "the badass") is an excellent IPA, one of the few which can rival my beloved 512 IPA in terms of smoothness (72 IBU vs 512's 60) and quiet strength (at 7.3% ABV, it actually bests 512's 7.0%). I wasn't trying to get hammered in a bank lobby at 11:30am, but if I had been, this would have been a really pleasant way to do it, as there was some very nice seating with a good street view right behind the Jo's counter that I had all to myself. $6 a can isn't a particularly great bargain, but again: this is in a bank lobby.

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

Jo's is a local mini-chain of coffee shops with an interesting position in the Austin cultural landscape. The flagship location on South Congress is internationally known for its iconic "I love you so much" wall mural, beloved of locals and tourists alike, but over the years the mural has become so well-known that it has reached escape velocity and is now more famous than the coffee shop itself, which is kind of like if everyone only knew the NYC restaurant featured in When Harry Met Sally as the "I'll have what she's having" deli. Still, there are obviously worse problems for your business to have than featuring world-renowned iconography on your building (at the very least, you can sell the crowds of people standing in line to take selfies in front of the mural coffee to drink while they wait), and the chain has done fairly well for itself since its founding in 2010. In fact, it has recently expanded beyond Austin to double-digit locations in multiple states thanks to its current status as a recently acquired member of the Hyatt hotel empire. 

Now, it's always potentially dangerous when a much-loved scrappy local joint scales up and out quickly - Alamo Drafthouse, Kerbey Lane, Torchy's, and Vert's are only some of the Austin-specific cautionary examples I could cite - but I feel like the coffee shop business model, particularly of the grab-and-go variety, has fewer inherent scaling problems than a restaurant, being more dependent on the location for its ambience. This Jo's outpost is located in the lobby of the freshly remodeled Chase Bank Tower, which was recently officially renamed to the Procore Tower but in a Sears Tower-like fit of stubbornness will probably retain its older name forever, especially among those old enough to remember when it was gold, like me. I had to go here during lunchtime since they close up at 5pm, which isn't great from an alcohol sales perspective but is just fine for a coffee shop that is focused on its core competency. Amusingly, the Jo's location nearest my house at Manchaca/Stassney can't sell alcohol at all since it is just barely within the TABC-mandated 300 foot radius of Crockett High School, but that just goes to show that booze isn't necessarily a big part of the Jo's business model, which is fair enough.

#230: Campo

The Bar

Campo. 1630 E 6th St #100, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 4/10/2026 @ 5:30pm.

The Drink

Spicy watermelon mint margarita. Carabuena tequila, watermelon, mint, chili. $16 ($10 during happy hour).

I've had watermelon margaritas before, but this one was easily the most citrullic yet, as it included a chunk of actual watermelon in it, thus putting the false promises of the other, lesser renditions of this humble classic that I've been drinking all these years into sudden stark relief. What a fool I'd been! An additional element in favor of this rendition is that the Carabuena tequila it uses is from Austin. I'd first encountered Carabuena when doing my research after visiting Willow Country down on West Sixth; after finally trying it, I think it makes an excellent base for the cocktail. I snagged this really fresh-tasting drink at the $10 happy hour price and it was a fantastic bargain.

Mezcalita maracuya. 400 Conejos mezcal, passionfruit, orange, agave, chili. $16.

This was the drink that second-best represented the bar, as I put it when I requested a second round. Campo does a lot of in-house juicing and making of agua frescas, and so I got another really fresh and flavorful cocktail. A mezcalita is just a margarita with mezcal in it, and maracuya is Spanish for passionfruit, so this drink is very true to its name. Speaking of, the name of the mezcal, which over-literally translates to "400 rabbits" (hence the name of the Alamo Drafthouse's specialty bar down south), is actually a translation of "centzon totochtin", the Aztec term for being really drunk: think of "drunk as 400 rabbits" as saying "3 sheets to the wind" in Nahuatl. By a funny numerical coincidence, the French also have a "400" phrase: "faire les quatre cents coups" figuratively means "to raise hell, to live a wild life", but when François Truffaut used it as the (perfectly apt) title for his debut film, it was bafflingly calqued by the studio as "The 400 Blows", which doesn't mean anything at all in English. What gives? What were they thinking?

In conclusion, I liked this cocktail as well. If the third beer is the philosopher's beer, the second must be the linguist's.

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

About a month ago Campo ("countryside, field" in Spanish) moved into the empty space left by Recreation's closure a few months back. None of the staff were quite sure what had happened to Recreation, but from what I can piece together, it seems like when Recreation's sister restaurant Ma'Coco's lease ran out on Comal a few blocks away, the owners tried to consolidate the concepts at Recreation, and just couldn't make it work out. RIP. Instead of Recreation's San Diego cuisine specialization, Campo's an upscale interior Mexican sort of place. The nice clean decor reinforces this impression; you can't really tell from the photo above, but everything is very neat and Instagrammable, which my bartender and I spent some time discussing. As I keep saying, it's really tough to open a cheap dive on Sixth Street these days, so the economics of influencer-friendly establishments, both in looks and menus, get more and more attractive to prospective bar owners who are trying to battle any number of economic headwinds these days, both tariffs on the national level as well as the related falling alcohol sales on the local level. 

As always, this is unfortunate for those of us who are attempting to recapture our lost memories of $1 Lone Stars and $3 wells, but what are you going to do. Interestingly, restaurant meals have gotten nearly 50% more expensive since 2017 versus only a 33% increase for drinks at a bar, so rather than complaining about how bougie cocktails have gotten, we should be directing our ire at more upscale menus and mourning cheap wing specials instead. But it's missing the point to spend too much time grumbling at how much appetizers are these days, and you won't hear (too much) grumbling from me on that point - bars aren't charities, and the worst bar of all is the one with the CLOSED sign on it. Instead I will say that you should go here if you're looking for a slightly more casual, less dressed-up companion to Mexta at Sixth and Congress.