#154: The Lucky Duck

The Bar

The Lucky Duck. 1300 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 3/7/2020 @ 7:30pm.

The Drink

Mezcal Old-Fashioned. Ilegal Joven mezcal, agave, Angostura bitters. $11.

For a drink whose name literally translates to "out of date", the number of variants on an Old-Fashioned I've encountered is truly amazing; as I keep saying, it's far and away the most-recommended drink I receive. But there are still plenty of surprises to be found in such an antique framework, including what's even in this variant. I am still not sure exactly what the mezcal was; I was told that it contained "El Silencio Ilegal", but since that's impossible (those are two completely different brands), I think that it's most likely it's Ilegal Joven, since they list Ilegal on their drink menu in their watermelon punch, and it's most likely to be the Joven variety specifically since it's unaged and therefore cheaper. Using a rawer and less polished liquor in a cocktail isn't a crime if you know what you're getting into, and the bartender did tell me that this was sort of a second choice since she had run out of an ingredient for the drink she really wanted to make me, so all's well - the drink would have been better with a nicer mezcal, but that's true of every drink, and the agave helped to take the edge off of the youthful roughness of the mezcal quite nicely.

The Crew

Kathryn, Neil, Aaron, James (not pictured), Geoff (not pictured), Karen (not pictured).

Notes

The Lucky Duck replaced Attabar, to my regret (which in turn replaced Sputnik, to my even greater regret), but the latest bar in this spot is a good general everyman bar, with enough cheap drinks to lure casuals and enough high-end but not TOO high-end cocktails to satisfy people who want those instead. The vibe is friendly, with the same solid dance-friendly but not dance-mandatory floor, and the outdoor patio is still spacious and welcoming. There's now a machine where you can acquire cute little rubber duckies to play around with, which turns out to be irresistible fun even to people in their 30s. It was my last official stop for the night, but we actually ended up coming back here many hours later after we had a long bar crawl to celebrate James's birthday the day prior, so clearly The Lucky Duck was good enough to make a solid immediate impression on all of us as both a good intermediate stop and as a later stop. It's always a little puzzling to me when a location can boast multiple bars that are all individually excellent but end up always going under, but there's a lot to a bar beyond just having strong pours that you as a patron don't see; a bar can look very different on the other side of the register! Here's hoping The Lucky Duck lasts a little while longer, because there's no such thing as having too many solid all-purpose bars.

#153: Lolo

The Bar

Lolo. 1504 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 3/7/20 @ 6pm.

The Drink

2018 Lirondo Verdejo white wine. $10.

I've talked before about how I feel like I have a less developed palate for wine than I do for beer, and that seems odder and lazier the more I think about it. Flavors are flavors, no matter where they come from, so why should you be less able to discern the subtleties of a grape alcohol vs a grain one? When I drank this, the sum total of my tasting notes were "drier, not sweet", which is... not exactly insightful. Awesome work, dude! Compare this to how one website describes it:

Tasting Notes: Salty, a touch yeasty but with such a refreshing citrus and pineapple springtime glow. A light maceration gifts the wine a bit more structure in the palate.

Another site describes it very similarly:

Verdejo is usually a simple, easy-drinking, fresh, fruity orange wine. A natural wine from the Rueda region just north of Spain, it's made in a style that gives it funky, floral, spicy flavors. It is made without any sulfur and with some grape skin contact to the juice, which makes the wine cloudy and a bit dark in color.

Even if both of those places are working off of the same vineyard advertising copy or something, I either just didn't notice or didn't care about the details, which is not great. Then again, perhaps some of the subtleties become apparent only with time in the same way that a seasoned beer drinker can tell if a beer is dry-hopped specifically or just really hoppy, so I need to keep working at being more of a Wine Person if I want to pick up on those things. Either way, I liked the wine, and I commit to doing a better job at trying to actually taste my wines in the future.

The Crew

Aaron, Kathryn, Neil.

Notes

Lolo replaced Gypsy Lounge, an alright but fairly unmemorable bar that I hadn't been to in years before this project started. Its replacement is valuable: the only other wine bar on Sixth is The Grove all the way over near Lamar, so it's good that wine fans out east have someplace a bit closer to them. Lolo isn't really positioned as a bar specifically for oenophiles though, instead they pitch themselves as more of a place for wine dummies such as myself to elevate my understanding of the product, with a heavy focus on natural wines (i.e. wines that don't have lots of sulfites). Wine is a famously snobby drinking subfield, where it can be difficult to consume intelligently even if you've got an open mind and an eager palate and you know what you're doing, so it was nice to visit a place as welcoming as this. Even their logo looks a bit like the smiling Mac OS Finder logo. I'd definitely recommend them as a place to drink wine and hang out, even if you're already a seasoned wine fan, since they have a nice artsy contemporary interior and a solid back patio. If you fall in love with a particular bottle they'll even sell more of it to you, so you basically can't not be a fan.

#152: Drop Kick

The Bar

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

Visited 3/7/20 @ 5:30pm.

UPDATE: Drop Kick has closed.

The Drink

Elephants On Parade. Solerno blood orange, muddled blackberries, lemons. $13.50.

Sometimes it can seem like the "craft" in craft cocktails just means that the ingredients are expensive. Not here! The bartender was excited to both offer and make one of their house specialties, and I have to say that I have never seen more lovingly muddled blackberries or more carefully wedged lemons in my life, each citrus slice carefully arranged like a little mosque tile or something. The result of the blackberry + lemon + orange poured over the ice was delicious, like the adult Froot Loops of your dreams (or nightmares, given the reference in the drink name). It was a nice cool afternoon so its effect was a bit muted, but on a hot summer patio afternoon this would be perfect, though unfortunately this place doesn't have a patio.

The Crew

Kathryn, Neil, Aaron.

Notes

Drop Kick is one of the new fancy high-end craft cocktail bar/eateries that have lately been sprouting like bluebonnets after a spring rain on this portion of East Sixth. It had just opened when we stopped by, and the bartender was eager to talk up the provenance of the food (the chef had been all over the place; the fare is fancy bar food) and how happy she was to be working there (her enthusiasm was contagious, as you can see in the picture of us). We didn't eat, instead concentrating on our drinks, but I could easily see this place neatly filling the "after work neighborhood bar" niche (as opposed to sports bar, date night bar, etc) for a bunch of the new places around here.

#151: J. Stephens Bar

The Bar

J. Stephens Bar. 214 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 2/22/2020 @ 11:30pm.

The Drink

Roses are red, have three of these and you'll be dead. Everclear, St. Germain, yellow chartreuse, simple syrup, lime juice. $14.

Apologies for the extremely red photo - it's a red drink under red light, and so even a skilled, sober photographer would end up with this scarlet smear. But it was appropriate for the Valentine's Day season, because the extremely long name is just a poetic way to describe an extremely alcoholic version of the cocktail known as the love potion. Instead of vodka, sub in Everclear; for grenadine, replace with St. Germain; rather than cranberry juice, try yellow chartreuse; bit by bit you have transformed a reasonable update on the humble cosmopolitan which would be suitable for date night into a powerhouse booze delivery vehicle that, even if it didn't deliver on its name and kill you after you had 3 of them, would at least leave your date worried about your risk of alcohol poisoning, and what could be more romantic than that? However, before they abandon you face-down at the table they should make sure to try a sip of the drink, because it's not nearly as harsh as I've made it sound - St. Germain is the premier elderflower liqueur, which gives the drink floral notes; yellow chartreuse is the sweeter, mellower sibling of green in the chartreuse family; and there's enough lime juice and simple syrup to smooth over any remaining rough edges. I only had 1 of these, but I'd still go home with me after 3.

The Crew

Travis, Brent, Aaron.

Notes

At first I wasn't sure if this place was eligible for my quest - it has a Sixth Street address (in fact the very same one as its sister bars Happy Chicks and BBG's), but it's not on the street at all, you have to get to it via the alley in the back. Well we shouldn't neglect the alleys of Austin, as Michael Martin Murphey would remind us, and I'm not about to start an argument with the Post Office, so if you head up San Jacinto, duck into the alley, and head about halfway to Firehouse Lounge, J. Stephens is the unassuming entryway on your left. Inside is the dim, dank, snug atmosphere that's the signature ambience of a speakeasy, although this place doesn't make you jump through as many hoops to get in as Midnight Cowboy or Floppy Disk Repair Co., which I appreciated since life is too short to futz around with passcodes and other nonsense. You get the cozy convivial vibe of an exclusive establishment without the hassle, so if you're looking for a craft cocktail lounge off the beaten path that won't make you solve these riddles three in order to get into a goddamn bar, J. Stephens is a solid choice.

If you're curious who the bar is named after, I would be remiss if I didn't relate the backstory, which your valentine might appreciate:

Owner Doug Guller based the name of the bar on the story of a man, John Waller Stephens, Jr., who had been the bookkeeper of a furniture store at the Sixth Street space in the 1920s. After being accused of embezzling money from the business, he committed suicide. Over the past ten or so years that Guller had operated restaurants in the building, employees reported strange things happening, like water being randomly turned on. He named the bar after Stephens, Jr., as a way “to make peace with him and get him on our side,” he said.

We didn't run into any ghosts when we were there, so I think it worked. 

#150: TenTen

The Bar

TenTen. 506 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 1/31/20 @ 9:30pm.

The Drink

Yuzu picante. Tequila reposado, sake, yuzu, grilled pineapple, serrano. $13.

Now this is a great craft cocktail, named after its star ingredient. The citrus family never ceases to impress with its diversity. The yuzu is a Chinese (by way of Japan) variety of citrus that brings a much more noticeably tart and floral scent to a drink than the more familiar citrus varieties like lemon/lime/orange/etc, although there are enough ingredients that it doesn't overwhelm everything else (you can't really see the dried yuzu slice in the picture but it's there). I foolishly did not ask for the exact brand of tequila that they used, but according to this guide on how to replicate the drink that I found, they infused the tequila with pineapple as well as having additional pineapple flavoring, so it would make sense to just use any reposado ("mildly aged") tequila as a base. You probably wouldn't normally expect a tequila drink to be Japanese-themed, but in a world where Beam Suntory moves over a hundred thousand cases of tequila a year, anything's possible. This is TenTen's most famous cocktail and it deserves its renown.

On another note, that drink guide also describes the serrano as being included in the form of a "tincture", a word I always associated with Final Fantasy 6, but to my surprise is actually the correct word to use in this instance:

A tincture is typically an extract of plant or animal material dissolved in ethanol (ethyl alcohol). Solvent concentrations of 25–60% are common, but may run as high as 90%.

Yet another educational trip to the bar!

The Crew

Sonali, Karen, Kathryn, Aaron, Neil, Ryan.

Notes

After the first phase of birthday celebrations at Buford's, we significantly classed it up by moving to TenTen, a modern sushi restaurant that's a much more high-end joint all around. Traditionally there has been a big divergence in the marketing of Japanese cuisine as high-end compared to the lower-end presentation of other Asian cuisines, but the interior of this place was just fantastic, even in the gloom of nighttime cocktails. Since we had just gorged ourselves on pizza we didn't eat, but I can attest that the food looked top notch; evidently the guy who developed the menu has also been doing the same for some other nicer newer places. I can say that even though all we did was stand at the bar and order rounds, the atmosphere was never less than inviting. After enjoying ourselves immensely here, it was almost with regret that we retired to Garage Bar, which is sadly not on Sixth Street so I can't review it here, for copious servings of Austin's official cocktail.

#149: Buford's Beer Garden

The Bar

Buford's Beer Garden. 700 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 1/31/20 @ 7pm.

The Drink

Claw eraser. Vodka, kahlua, White Claw. $9.

White Claw is definitely Having a Moment right now, so I wasn't surprised to run into this hard seltzer-filled take on a Mind Eraser, which is basically a carbonated Black Russian. Did you know that the White Russian is a variant on the Black Russian and not the other way around? Despite having seen The Big Lebowski seemingly dozens of times (or maybe because of that fact), I didn't until I just looked it up. The carbonation that the White Claw provided reminded me of the Coke in the Colorado Bulldog I was served at Trophy Club, but it was hard to taste any difference between the White Claw and say, club soda. Kahlua is a fairly overpowering although undeniably delicious ingredient, so perhaps White Claw would shine best (if it can be said to shine at all) by simply swapping it in for tonics and sodas in simpler cocktails. In any case, this was a fine drink, a great way to start the night.

The Crew

Aaron, Kathryn, Neil, Ryan (not pictured), Karen (not pictured), Sonali (not pictured), Travis (not pictured), Cristy (not pictured), Louis (not pictured).

Notes

Buford's Beer Garden replaced the ill-targeted Steampunk Saloon, which never quite caught on. Partially that was due to the bar getting relentlessly mocked by the populace due to steampunk as a concept being many years past its prime and firmly in the "ironic nostalgia" downward phase of popularity, and partially that was due to the bar just not being anything really noteworthy on a crowded stretch of Sixth.

Now that it has new life, though, I like its updated incarnation more. I wouldn't immediately associate it with the phrase "beer garden" in spite of its large patio, since the admittedly large and almost cavernous enclosed exterior isn't open-air enough, but it has plenty of room to sit and watch sports like Mavs @ Rockets like we were doing while we waited for everyone else to show up for some birthday shots (in a weird coincidence, I was visiting Buford's on my birthday in 2020, and I had visited Steampunk Saloon on my birthday in 2017). There's a ton of room to hold crowds but it doesn't feel like the bar's just cramming 'em in. best of all, its secret weapon is a Via 313 trailer in the back - few post-shots drunk foods can compete with some deep-dish pizza.

#148: Bar Peached

The Bar

Bar Peached. 1315 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78703

Visited 11/20/19 @ 8pm.

The Drink

Beetlejuice. Tequila, beet, lime, cilantro. $11.

There's not a lot of beet cocktails out there, but luckily Bar Peached did the world a flavor and stepped up to the plate. It's hard to describe the taste of beets other than by saying that they taste "like beets", so I won't really try - just imagine "warm, earthy, not quite savory", and other handwave-y terms like that. The other ingredients suggest a Mexican cocktail, but the beets evened them out, leaving a cocktail that was really good even I couldn't put my finger on exactly what made it so good. It was like taking a bunch of paint colors and mixing them together, but instead of a brown sludge I got an attractive burgundy cocktail with enough notes of the other ingredients that I didn't hesitate to order another one.

The Crew

Misty, Travis, Karen, Aaron.

Notes

Normally when I review these bars, I try to review them primarily as bars, but even though it's perfectly possible to saunter up to the bar and just drink here like you would at any other bar, Bar Peached is the West Sixth spinoff of the Peached Tortilla Asian/Southern fusion restaurant up north on Burnet, and we were here for the food. It replaces the sadly departed Winflo Osteria with a slightly different menu than its parent restaurant but with the same neat mix of cuisines. We had a bunch of things:

• Mapo bolognese
• Malaysian fried rice
• Crab chili toast
• Banh mi tacos
• Brussels sprouts

All were wonderful. The interior itself isn't really changed much from the Winflo Osteria era - they took out the knickknacks, but kept the hardwood. The exterior patio level looked to be unchanged. I probably wouldn't come here for casual drinking, but I highly recommend Bar Peached as a nice meal out with drinks.

#147: Swedish Hill

The Bar

Swedish Hill. 1120 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78703

Visited 11/20/19 @ 7:30pm.

The Drink

Savoie Shrub 75. Comoz blanc vermouth, lemon, strawberry balsamic shrub, sparkling wine. $10.

At the time we visited, the newly reopened Swedish Hill had not yet gotten their full liquor license up and running due to whatever goofy TABC regulation covers that situation, so all the cocktails were of the fortified wine or less variety: no liquor. They promised they'd have real liquor cocktails very shortly, but in the meantime you can of course make some perfectly passable drinks without getting into the hard stuff. The name of the drink is an obvious nod to the French 75, but without the ability to use gin, Swedish Hill decided to go off-script, as the drink shares only the lemon and sparkling wine with its more famous namesake. The vermouth is an interesting choice; the blanc style (which Comoz evidently pioneered themselves) is about halfway between the dry style you see in martinis, and the sweet style you see in Manhattans. The other ingredient that stood out to me was the shrub, which is a fruit syrup made with sugar and vinegar, and that strawberry balsamic flavor combined with the semi-sweet vermouth made for a pleasant drink. I hope they get their license soon, but this will tide you over well until then.

The Crew

Aaron, Karen, Misty.

Notes

The bakery Sweetish Hill had been around for my entire life at this quaint little "mini downtown" stretch of West Sixth near Blanco Street until very recently, when it was bought, closed, renamed, and reopened just a few months ago by the steadily growing McGuire Moorman empire as a new central bakery hub for their portfolio of interesting restaurants around town. The name change is a bit confusing to me - it could be a reference to the historic Swedish Hill is part of town, even though that's on the east side - but the new bakery is a nicer and fancier upgrade of the original 1975 joint. They've spiffed-up the interior bakery/deli sector right when you walk in with inviting product cases, and the outdoor patio has gotten a tuneup. I know that the the bar/dining area off to the right looks a little under-decorated and over-mood-lighted in the photo, but in person it's not nearly so bleak, just clean. We didn't eat here, but all the food looked fantastic.

#146: The Upside

The Bar

The Upside. 1108 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 9/14/19 @ 8pm.

UPDATE: The Upside has closed.

The Drink

Peruvian National. Portón Acholado pisco, pineapple, apricot, lemon, egg white, Chuncho bitters. $13.

This was the first pisco sour I've been served on the journey so far, and for the most part it stuck to the script with the exception of swapping out the traditional simple syrup for pineapple and apricot, which was an inspired choice. Pisco is evidently having a moment, and Portón Acholado is one of the newer piscos attempting to capitalize on the pisco wave. Whiskey sours are by far the more familiar genre of sour cocktail, but pisco, being distilled fermented grape juice, goes just as well or better with the sourness of the lemon and the sweetness of the syrup, or pineapple and apricot in this case. It turns out that Chuncho bitters is a specifically Peruvian brand of bitters, and while I had not known that there was such a thing beforehand  I do think it was a good call to use it over the old reliable standby of Angostura bitters. The decorative arrow on top represents the "upside" of the bar's name; it's a nice touch, and seems tailor-made for Instagram (or this blog), even though whenever I spend too much time thinking about objects specifically designed for pictures my mind naturally goes to the "most photographed barn in America" from Don DeLillo's novel White Noise. Regardless, it was a fine cocktail when I stopped taking pictures of it and actually drank it, and it deserves all the hashtags I'm sure it's gotten.

The Crew

Travis, Michael, Aaron, Karen, Mark, Neil, Kathryn.

Notes

As I alluded to when I talked about Sixth & Waller on the ground floor, The Upside is the where the final boss of the hotel would be if this were a kung fu movie, because it's a high-end restaurant with a bar and view to match. If you were determined to spend your entire day within the walls of the East Austin Hotel, which I'm sure would delight the management, Sixth & Waller is where you'd have breakfast and a Bloody Mary, Pool Bar is where you'd day-drink, and The Upside is where you'd end the night with a nice dinner and cocktails. It's not quite a rooftop bar since it's not on the top of the highest floor, but it's easier to call it that than a veranda bar or penultimate floor balcony bar or whatever since it is in fact mostly open to the air above, and mostly importantly it offers the main point of a rooftop bar: a great south-facing view of Sixth Street and the city vistas beyond. We didn't eat here, but similarly to downstairs they have an international fusion-y menu that looked pretty good and would probably have been great, since the food at Sixth & Waller was excellent. The main bar area has a vaguely North African/Middle East vibe to it, and in addition to the outdoor seating there's a contemporary art-bedecked common dining room with a big TV that was showing the Longhorns busily destroying the Owls, which as you can see was helping our mood immensely (well, that and the several drinks we'd already had). 

Pro tip: I hope you remembered where the restroom was on the ground floor, because there isn't one up here. A cleverer writer than me would probably say something witty like "it was the only downside of The Upside", but you probably needed the exercise of going back down and up the stairs again anyway.

#145: Pool Bar

The Bar

Pool Bar. 1108 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 9/14/19 @ 7:30pm.

UPDATE: Pool Bar has closed.

The Drink

Neon Chi Chi. 4 white rum blend, blue curaçao, pineapple, vanilla bean coconut cream, lime flash. $12.

I'm gradually learning that "tiki" is just industry shorthand for "sweet rum drink", so by that metric this is basically the ultimate tiki cocktail, since it's made with a house blend of not one, not two, not three, but four different rums. The bartender didn't know offhand exactly which specific rums went into this particular mishmash, but that just made me smile a little bit - you know all the time and care and thought and artistry and blah blah blah that goes into making blended whiskies? What if instead of doing all that, you just dumped a bunch of rums into a glass? I don't want to diminish the artistry of the bartender here, who was a perfectly pleasant guy (as you can tell from our group photo, we made life easy on him and just got one each all the way around), but it makes you think about what makes for an appropriate drink for specific times and places. Here, floating atop the abundance of rum was a mixture of closely-related sweet flavors, like a painter going through a blue period who decided to lean heavily on one particular area of his palette. Convenience is another virtue of the tiki tradition as well, I'm sure. Aside from having a bit too much ice it was a solid cocktail, perfect for a summer evening poolside.

The Crew

Mark, Karen, Michael, Aaron, Travis, Kathryn, Neil.

Notes

The second stop on our quest to drink at each bar of the hotel was Pool Bar, which is right by the interior pool, although not quite close enough to swim up to it. Something about a swim-up pool bar has always felt like the ultimate in decadence to me, and though you're cruelly forced to climb onto dry land and sit barside to get your next round of drinks, the appeal of having a convenient cocktail source remains, and it's probably for the best anyway that you can't just chug booze from plastic cups while splashing about - that's a spring break move. Pool Bar is underneath a covered roof for protection against the elements in a semi-enclosed area away from the poolgoers, so as a barfly you do get basically the best of both worlds as you enjoy close bar access without having to dodge soaking wet swimmers wandering around. There weren't a ton of people around when we visited, so our people-watching was limited, but I can see this bar being a fun hangout spot during the dog days of summer, as long as you can handle the cocktail prices. We couldn't linger, however - we had more drinking to do!

#144: Sixth & Waller

The Bar

Sixth & Waller. 1108 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 9/14/19 @ 6pm.

UPDATE: Sixth & Waller has closed.

The Drink

Isla Buck. Vodka, vinho verde, hibiscus, ginger, cucumber, lime. $10.

This was just a really great and inviting cocktail, despite the ominous Shining-esque red tint that the hibiscus gave it. Vodka being a neutral spirit, all of the flavor action came from the other ingredients, which were all tasty and refreshing. Vinho verde is a bubbly Portuguese wine, and though it comes in several different types, the kind that Sixth & Waller uses is the friendlier, more effervescent variety that gives drinks a little carbonation along with the mellow wine flavor. Coupled with the ginger, cucumber, and lime, this was a slightly sweet - but not too sweet - cocktail that left me raring to go for another. As luck would have it, we were waiting around for the rest of our crew to arrive, and our bartender happily helped us kill time by making us about 1 of everything from the rest of the cocktail menu. I highly recommend the Pisco Punch and their version of a sazerac (which uses whiskey AND cognac instead of the traditional either/or), but the Isla Buck is a killer first-round round.

The Crew

Aaron, Travis, Michael.

Notes

Much like the Arrive Hotel just down the street, the similarly just-opened East Austin Hotel has thoughtfully included multiple different bars within its walls, which means that the interested drinker has to put in just about the bare minimum of effort possible to check out another drinking scene should the current one grow stale. Sixth & Waller, conveniently named after the intersection of the hotel's street address, is at the ground floor just off to the left when you walk into the lobby from Sixth Street, like the first level of a pagoda of drinking. It's primarily a diner-ish restaurant with a focus on fusion-y dishes (though don't sleep on their burger), but it also offers a solid cocktail listing. I felt right at home when we sat down - something about the bright lighting from the south-facing windows, the warm wood walls, and even the blue-tiled tabletops felt very comforting. Austin is of course famous for diners, and a newcomer like Sixth & Waller is just a cleaner, nicer version of the old standbys, though it's sadly missing the crucial ingredient of 24-hour migas availability. Maybe someday. In the meantime, it's an excellent place to grab a cocktail and build up a solid food foundation for the next drinking levels.