#206: Willow Country Bar

The Bar

Willow Country Bar. 719 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 2/28/2025 @ 8pm.

The Drink

Cowboy cocktail. Chuckle rum, Malibu rum, pineapple juice, cranberry juice. $16.

One of the benefits of having done this project for 8 years (!) is that it gives me some perspective whenever I get sticker shock. I don't love that a drink in a Solo cup, even one made of metal, is $16, but the equivalent drink I was served 8 years ago at Concrete Cowboy was $12, and according to the BLS inflation calculator that is $15.72 today, so it's actually almost exactly the same price, even though it doesn't feel the same, as the drink at Concrete Cowboy was not only more elaborate but much bigger. Regardless, Chuckle rum is basically a fruit punch (I'm not sure if it has extra chuckle), and Malibu rum is the classic cheap "coconut suntan lotion" you remember from college, so this is a sort of simplified hurricane. I can only handle so much of these very sweet club drinks, so while each sip was fine on its own, I was not sorry when I finished it. Interestingly, the bar has an ownership connection with Carabuena tequila; it might have been nice to get a drink with some of that in it, but that's Dealer's Choice for you.

The Crew

Aaron, Rome.

Notes

Willow Country Bar is a reimagining of Concrete Cowboy, though its owners, the So Clutch Group, still maintain the Concrete Cowboy brand in other cities. It hasn't been open too long, but it had a big crowd of service industry folks the night I was there. In terms of changes from its former incarnation, the biggest change is the addition of a mechanical bull, which is an attraction I'm always surprised that bars spring for, given the cost of installation and operation, the amount of floor space they consume and the type of crowd you have to attract in order for them to get used. Do patrons really buy more drinks as they're watching some drunk tourist get thrown off after the first buck? Are there really people who practice their technique so they can ride it for longer? They're not that expensive, it's just interesting that the economics can work out for a bar. This was my fourth stop of the night (Rome's third), so we decided not to stick around for any bull-riding which might occur.

#205: DW's

The Bar

DW's. 715 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 2/28/2025 @ 7:30pm.

The Drink

Porn star martini. Smirnoff vanilla vodka, Passoa passionfruit liqueur, passion fruit purée, lime juice, with side of champagne. $15.

The name of the drink is the cocktail equivalent of clickbait, as it has absolutely nothing to do with porn stars other than that its inventor Douglas Ankrah thought that it "looked like a cocktail a porn star would drink". Much like with the similar Sex on the Beach, that's one way to stand out on a menu. However, in addition to the attention-grabbing name, the presentation of the porn star martini is pretty distinctive: the vodka and passionfruit ingredients are served in one glass, while the champagne is served on the side, for you to either alternate sips, pour into the main glass, or take as a chaser (my option). The ingredients are generally flexible - you can swap out the passionfruit for another fruit, the champagne for prosecco, etc - but it's kind of interesting that it took until 2002 for someone to invent a cocktail with bubbles on the side. This was one of the more popular signature drinks on DW's menu (see below for why I use the past tense), and I enjoyed it as well, so the bartender chose wisely.

The Crew

Aaron, Rome.

Notes

Normally I am fairly lax about visiting new bars immediately when they open, since I'm just doing this project for fun, but DW's is a cautionary tale for me about needing to get serious and stay on top of the new bar game. The backstory: the bar The Dogwood, which still maintains another location up at the Domain, sold their Sixth Street location in mid 2024 to Little Woodrow's, which in late 2024 opened DW's as a cocktail lounge, that was then open for a few months before it was closed and reopened as Woody's, a more affordable/approachable bar concept. Normally this would would have me cursing myself for having actually MISSED A BAR for the very first time, but when I told the staff what I was doing, they told me that since the changeover had just happened a month ago, they still had tons of DW's stuff lying around, which was how they were able to virtually recreate the fallen establishment just for me. I apparently didn't miss much; the decor was fairly similar, with even more 60s stuff lining the walls, and there were a few more couches, as befits a cocktail lounge, but otherwise the interior at least was not greatly different. RIP to DW's, but long live Woody's.

#204: Woody's

The Bar

Woody's. 715 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 2/28/2025 @ 7pm.

The Drink

Ranch water. Espolon tequila, sweet & sour mix, Topo Chico, lime. $6.

I always say that one of the most fun things about this project is learning history, and I was delighted to discover that the humble ranch water, which in its elemental form is just a margarita with sparkling water, was not only invented in Austin mere blocks away at Ranch 616 (which unfortunately is just off Sixth Street and therefore not eligible for inclusion), but helped popularize Topo Chico as a sparkling water brand in Austin. I love learning about connections between everyday items, and even if Topo Chico has been part of the Coca-Cola beverage portfolio since 2017, it's still something I drink all the time. Woody's rendition of the classic is about as everyday as you can get: the humble workhorse Espolon tequila as a base, generic sweet & sour to mix, and the requisite Topo Chico with lime to top it off. Yes, I know sparkling water is sparkling water, but how many other sparkling water brands get songs about them? A solid drink at a solid price.

The Crew

Aaron, Rome.

Notes

I left Aris to join up with Rome at a place where cocktails weren't $20. It's important to note that Woody's is unrelated to Bob Woody, the infamous "mayor of Sixth Street". Instead, its name refers to the Woody's Brands holding group which also owns Little Woodrow's, the microchain of Houston-based bars who have a few locations in Austin, including the one about a hundred yards down the street. Woody's is brand new, having opened about a month ago when Woody's Brands bought The Dogwood and reopened it as a cocktail bar named DW's (hold that thought for a moment), then pivoted to a more affordable/downscale concept under the Woody's name, which is what you see here. There's a strong 60s retro vibe, with lots of pictures of Marilyn Monroe, JFK, etc., as well as the kind of groovy wallpaper that reminds me of the hotel carpet in Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. I talk a lot on this blog about how the changing economics of the city practically guarantee that all new bars will be upscale $20 cocktail joints, but that is not always the case; this really feels like a legacy dive bar in its early days. We really appreciated that there are still cheap, unpretentious places opening up on Sixth Street these days, so we stuck around for another round enjoying the vibes before travelling back in time to DW's....

#203: Aris

The Bar

Aris. 1111 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78703

Visited 2/28/2025 @ 6pm.

The Drink

Aris G&T. Gin Mare Mediterranean gin, grapefruit bitters, kalamata olives, Fever Tree Mediterranean tonic. $20.

I've had a fair number of gin & tonics on this journey, and as Aris means "the best" (as in "aristocrat"), it makes sense that they would deliver. Gin Mare is a Catalonian gin, which is a first for me; the region has more gins that I thought. Its most notable botanical is the Arquebina olive, also from Catalonia, which gets good reviews from olive enthusiasts, although the presence of the much more famous kalamata olive was of course much more prominent. I didn't catch the brand of the grapefruit bitters, but their use of a higher-end tonic was probably the difference-maker, since going from a cheap tonic to a medium or high-end tonic arguably makes just as much difference as making the equivalent leap in the gin. Fever Tree sources its lemon thyme ingredient not from Catalonia but from just across the French border in Provence, but gets its quinine (of which it has less than the standard cheap grocery store-tier tonic water) from a Cinchona cultivar in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, though the famous "fever trees" that quinine is sourced from are native to the Andes. Britta De Pessemier wrote a fascinating paper on the differing phylogenies of  Cinchona trees in Peru and DR Congo, if you want more than the standard story of quinine, but I will end this digression by saying this was unquestionably the least medicinal/bitter G&T I've ever had, even less than the one at Gin Bar, and I would highly recommend it in spite of its price tag. 

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

Aris just opened in January, and while I can't speak to whether it lives up to its name as the single best restaurant in town (I haven't tried them all), it is unquestionably really nice, although the luxe quality of its interior is somewhat incongruous with the weirdly bland office park that surrounds its building on the south side of West Sixth. This is in the brand new Treaty Oak Square development that replaced the old AISD headquarters across the street from where Sixth & Blanco is replacing Z'Tejas. Anyway, I have nothing but compliments for the high quality of the interior, which is clearly calibrated for the upper tier of business diners, but my attention was captured by the huge meat room you walk past in order to get to the bar that is just to the right in the picture of me above. The Sof Hospitality group that opened Aris specializes in steakhouses (though I have to say I haven't ever encountered a Mediterranean steakhouse before), and it's worth it to take a detour to gawk at all the cuts of beef hanging around waiting to be devoured. Even the bar is nice, and I was pleasantly surprised by the friendliness of my fellow barmates. You probably have your own stereotypes about the kind of person who would frequent an establishment like this, but though statistically there must have been some Worthington's Law believers in the joint when I was there, everyone sitting around me had great fun commenting on the project and talking about their own favorite drinks and establishments nearby. Whatever you think of this latest wave of upscale "stores with a philosophy", as always, the real measure of a bar is its patrons, and this one was great.