It’s nice to walk into a bar and find a drink already waiting on the counter for me. Or six.
I’m running a little late for my lesson in mixology at Sidebar, and the assignments have quickly piled up.
“You’ve got a lot of catching up to do,” my friends tell me, pointing to a row of cocktail glasses neatly lined up from short to tall, each containing some exotic concoction. Not one to shirk my schoolwork, I dive right in, starting with the mojito. The dense mint leaves make the beverage look like a salad packed into a glass, creating the illusion of something healthy, which makes me feel slightly less guilty for sentencing my liver to an early death this evening.
Bill Haskin, the bar’s general manager, quickly rattles off the list of ingredients, and it sounds like the formula for cold fusion, with an ounce or two of Montecristo Rum added for that extra kick. As he explains, I jot down notes with a ferocity I never had during my note-taking in high school. But then again, we never really studied this sort of chemistry in high school.
“Can you taste the cherries?” he asks.
“I can’t tell,” I say. “The mint kind of overwhelms it.”
Before I have a chance to move on to the next drink, Bill whips together another version of the mojito with more of a reddish hue. Ah, there’s the cherry, not to mention another 90 minutes tacked on to tomorrow morning’s hangover.
Moving down the line, I sample a Hemmingway Daiquiri and something called a Cable Car, both deceptively tasty considering the alcohol content. I’m not displeased with anything until I reach the middle glass, containing a clear, bland liquid with a vague hint of lemon.
“That’s my water,” my friend says.
“Bleh!” I say. “You let me drink water?”
I have to empty the Daiquiri just to get the taste out of my mouth. But as soon as I set down the glass, I find there are still six drinks waiting. Bill can make them far faster than I can drink them. Fortunately, he pauses to explain the history of the Mai Tai, and I can take a break to look around the bar.
The place has a classy but comfortable atmosphere. Ceiling medallions with white globe lights hang over the booths and couches that fill the majority of the bar. And the glass wall opposite the bar counter looks out onto café seating outside. My friend is so impressed with the décor, he even traces the stripe patterns on the walls for use in his own home renovations.
Mellow Thursday nights like tonight are perfect for a little experimental beverage chemistry, while Fridays and Saturdays tend to be busier, more so soon with the addition of DJs spinning in the corner of the room.
When I turn back to Bill, I find him explaining Sidebar’s three-glasses-of-wine-for-a-mere-$15 happy hour—a deal that proves decisively that this man means to kill us with booze.
I gulp down the last of the cocktails, as well as a couple of shots of the various flavors of Montecristo Rum. Apparently, the shots were only there for tasting, and a sip would’ve sufficed, but somewhere between the second Mai Tai and that bizarre earthquake that spun the room around, I missed that little detail. We finally make our stumbling exit.
I wake up the next morning ... or maybe it’s the morning after that (it’s so hard to keep track of these things) with pleasant memories of my Sidebar experience, as well as a rather extraordinary shooting pain in my temples, which serves as a friendly reminder that one should always drink responsibly.