#123: Hen House

The Bar

Hen House. 1012 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 11/3/18  @ 12am.

The Drink

Sophia. Vodka, elderflower liqueur, champagne, grapefruit juice. $11.

The drink is flanked by the intensely and impressively inked fingers of the bartender, who also happens to be the owner. As you might expect, this VIP attention meant it was excellent. Vodka cocktails are a nice break from Old-Fashioneds, and I have always thought that champagne gives drinks a nice touch. What was most distinctive about this drink was the elderflower liqueur (possibly St. Germain, the heavy hitter of that category, but I didn't ask). Elderflower is a rarer ingredient; one of those floral derivatives that brightens up anything it's added to. I hadn't thought of this comparison, but I read a comparison of elderflower to lychee and I think it makes total sense to consider elderflower an Alpine relative of that flavor. Combine that with the grapefruit, and this cocktail was superb, although it was served in my least favorite of all possible cocktail glass form factors. What kind of moron designs a glass that spills when you try to cheers someone else? I love cheersing! My enduring grudge against the martini glass, the worst of all glasses, continues unabated. All of the cocktails have girl's names, and they all looked great.

The Crew

Aaron, Karen.

Notes

Hen House is one of those interesting success stories on Sixth Street that I love to see: Gabrielle, the owner (and crafter of my cocktail), worked at Rhino Room, the previous bar in this location, and eventually decided to buy it out to start her own place. It's great to see someone be able to follow their passion and open up their own bar; the transition from working at a bar to running one is hard, and it's nice to see that there's still a constant stream of new faces bringing their own ideas to Sixth. Hen House keeps what I liked about Rhino Room - the wood interior, the sense of intimacy - and simplifies it a bit by removing some of the knickknacks and adding some fun flair like ceiling lights. It's cozier than the old layout was, somehow, yet you still feel like you could sit here peaceably drinking quality cocktails for a while. I'm also glad that the tree-lined upstairs patio remained intact; we went upstairs to relax with our drinks and enjoy a bit of quiet. I don't know if the "hen house" name refers to anything in particular beyond being a place that shouldn't be guarded by a fox, but the chick who owns it did a good job.

#122: Attabar

The Bar

Attabar. 1300 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 9/7/18 @ 11pm.

UPDATE: Attabar has closed.

The Drink

Spicy margarita. Lunazul tequila, jalapeño syrup, agave nectar, lime juice, tajin. $9.

The spiciest drink I've gotten so far was the Bloody Mary at Casino El Camino; this was nowhere near as spicy as that, but you can't compare a prank cocktail to a daily drinker like this. Lunazul tequila has been a popular selection for margaritas on this quest, and it continued to ably fulfill its role as the "premium mediocre" tequila of choice. I'm not sure exactly which sugar they used for the syrup, or the sugar ratio, or any of the background details behind their syrup creation process, but I loved the balance between spicy and sweet and the acid of the lime, and of course tajin, king of seasonings, is always welcome. The bartender was REALLY excited about our project, having a total blast as she recommended and mixed our drinks, and you can see her frantic gesticulations in the background as we got ready to try our respective concoctions. 

The Crew

Aaron, Travis, Geoff, Karen (not pictured).

Notes

Attabar replaced the late, great Sputnik, one of my favorite stops on East Sixth back in the day. Sputnik was an unshamed dive bar/restaurant, with cheap drinks and great food. The new spot is absolutely not a dive, but since we're all about celebrating the present and not mourning the past, we will focus on the virtues of the new spot. They'd been open for slightly more than 6 months when we visited, and it seemed like had gotten into a solid groove. The new layout is more open-plan than Sputnik was, ditching the thick wood coziness (RIP to the sexy pinup posters) in favor of more space and an atmosphere of conviviality. One thing that I've noticed I like about bar interiors is what I call "chatting tables" for lack of a better term - the long thin double-sided countertops that let you sit closer to your friends to drink and talk than full-width tables, but still have room for your cocktails and snacks. Attabar has one of those front and center, and it's interesting how they allow both for intimate discussions with your friends, as well as for serendipitous encounters with friendly strangers who are just an elbow away. Everyone we saw was having a good time, so Attabar is as good an example as any of how individual bars can come and go, but even though it's appropriate to mourn the fallen, what better place to do it than at the counter of the living?

#121: Little Big Burger

The Bar

Little Big Burger. 1630 E 6th St #100, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 9/7/18 @ 9:30pm.

UPDATE: Little Big Burger has closed.

The Drink

Zilker Marco IPA. $6.

I last had this beer straight from the source at Zilker Brewing just a few blocks down the street. In a glass or a can, it's a fine American IPA. You might think that three dudes showing up to a fast food burger joint just to pound some brews would get odd looks, but fortunately for us, we were the only ones there! If the staff thought anything was amiss about our mission, they kept it to themselves, and as a result we were able to relax and savor this not-quite-sessionable 7% IPA, sipping our cans at our leisure. I really like the art on their cans - a product of Zocalo Design, an Austin firm that is itself just a few blocks further on East Sixth, the pattern is meant to evoke Saltillo blankets. This discovery could lead us on a further quest investigating more chains of references to things like Plaza Saltillo, and so on, but it's enough to say that it's a great can design, and a great beer.

The Crew

Travis, Geoff, Aaron.

Notes

Little Big Burger is based in Portland, Oregon, and this is their first outpost in Texas. Austin doesn't lack for excellent burger joints, but it's still nice to see what other parts of the country have to offer, even if ultimately they end up disappointing somewhat. Yes, I am referring to when In-N-Out showed up, everyone went nuts, and then we had to pretend like Whataburger was the greatest thing our state has ever produced in prideful self-defense. Not that I hate Whataburger (I have indelible college memories of happily devouring their breakfast biscuits at 2am), but let's let's keep some perspective here. Sadly we did not gain any additional perspective on this Portland product by actually consuming their burgers (be healthy - save those calories for beer), though from what I understand they're quite good. I can't claim that the restaurant itself makes for a top-tier drinking location - it has that familiar harshly echoing, oddly-lit, plainly functional fast-casual interior decor - but we're hardly the typical patrons, and it's probably not such a big deal when you're sitting down for a real meal. Sometimes it does occur to me, when I visit stops like this, how untypical our mission is, but all I can report is what I experience. Not every business is truly a bar at heart some are born a bar, some achieve barness, and some have barness thrust upon them. Little Big Burger is in the latter category.

#120: The Last Straw

The Bar

The Last Straw. 1914 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 9/7/18 @ 9pm.

UPDATE: The Last Straw has closed.

The Drink

Mai Tai. House rum medley (Rhum JM, Hamilton Jamaican Black, El Dorado 8 year), dry curaçao, orgeat, lime. $6.

I had been served a Mai Tai at COLLiDE atx, but naturally a more tiki-inclined establishment's version of the modern classic was always going to be more elaborate (check out the awesome carved wooden drinking vessel) and more in keeping with the official recipe. That means curaçao, which the other rendition lacked. This version has dry curaçao, which turns out to deserve its own historical tangent. Curaçao is named after the Dutch Caribbean island of Curaçao where it was first distilled. Like most liqueurs it's made with fruit, in this case specifically with laraha oranges, a bitter variant of Valencia oranges from Spain, which are in turn descended from wherever in Southeast Asia the first ancient citron reared its mighty head. Dry curaçao, however, draws on techniques pioneered in Burgundy to modify the recipe, using a different starting basis for the spirit and flavor profile development. Curaçao is the same thing as triple sec (the "sec" means "dry" as in "dessicate"), so you can think of dry curaçao as a dry Caribbean liqueur made from a variant of Spanish oranges made even drier by way of France. It's globalism at its best, and while the average joe like yours truly might only get a hint of the rich web of world-spanning connections among the various rum flavors and orgeat, it's the attention to detail and commitment to the experience that separates a top-tier Mai Tai like this one from less-successful attempts. I didn't even mention all the fancy rums they use, which you unfortunately can't really taste distinctly. or maybe I was just too busy admiring the cup.

The Crew

Aaron, Kyle, Travis, Geoff.

Notes

It's a shame that Chicon did not last longer in this space, since they had one of the best cocktail menus on East Sixth. But no matter, their replacement is quite good on its own. The Last Straw is not quite a tiki bar, but it's about as tiki-adjacent as you'll find on Sixth Street. They've redone the interior, so it's got an extremely colorful tropical interior that's inviting by day and still convivial at night, when the entire joint is bathed in crimson. Red glow at night, drinkers' delight! It actually somewhat reminded me of a late night on the Drag, in one of the coffee shops with similarly unusual lighting conducive to maintaining your night vision. It's all the better to see what you're drinking, as all of their drinks come in neat little tiki/Hawaiian/tropical delivery vehicles, possibly for immediate Instagram production but also because it looks fun. Everything about this place is seemingly designed for a good time - how can you hate owners who designed a cocktail to drink while watching Caddyshack? They have an extensive food menu (though oddly it's a Mexican-themed menu rather than anything tropical), but we didn't sample any of it.

#119: Via 313

The Bar

Via 313. 1802 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 9/7/18 @ 7pm.

The Drink

Old-Fashioned. Russell's Reserve bourbon, simple syrup, Luxardo cherry, orange peel. $10.

I once read some reviews of Beatles albums that I unfortunately cannot find now where, confronted by the psychologically daunting task of finding something new to say about the most comprehensively overanalyzed discography in rock history, the reviewer simply decided to give every album an 8/10 and just talk about how Ringo's drumkit changed over time. That's how I feel about encountering the Nth iteration of the Old-Fashioned: do I focus on the whiskey/bourbon, the syrup, the cherry? The ice cube? Let's just say that I liked the result: when I asked for the drink, the bartender decided to give me the bourbon variant instead of the rye whiskey (which they make with Balcones Texas rye), which was interesting since Russell's Reserve is a spicier bourbon, though still sweeter than a rye. The entire idea behind going with a bourbon instead of a rye is that you don't want that peppery bite which opposes and balances the syrup, but this managed to neatly split the difference between the two philosophies. After so many different variants on the humble standby cocktail, perhaps a return to the mean was all for the best. Despite being a pizza joint at heart, Via 313 does not skimp on their cocktails one bit.

The Crew

Kyle, Aaron, Travis, Geoff (not pictured).

Notes

I was excited to visit this stop, but if I'm being honest with myself, a lot of that anticipation was for the pizza factor rather than the bar factor. Via 313 is a dedicated fixture on every self-respecting best pizza in Austin list, and it's unquestionably the best pizza on Sixth Street (sorry Roppolo's and Paparazzi, and RIP Rounders), so a chance to grab a drink here is also a chance to grab a slice, or 2, or 3, etc etc. Very few people will ever come to a pizza joint like Via 313 purely for the booze, but one of the great things about pizza is that it goes so well with booze, it's as if the two were made for each other. This thick, bready, deep Detroit-style pizza in particular goes really well as a pregame or midgame snack, and I'm surprised it's not more common for specifically this reason. Interestingly, this market niche crying out to be filled opens up an opportunity for little old Via 313 here in Austin: the megachains from Detroit don't really focus on the native style (Little Caesar's sells Detroit-style as an afterthought; Domino's doesn't sell it at all), so it's entirely possible that given a few years of solid growth, Via 313, which has only existed since 2011, could soon become one of if not the largest Detroit-style chain in the country, if it isn't already.

This outpost of the Via 313 empire replaced the irritatingly-capitalized COLLiDE atx, which lasted for less than a year in this space even though I foolishly proclaimed at the time that it looked primed for success. However, if we pretend that what I actually predicted was that "a" pizza place here would do well, then it turns out that my misplaced prognostication was entirely correct! Something feels slightly off about the interior design of the new space (not cozy enough to be a pizza joint, just don't have the vibe to be a real bar), but there's a decent patio outside, and anyway it's hard to focus on much else once you've sat down for a drink and you've got some pizza on the way. Who chooses a bar based on the wallpaper? It's kind of funny: most people would never imagine telling their friends "guys, let's grab some drinks at Via 313!" and expecting a night full of rounds, but they lacks imagination! Via 313 had its genesis as a food trailer parked outside of Violet Crown, where I consumed it many a time, and I am glad that they're all grown up. The more pizza and booze the better!

#118: Terminal 6

The Bar

Terminal 6. 302 E 6th St #101, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 12/23/17 @ 11pm.

UPDATE: Terminal 6 has closed.

The Drink

Adios, motherfucker!. Tequila, whiskey, vodka, gin, rum, triple sec, blue curaçao, sour. $6.

By now I'm getting to consider this drink a classic, and the fact that it's made with Dirty Sixth's typically peculiar blend of effort (lots of ingredients) and laziness (it's in a red solo cup) only enhances it, and so this edition of the Adios, motherfucker! lands with an even more heightened melange of sensations than usual: both the elevated mixology and slopping the hogs that defines a Saturday night out on the town. Various scientists have attempted over the years to quantify the precise effects that the shape of a drinking glass has on the contents within, to more or less plausible results. Like, I'd certainly believe that beer tastes differently from a Belgian glass than a boot, but there's no way you could tell the difference between every type of glass, even if there was some sort of contraption that let you drink from a glass without being able to tell its shape. I have yet to see a double blind study or numerical simulation apply itself to a red solo cup, but my affection for this affordable slumgullion only gets greater the more humble the drinking vessel. I wish they'd given me the lime garnish this drink had at the last place though; limes are always a plus.

The Crew

Aaron, Vince, Geoff.

Notes

I will never stop talking about the history of even the most mundane bars on Sixth, because an otherwise seemingly unremarkable 18+ dance club becomes something grander when looked at in context, as layers of grit produce a pearl inside the oyster. Terminal 6 has been a succession of clubs over the years, passing through several alternate identities (Crave and Exodus were the two names offered) before settling on its current form. When we were walking past this joint I thought at first that I had totally missed it, but it turned out that it had only decided to open up beyond just being a venue very recently. Phew! The interior was excellent - three stories of the really neat mortared stone that defines the 19th century Austin masonry style, lined with smaller side bars and packed with pre-Christmas revelers. In the windows out front they had girls dancing in the stone windows to the  music blasting from the sound system, and it really made me wonder: what would Stephen F Austin have thought of the scene? We valorize the architects of our society as having laid the foundations for our current existences, yet exactly how would Mirabeau Lamar have reacted to the knowledge that his bitter struggle with Sam Houston to establish a new seat of empire in the Texas Hill Country would ultimately result in girls getting down to Gold Digger on a chilly winter night amid a swirl of drunk people in ugly Christmas sweaters? We don't get to choose our ultimate legacies, but personally I think that's a success by any measure you want to call it.

Sixth Street Sector Roundup: East Sixth

It took less than a month to wrap up the whole quest. East Sixth isn't quite the densely-packed, walkable bar cluster that Dirty Sixth is, but it's getting there, and I was so eager to try some of the newer bars that it only took a handful of attempts to finish the street.

About those newer bars: East Sixth makes a convenient shorthand for a lot of the big arguments about Austin's history and identity that you may have noticed. Its connection to the black and Hispanic communities of Austin give it a very different history and present than the more genteel West Sixth or riotous Dirty Sixth, but while bars on West Sixth sink seamlessly into the neighborhood, and nothing short of an atomic blast could erase the character of Dirty Sixth, it's inarguable that many of the joints popping up on East Sixth bear little resemblance to what old-timers remember. While some people complain about skyrocketing rents and the accompanying demographic transformation, others enjoy the lower crime and nicer amenities, like fancy cocktail bars. Sure, it's not like the locals don't appreciate a good Manhattan, but if it's at the expense of a $1 Lone Star, different people have different reactions. Are these changes a good thing or a bad thing? Can one drink on East Sixth in good conscience? Well....

I've spent a good portion of this blog arguing in favor of change. My family moved to Austin when I was a year old, and nothing annoys me more than the "hey man, the city's full, and newcomers like you have ruined the paradise that it used to be" mentality that you hear all too frequently. Austin's best resource is its people, and to desire stasis is to desire decline. So, if you accept that pro-immigration logic about the city as a whole, which I think you should, how does that apply to an area which has historically been starved of the very kinds of investment and construction now transmuting it? East Austin is richer and more diverse than it's ever been, as you can see by the mix of bars, yet it's impossible to ignore the steady metamorphosis happening outside of the bars. Yes, East Austin is now the most racially integrated part of the city, but somehow the blacks and Hispanics who are getting priced out aren't moving to Travis Heights or (back to) Clarksville, they're moving to Kyle or Pflugerville. From a purely economic standpoint it's no different than anyone getting priced out of a successful city, and yet it would be naive to pretend like Austin's peerless growth has benefited everyone equally. I love drinking on East Sixth, and it's not like not drinking there would help anyone, but it's worth a pondering what used to be on the spot where you're now drinking a $15 craft cocktail.

And now for some statistics!

Top 5 Bars

Using a completely subjective formula that takes into account the quality of the drink, the ambiance of the bar, the friendliness of the bartender, and my own level of intoxication, here are my top five bars:

1. Violet Crown Social Club
2. Latchkey
3. The Volstead
4. The Eastern
5. ​Mezcalería Tobalá

Booze Brothers participating

Total: 33

• Aaron: 28
• Travis: 9
• Rome: 9
• Hannah: 9
• Vince: 8
• James: 5
• Davis: 5
• Anthony: 5
• Alexis: 5
• Chris M: 4
• Jeff: 4
• Lisa: 4
• Michael: 4
• Kayleigh: 4
• Karen: 3
• Brent: 3
• Misty: 3
• Nick H: 3
• Ryan: 2
• Wolf: 2
• Jackie: 2
• Will: 2
• Chris X: 2
• Jessica: 2
• Amanda: 2
• Kason: 2
• Cody: 2
• Jackie C: 2
• Kelly: 2
• Haley: 2
• Philip: 2
• Tristan: 1
• Kyle H: 1

Establishments visited

Total: 28

• Bars: 23
• Restaurants: 3
• Breweries: 3
• Coffeeshops: 1
• Barbershops: 1

Drinks consumed

Total: 28*

• Cocktails: 16
• Shots: 1
• Beers: 9
• Other: 2
• Wines: 0

* Obviously I drank WAY more than that.

Money spent

Total: $224.50*

* That doesn't include taxes, tip, or the food or extra drinks I bought.

#117: Hops and Grain Brewery

The Bar

Hops and Grain Brewery. 507 Calles St #101, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 8/9/17 @ 8:30pm.

UPDATE: Hops and Grain has closed.

The Drink

Hops and Grain Dispensary IPA. $5.

Yup, that's a pretty lousy pour - not exactly the beer I wanted this quest to end on. But you take life as it comes, and even the substandard volume and egregious head (I totally disagree with the "head is good" school of thought) in this pour couldn't ruin a good beer. I had just enjoyed the 6.7% Dispensary IPA at Hi Hat, and it was much the same here - a hoppy IPA with a solid bite to it, a high-ABV beer that goes down easier than it probably should. And so, as tends to happen, I was less upset with the pour the more I drank. Beer is a powerful vehicle for forgiveness, and I'm a firm believer in the idea that most beer is good beer, and the best beer is the one you're about to have. In that spirit, that the final beer of the journey left me thirsty for more is all too-fitting. Sixth Street may have ended, but I'm still not done!

The Crew

Aaron, Rome, Vince, Travis, Hannah.

Notes

Tucked away in a shopping center right where Sixth Street ends, Hops and Grain is a great brewery that has only continued to improve over time. Its origin story involves an amusing anecdote about founder Josh Hare's dog, and indeed six years later you can still buy those very same grain treats today, as befits a brewery that focuses so much on sustainability. I'm well past the brewery tour phase of my drinking career (there's only so many times you can be impressed at the size of a fermentation chamber), so these days when I go to a brewery I'm more interested in their beer consumption setup rather than their beer production setup: Hops and Grain has a decent indoor space, with rows of picnic tables in the air conditioning that seat a few dozen people, and also some more space outside in the sunshine, for those weekend days where you want to drink with friends outdoors and munch on some food trailer snacks. They converted their old "pay $10 for a pint glass and three beer tokens" model to a more reasonable "pay by the pint" taproom model (which is great, since I have far too many pint glasses already), and they're also planning to move to a brewpub model that allows them to sell beer to go. Anything that helps them distribute their excellent beer more widely is fine by me!

#116: Chicon

The Bar

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

Visited 8/9/17 @ 7:30pm.

UPDATE: Chicon has closed.

The Drink

Chi-lada. ​Rum, coconut milk, lemongrass, ginger. $9.

Out of all of the intriguing high-end cocktails on the Originals portion of the menu, I thought the bartender made one of the most intriguing picks. Based on the name, you might think that it was a home-rolled variant of a michelada, but instead it's almost closer to an alcoholic version of a Thai soup broth without the sour and spice, if that makes sense (probably not - just work with me here). The coconut milk is the primary flavor here, so it's very smooth, and the ginger adds a little kick. You really can't taste the rum at all, although there was a solid pour, so you're just left with a pleasant cocktail that leaves you ready to tackle the next drink. The rest of their cocktails run the full gamut of liquors from seemingly all over the world: the expected vodka, gin, bourbon, and tequila being joined by the rarer scotch, pisco, mezcal, and even Becherovka, a Czech herbal liqueur I'd never heard of before. We tried a fair sampling and they were all good, so if a rum cocktail isn't exotic enough for you (or for some strange reason a drink that reminds you of tom kha doesn't sound appetizing) you can still order with confidence.

The Crew

Vince, Rome, Aaron, Travis, Hannah.

Notes

I've never been to Contigo, the upscale restaurant which eventually spun off this successor, but it maintains a high-enough standard that I bet its most famous progenitor is also pretty nice. When we visited it seemed like most people were here for the happy hour, to score some cheap snacks, selected cocktails, whiskeys, and most of all wine - judging by the legions of drained glasses on the tables around us it seemed like every group but ours was on a mission to drink Chicon clean out of rosé. I really liked the interior: clean wood panels, exposed lights, a white ceiling floating like a big cloud over blue walls.... As far the food is concerned, we didn't try any, but what we saw looked appetizing. They seem to be going for more of a neighborhood hangout concept as opposed to a high-end destination restaurant concept, although I looked at a menu and a $15 fried chicken sandwich had better be pretty spectacular. The crowd was mostly young professional women (hence all the rosé), so if that's your demographic, either member-of or looking-for, you could do worse than Chicon.

#115: Cuvée Coffee

The Bar

Cuvée Coffee. 2000 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 8/9/17 @ 7pm.

UPDATE: Cuvée Coffee has closed.

The Drink

Black and Brew. 512 Pecan Porter, cold brew coffee. $5.50.

There's a lot of great beer at Cuvée, more than you'd expect to find at a traditional coffee shop but right in keeping with combo coffee/bar joints like Radio, Cherrywood, and Thunderbird (RIP Strange Brew) that like to cater to a wide audience. Cuvée does really great coffee, though I'm far enough from a coffee snob that I couldn't pretend to offer an expert opinion. You can find plenty of unhappy pieces calling cold brew a garbage disposal for extra beans and the like, but I found this union of beer and coffee to be excellent. The Black and Brew is a play on the Black and Blue, their nitro cold brew coffee, which they mix in with a porter. They can change up which porter is paired with the coffee, but luckily this time I was given the 512 Pecan Porter, which has been my favorite porter ever since I first tried it. It's a little bit sweeter than most porters, but that actually goes really well with the nuttiness of pecans. And then when you add the smooth flavor of their coffee - oh man! Refreshing and delicious.

The Crew

Vince, Aaron, Rome, Travis (not pictured), Hannah (not pictured).

Notes

The term cuvée means "blend" or "batch" in French, and it typically refers to a particular run of a product, usually wine. The name makes sense given Cuvée's origins as a roaster of several varieties of high-end coffees. They moved to this location about three years ago, which gave them much more room for their operations as well as a little café space that reminds me of a brewery. They have a solid beer selection on their tapwall, as well as some wine and other more exotic concoctions like brewchata. I appreciate that they have locally sourced food like pastries and Tacodeli breakfast tacos to go with their other products - a warehouse generally doesn't emit the kind of inviting coffee shop vibes that you're accustomed to (and I expect that the café is fairly ancillary to their main wholesale operations), so every little bit of attraction helps, even if they're already fairly well-known around the city for the quality of their coffee and their ubiquitous cans of cold brew. However, even if their coffee was terrible (which it definitely isn't), they deserve plenty of fame as well for heroically defending common sense beer distribution, when their crowler machine was seized by those spoilsports at the TABC and they prevailed in court. Next time you fill up a crowler, thank these guys for standing up for beer drinkers everywhere.

#114: ​Mezcalería Tobalá

The Bar

Mezcalería Tobalá. 1816 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 8/5/17 @ 11pm.

The Drink

Del Maguey Chichicapa mezcal. $10.

My recent acquired taste for smoky liquors has given me a newfound appreciation for mezcal, but it's still hard for me to give detailed tasting notes. I can tell you that Chichicapa, which like many of distillery's products is named after the small Oaxacan village where it's made, has a slightly sweet aftertaste to it that balances out the smokiness, and that it was full of all kinds of complex flavors that I would quite frankly be throwing darts at if I attempted to enumerate. Does "smoky, yet smooth" actually communicate anything? A few years ago the NY Times rated it #1 in their sample, and while I am still but a neophyte mezcal drinker it certainly was some of the best I've had so far. I am extremely impressed by the amount of info provided about the mezcal on the distiller's site; if you thought that a simple description of terroir was a bit much, then you will smile at least a little bit at discovering that Chichicapa is made with well water, and milled with a horse and wheel. By the way, that "San Judas Tadeo" votive candle is referring to Jude the Apostle, the patron saint of lost causes who has a special significance in Mexico, not the infamous Judas you're thinking of. I wouldn't want to pay 30 pieces of silver for a little terra cotta bowl of mezcal either.

The Crew

Misty, Aaron, Nick, Ryan (not pictured).

Notes

On Fridays and Saturdays only, the structure above the stone chapel of Whisler's opens up to the public in order that they might make the procession up the staircase to consume portions of mezcal according to their desires. It's a mezcalería, the kind of niche bar that not too long ago would not have been economical in Austin, but has now become possible thanks to this city's increasing affluence, neophilia, and sophistication of taste. As far as I know Techo on Manor, which is just a few years old, is the only other mezcalería in the city, so get to either of these establishments quick so you can brag that you were in on the crest of this mezcal wave. The owners of Whisler's/Mezcalería Tobalá have a genuine passion for mezcal and the drinking experience that surrounds it, so expect a singular decor - inside the small boxy room it's crammed full of stuffed heads, votive candles, and other bric-à-brac that encourages you to sit down and stay a while, soaking in the vibe. Soaking in the sweat, too: there's not a ton of seating because of the small proportions, so watch out for how sweltering it can get on those hot summer nights, when it more resembles a sweat lodge than a mezcalería. Come on in and get friendly!