#132: Maiko

The Bar

Maiko. 311 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 12/20/18 @ 9pm.

UPDATE: Maiko has closed.

The Drink

Cherry Blossom. Hennessy VS, Absolut Lime, grenadine, Sierra Mist, lime juice, cherry. $9.

I have never in my life been served a cocktail with cognac AND vodka before; not even in my most degenerate moments as college student was I struck by the urge to cross those streams. Part of it is the classiness incongruity: Hennessy is of course the world's most consumed, most cross-cultural, and most rappable cognac brand, whereas Absolut flavored vodka is not really on that same level. I had also never really had much cognac outside of the occasional Sazerac, which I love. However, it turns out that the Cherry Blossom is a real drink, which you can find on Absolut's own website. Weirdly, Absolut forgot to include any of their own product in the recipe, but the bartender, who thought long and hard about my request, helpfully remedied that with the Absolut Lime, making a few other minor substitutions along the way. The result was strong but fairly sweet, exactly as you'd expect, with only the 2 citrus ingredients pulling against the sugars. Multiple trips to New Orleans have taught me to approach brightly colored sugary drinks as one would a species of Amazonian frog - enticing, but with a high downside risk. I'm happy to report that I didn't wake up the next day convulsing, desperately fumbling for antivenom, but this is kind of a tourist drink, no matter how impeccably and thoughtfully crafted. Next time I get a Hennessy drink, I'd prefer it a bit more minimalist.

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

To my eternal shame, I missed this place the first time I was walking up and down Sixth. My shame only lasted about a year, until I figured out that there was also booze here, but still. Maiko's humble exterior belies the excellence of its food, most notably its mac and cheese. Yes, I know, it's a sushi restaurant that everyone who works downtown loves, but I don't work downtown, so I've never had a reason to stop in. Maiko has a fantastic rendition of the simple classic, with excellent white Cheddar and a sake reduction in the mix. Immediately upon trying it, it became one of my favorites. I'm sure the sushi is excellent as well, but that will have to wait for another time. The bar/lounge is split off from the more normal restaurant section, with cool Chinese lanterns illuminating the art over the brick walls. The whole place had one of those cozy, comfortable vibes that made me want to linger. It felt like one of those places where I could have hung out indefinitely, just chatting with the bartender, sipping on increasingly hallucinogenically-colored drinks until the sun rose, but this was the last stop on a long night, so eventually I reluctantly departed this overlooked gem for the world outside.

#131: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Icehouse

The Bar

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. 701 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 12/20/18 @ 7:30pm.

UPDATE: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot has closed.

The Drink

WTF Old-Fashioned. Nine-Banded whiskey, piloncillo, Angostura bitters, Luxardo cherry. $10.

This was the ninth Old-Fashioned I've been served so far, and it continued a streak of great Old-Fashioneds, with Clearport's version being the only real dud along the way, or maybe the Slow & Low bottled version. You can't win em all, and there's bound to be some stray steps off of the Golden Path of cocktail evolution, so I don't really mind the misses too much - it just makes the hits all the sweeter, and this was definitely a hit. Speaking of sweet, I really did appreciate WTF's decision to substitute the tradition simple syrup for piloncillo, AKA "Mexican brown sugar". Piloncillo imparts more of a caramel flavor than simple syrup does; it reminded me of the demerara syrup in the Old-Fashioned I got at Whisler's. It went really well with the whiskey, which I was pleased to see was Nine-Banded. I'm a sucker for anything Austin, Nine-Banded is so Austin it was founded by former Longhorns: QED. Add Angostura bitters (AKA the best bitters) and Luxardo cherries (AKA the best cherries), and you have a perfectly enjoyable Old-Fashioned, though there was a bit too much ice in this one to keep it from top-tier status. I guess it is West Sixth, after all. You may have heard of the phrase "premium mediocre"; think of this as "budget luxury", if that makes sense. But you don't really appreciate great ingredients until you don't have them anymore, so I savored it all the same.

The Crew

Kyle, Aaron.

Notes

WTF, as they like to be known for obvious reasons, replaced the decrepit shell of a long-dead Mr. Gatti's. This is an unusually clear case of development without gentrification on this street, although longtime Austinites who can still sing the "dial 459-2222" jingle might still regret the loss of even a single Gatti's outpost. I like the new space a lot - very clean lines, everything you'd expect out of the current wave of modernist interior design that incorporates the brick and stone of the building into a space that subconsciously communicates "you should spend a lot of money here" without also setting off the "too rich for my blood" alarms. I really liked the gigantic outdoor patio, which shouldn't surprise you. Austinites are stereotypically extremely passionate about patios even (especially?) given our godawful summer weather, and so a haze of "best patio" listicles hangs permanently over our heads. This is a great entry onto the list, since it's huge and open; well-shaped for the throngs of people who no doubt populate it on a night of heavier patronage than when we were there. A fine addition to your West Sixth rotation.

#130: Kung Fu Saloon

The Bar

Kung Fu Saloon. 716 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 12/20/18 @ 6:30pm.

The Drink

Pickleback. Tito's vodka, pickle juice. $7.

The pickleback is a solid mainstay, though I don't like paying more than $5 for one. I do like Tito's vodka, haters be damned, and I definitely like pickle juice as a chaser, so I was at least mildly-enthusiastic about the bartender deciding that a pickleback was what best showed off the strengths of the bar. It was a solid rendition of what I would call an old classic, except that it was invented in 2006! In addition to a quick shot like this saving the bartender a lot of time thinking and crafting a cocktail, another advantage that serving a shot has for them is that you're almost guaranteed to order another drink right after it, either to wash the taste out of your mouth (unnecessary in this case, given how much I love pickle juice), or just to have something else to sip on while you converse. If that was the bartender's bet, it paid off, as we immediately got some Coors Lights while we engaged in some deep life/career discussions afterwards. 

The Crew

Aaron, Kyle.

Notes

Kung Fu Saloon is locally infamous due to its historically racist dress code policies, and also apparently for over-serving. They seem to have stopped being racist, however, so in the spirit of forgiveness we checked it out. It moved to this spot from just a block away on Rio Grande, where it was ineligible for inclusion in the Sixth Street Complete project due to not being directly accessible from Sixth. It's now in the lower half of what I still think of as the former home of Katz's but was most recently occupied by Benji's, which I never went to, right below Green Light Social Club. Kung Fu Saloon essentially transported its original layout exactly to the new joint, keeping all of the adult drunkard amusements - skee-ball, connect four, shuffleboard, Jenga, arcade games, etc - in a more or less similar arrangement around the edge of the interior with the bar at the center. Kung Fu Saloon was also notorious on Sixth even apart from the racism for bro-y-ness (which come to think of it might not be unrelated to the racism), but happily during our visit it was mostly unpopulated and therefore unbro'd. I've talked before about my "it's not about the bar, it's about the patrons" mantra of quality, but I suppose at some bars the patronage is a reflection of the ownership; you get the clientele you're looking for. Maybe it's not fair to judge a bar by its worst moments... actually, that does seem pretty fair. I gave them a second chance, but you're totally within your rights not to, even if they were perfectly mediocre when we were there.

#129: Lin Asian Bar

The Bar

Lin Asian Bar. 1203 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78703

Visited 12/20/18 @ 5:30pm.

The Drink

Shanghai Famous. Mezcal, green chartreuse, Aperol, lime. $12.

This cocktail wasn't on their menu at all, which is typically a good sign - you always want the answer to "what drink best represents the bar?" to involve a bit of thought, and what could be more thoughtful than a bespoke cocktail? This drink was puzzling for a few reasons, though:

1. A mezcal drink is an odd choice for an Asian bar but whatever, I am always in favor of cocktail syncretism/ecumenism/globalism. 
2. The name has nothing to do with the ingredients, none of which are from Shanghai, or indeed anywhere in Asia with the exception of the lime. 
3. The bartender described it as being a variant on a Last Word, which intrigued me, except that this drink shared only two ingredients with that excellent cocktail. 

No matter; how was the final product? Delicious! It's always a treat to see green chartreuse, because with its 130 secret ingredients, it can pair well with just about anything, including Aperol and mezcal. Much like with orange, the color is named for the liqueur, and not the other way around. This drink was complex enough to be worth coming back for. 

The Crew

Kyle, Aaron.

Notes

Lin Asian Bar (a funny name which reminds me of that scene from The Cable Guy) replaced the venerable Rounders pizza joint on West Sixth with a nicer and newer and more Asian ambiance that complements the similarly-new Bar Peached nearby. Rounders was more of a "family" joint, in that you could take your kids there and drink some beers while they stuffed themselves with pizza; Lin is more of a date night spot, in that this is where you'd go if you were still trying to impress someone. They've really lightened up the interior and made it almost completely different than the homey, well-worn pizza joint it used to be. Lin is as much a restaurant as a bar, as we could see from the gigantic stacks of wooden dim sum boxes next to the open kitchen, and we tried some of their appetizers. They were excellent, although we did not try the dim sum, which like most places in Austin limits it to the weekend. Since I didn't grow up in Clarksville I didn't have enough childhood memories to really mourn Rounders, and all I can say is that Lin is great on its own. Since the bar area is kind of close to the front door I don't know that I would stay here for a lot of rounds, but I had a blast when I was here.

#128: Pour Choices

The Bar

Pour Choices. 401 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 12/12/18 @ 10pm.

The Drink

Adios, motherfucker!. Tequila, whiskey, vodka, gin, rum, triple sec, blue curaçao, sour. $5.

Is your favorite liquor "all of them"? Is the preferred strength of your drinks "more"? Do you have a powerful thirst for cocktails that look like antifreeze? Did you never truly outgrow the suicide sodas of your youth? Grab one of these and you're set, with all of your questions answered. I'm rapidly running out of interesting things to say about this variant of the Long Island Iced Tea, which is now coming to embody Dirty Sixth for me, more than Old-Fashioneds or even Lone Stars do the rest of the street, but it is noteworthy how consistent each iteration of the Adios, motherfucker! is from one bar to the next, despite what I'm sure is a huge variance in the exact mix of well liquors. They all taste... blue, basically, since all the liquors blend into each other, and even the sweeteners are essentially the same thing. The only differences are the shape of the glass and the number of ice cubes. Oh, and the price - at $5 this was the cheapest of them all, even though by volume it looks like the largest. If you need your weekly fix of blue-tinged liquor and you're on a budget, or if you just feel like muttering "I am the liquor" at the patron next to you, come on down!

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

Pour Choices recently replaced Old School, which itself had been around since sometime in the 00s. This struck me as odd, as I'd recently been to Night Owl on Burnet, which is owned by the same people, and it seemed fine, but perhaps the vagaries of Sixth Street rents meant that they decided to focus on the cheaper stretch of Burnet safely up north. Or maybe the new owner, who literally hit the jackpot to get funding money, just gave them a really sweet buyout offer. However it happened, I have to say that the new place looks nicer than Old School did. The changes are mostly just cosmetic, as they would have to be with a historic structure like this, but it's amazing what a simple dusting will do to an interior inevitably over time comes to look every minute of its 100ish years old. Even if it's mostly the same, it's nice to see everything looking a bit more up to date, you know? Pour Choices is more of a dance club than Old School was, but even though I don't hit these places up to dance (I'm on a serious mission here!), there were few enough people here that I got to jam to the music while I was sipping my blue away.

#127: Sake Mama

The Bar

Sake Mama. 519 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 12/12/18 @ 9:30pm.

UPDATE: Sake Mama has closed.

The Drink

Mango tango shot. Vodka, Monster Mango Loco. $6.

As with so many other cocktails, the exact definition of a "mango tango" is somewhat flexible, and in fact it might be better to think of the name as merely a flag of convenience under which a motley crew of any vaguely tropical ingredients at hand can sail. I know that most of the more famous versions of the mango tango use some variety of rum, yet vodka showed up in the smaller shotglass perched atop the chopsticks that separated it from the waiting vessel of Monster Mango Loco below. We were nowhere near the Dia De Los Muertos season that Monster Energy somewhat mystifyingly claims powers the drink, but I'm sure with enough sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate you can preserve just about any amount of spiritual energy you'd like for the winter holidays. The resulting shot was not particularly Japanese, but it got the job done. Like a lot of crowd-friendly shots, this one has a routine, where the employees pour you and your bros a row of precariously perched shots, he counts down from three, and then slams the bartop, causing the liquor shots to fall into the mixer, which you grab and then chug as fast as possible. Since I was the only person there, I bought the bartenders a few rounds and we practiced our technique. It takes a few to tango.

The Crew

Aaron.

Notes

Shot bars make for a fun detour from your regular bar rotation because the focus is totally on you and your friends, not on the drink or even the bar. Since you can't really savor shots in the same way as regular drinks, and are in fact encouraged to pour them down your gullet as rapidly as possible, the drinking becomes a spectacle. Often at cocktail bars I find myself admiring the craftsmanship of the drink, even trading them with my friends, in order to share something of my individual experience with them. Not here! There is no such thing as an individual experience, it's all about the group, and nowhere else will the rounds system of drink-buying get you into trouble faster than at a bar where it takes half second to finish your whole drink. Sake Mama had only been open for 8 months when I stopped in, a sake bar concept that's apparently very popular in Japan having replaced an oddly-shaped convenience store. Since I was the only patron, the extra space that was formerly occupied with racks of products looked lonely, but you only have to look at how packed Cheers or Buckshot get to be grateful for the extra breathing room. One notable gimmick was that the employees have blinking LED nametags, which initially struck me as vaguely demeaning, but after a while you get used to being hypnotized as each round is poured and you wait obediently for your bartender to yell at you to drink your shot. Some bartenders are servers; these guys were drill sergeants. They also serve Japanese-style street food, which I didn't try, but which smelled delicious.

#126: Ramen Tatsu-ya

The Bar

Ramen Tatsu-Ya. 1600 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 12/12/18 @ 8pm.

The Drink

Red Beard. Rye whiskey, red shiso, pomegranate, ginger, citrus. $10.

Much like at many of these bars, the cashier/bartender immediately thought to direct us to the special menu when asked for the drink that best represented the establishment. I was half-expecting them to suggest the shochu-based option, given its relative rarity and greater connection to Japan, but I enjoyed my whiskey-based special just the same. When you see a rye whiskey-based cocktail, you naturally think to compare it to an Old-Fashioned, but this really didn't taste anything like that, thanks to the other ingredients. Shiso is a member of the mint family, used in cocktails for the flavor and color, and it gave a nice cool offset to the bite of the rye. Ginger is slightly less unusual, though it's also not your average cocktail glass inhabitant, and it helps fill out a robust range of taste from the sharpness of the rye and the brightness of the shiso all the way through to the sweetness of the citrus and pomegranate.

The Crew

Kyle, Aaron.

Notes

Ramen Tatsu-Ya is locally famous in Austin for being one of the first places to get real "authentic" Japanese ramen, an interesting concept in its own right. There is a long and fascinating story to be told about how the varying cuisines of Asia have been accorded greater or lesser status in the US based on the historical timing and composition of the individual waves of immigrants from those countries. Japanese restaurants in the US have long enjoyed a price premium over other cuisines due to the perceived higher status of Japanese food, but Austin did not have many Asians for most of its history, and so we didn't have a lot of Asian restaurants, even for such a humble everyman food like ramen. Now we're bigger, richer, and more diverse, and when we finally got Ramen Tatsu-Ya in 2012 it was an immediate hit. In fact, it was such a big success that just 4 years after it opened it was hailed as the #1 ramen restaurant in America, which might be some more absurd Austin hyperbole ("Austintation"), but that it placed at all tells you something about our transformation in just the past few years.

This is the 4th installment of their rapidly growing empire, and it maintains the excellence of their ramen while affording a bit more space and a better drink menu than the OG location up on 183. This location replaces Qui, and they even expanded next door with Domo Alley-Gato, which we had visited a few hours ago while waiting for this place to open up. Domo Alley-Gato is a bit more suited to sitting and drinking than Ramen Tatsu-Ya is, as this place has a bit more of the "quick in and out ramen joint" vibe, but do not miss their ramen - if you remember the slim pickings for ramen in 90s Austin it will seem like it came for another planet, and even if you were fortunate enough to grow up in another place with more ramen I'm assured it's still quite worthy of a stop. I've never eaten at any of the other places on that ramen list, or been to Japan at all for that matter, but Ramen Tatsu-Ya is just fine with me all the same. I'm told that in Japan, ramen joints are among the most treasured drunk food establishments, so how thoughtful of Ramen Tatsu-Ya to place Austin best ramen in such close proximity to Austin's greatest drinking corridor.

#125: Il Brutto

The Bar

Il Brutto. 1601 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 12/12/18 @ 7pm.

The Drink

Feliz Navi-Gatto. Mezcal, Rammazotti amaro, Cynar, orange bitters. $13.

When I asked the bartender for her drink of choice to serve, she thoughtfully selected a Christmas-themed cocktail off of their special menu in light of the season; the name is punning off the fact that "gatto" is Italian for "cat", an animal that's all over their menu. I would not say that there was anything particularly Christmas-like about the drink itself, or at least it wasn't very similar to drinks like egg nog, etc, but in much in the same way that movies like Die Hard can become Christmas-like through sheer stubborn repetition and cultural will, you can put this cocktail on a Christmas menu and sure enough, it'll soon taste like yuletide. Mezcal is a unique choice for a Christmas cocktail base, but it worked well with the anise-like Cynar and orange bitters, and especially the Rammazotti amaro, which added a nice root beer-ish tone to the drink.

I love learning about the histories of ingredients, but it seems like the Rammazotti one might have a more interesting backstory than its official page is letting on, seeing as how it was first created in Milan in 1815. That's right when the Napoleonic Wars finally ended in exhaustion and the constituent client states of France dissolved back into monarchy after the Congress of Vienna; surely the replacement of Milan as sole capital of the Kingdom of Italy with the new Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia's unusual co-capital scheme, adding Venice, should give this liqueur a more singular provenance. But apparently 1815 was merely the year that Ausano Rammazotti decided to distill a liqueur with 33 herbs and spices, like a Milanese Colonello Sanders, starting an empire of liqueur-brewing, bar-owning, and liquor-distribution that fortuitously endured until I was able to drink the distant descendant of his original creation 203 years later at a restaurant that despite being Italian most likely didn't serve a single dish he would recognize. 

The Crew

Kyle, Aaron.

Notes

Il Brutto (meaning "the ugly", as in Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo) is an upscale Italian restaurant in the base of The Arnold, one of the new apartment complexes that have turned East Sixth into one of the most desirable mixed-use neighborhoods in the city. As a fellow bearer of that noble surname, I was glad to see that the restaurant at its base did us Arnolds proud, especially one of fractional Italian descent, like myself. One criticism of Italian restaurants in the US that you read is that they tend to smear all of the distinct regional cuisines of Italy into a comforting impasto of familiar dishes, but in my opinion this is perfectly fine, and Il Brutto does a great job serving the higher-end Italian dishes that we all know and love. I think the layout of this place does a good job combining the requisite outdoor patio with date night-friendly interior decor, and the bar was perfectly comfortable for us to sit and chat with the bartender on an off-night. Visiting the bar of a restaurant always gives me a bit of a conundrum on this project - am I judging this place fairly if I don't also eat food? should I be recommending specifically the bar part of a restaurant? - but I've always had a great time at these places, who generally serve great drinks skillfully, and here was no exception. Sadly I did not get to eat here, but I will definitely be back.

#124: Domo Alley-Gato

The Bar

Domo Alley-Gato. 1600 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 12/12/18 @ 6pm.

The Drink

Melon Ball Z. Silver tequila, Midori, honey, lime. $10.

If you like puns, have I got a bar for you. The Melon Ball Z is only one of many great puns on their drink list, its name referring to the melon ball cocktail and of course Dragonball Z. I don't think I had ever had a melon ball before, which is made specifically to use the Midori, a Japanese melon liqueur that is even more specifically designed to taste like the Japanese musk melon. Melon is pretty sweet already, melon liqueur is sweeter yet, and adding honey on top might seem like overkill, but you eventually end up with something that's fruity without being overly tropical, and sweet without making you wonder when your next dentist appointment is. The tequila was well, which was fine. I normally focus on the drink at hand, but I do have to give a shoutout to another drink they offer - the frozen Kirin Ichiban. Longtime readers know that I'm not wild about drinks that devolve into a race between brainfreeze and melting into mush, but even if it is somewhat gimmicky, it is a pleasant way to drink Ichiban, a fake-imported Bud Light. There are flavor floaters you can get as well; the root beer flavor is best, then the vanilla, then last and least the ginger.

The Crew

Aaron, Kyle (not pictured).

Notes

The punned drinks are matched by the name of the bar itself, which takes a little unpacking. Domo Arigato means "thank you very much", and of course the phrase is famous as the title of the ridiculous Styx song we all know and love. The "alley" part of the name refers to the layout of the entrance, which sits across a narrow alley-like passage separating it from parent operation Ramen Tatsu-Ya, and "gato" is Spanish for cat, which refers to the hundreds upon hundreds of cheerfully-waving Maneki Neko cats plastered in every square inch of the atrium, which signify good luck in Japan and East Asia in general. This is the bar for cat lovers! Also lovers of Japanese culture in general, because in addition to the decor inside, they have an outdoor patio with the bar and a food truck kitchen, titled Kare Ban-Ban, that serves really great Japanese-style curry, which is distinct from Indian/Thai/etc curries and unique as far as I can tell in Austin. Those who have been to Japan assure me that it's as close to authentic as you can get here, and the service is insanely fast. I highly recommend the spicy Texas Mud curry, which the frozen Kirin will nicely offset while you sip and snack under a big tree at one of the outdoor picnic tables. There are a handful of tables indoors, if you really really need to be surrounded by cats, but it's too annoying to have people walking in and out past you all the time. Better to relax under a big pecan tree at the kind of open air patio that's probably a lot rarer in Tokyo. 

#123: Hen House

The Bar

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

Visited 11/3/18  @ 12am.

UPDATE: Hen House has closed.

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, Tajín. $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 Tajín, 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 doesn't have the vibes of a full-on 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 lack 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 and I can buy drinks from them directly. The more pizza and booze the better, IMO.

#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.