#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.