This past weekend was the second birthday of one of Portland’s best cocktail bars, Beaker & Flask. To celebrate, they threw open their doors on Sunday, a day they’re normally closed, and had a big birthday bash. Opening at 4:00pm, this event featured a special best of cocktail menu with some old favorites from their ever-changing drink selection from over the past two years, free hors d’oeuvres, and some great guest bartenders.

We arrived around 7:30 and found the place absolutely packed. There were actually a couple empty tables but the bar was stacked three deep and even walking from one end of the restaurant to the other proved challenging. We grabbed seats at a table at first but quickly realized that the bar was the place to be, both for socializing and more easily getting drink orders in.

We had high expectations for the menu and weren’t disappointed. The special “greatest hits” menu consisted of 11 drinks, priced at only $7 each, with the selection including such classic Beaker & Flask fare as the Zanahorita, which uses fresh carrot juice, the Night & Fog, and all kinds of other great stuff.

Mandolin Rain, Night & Fog

We started with a Mandolin Rain (white rum, Cocchi Americano, Averna, Fernet) and a Night & Fog (Cynar, sherry, ginger beer, bitters), which you can see pictured above. Our second round included a Zanahorita (reposado tequila, lime, carrot juice, cilantro, cumin) and the Rum Club Old Fashioned, a simple rum Old Fashioned using both English Harbor 5 year aged rum and Smith & Cross Jamaican rum, along with a bit of Pelinkovak, demerara syrup, and bitters. Over the past year or so I’ve really gotten into making Old Fashioneds with rum and this was a great example of what you can do with it. I didn’t notice what aged rum was used in this; anyone know? (Thanks Brandon!)

Rum Club Old Fashioned

I’ll admit to having mixed feelings about Beaker & Flask when they first opened their doors two years ago (mostly having to do with ambiance; the cocktails were always fantastic) but during their first year they quickly become one of my favorite Portland cocktail bars and one of the places I always take out-of-town visitors. Here’s to many more years to come.

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Cocktailia reader Stew E. sent in an original recipe to the Cocktailia test kitchen, the Edith Bunker. I mixed one up to spec and made a variant of my own. Here are both of them, so you can take your pick.

Edith Bunker (original)

• 1 1/2 ounces 100 proof rye whiskey
• 1 ounce Lillet Blanc
• 1/2 ounce maraschino
• 2 ounces fresh orange juice
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters

Combine ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker and shake until cold. Strain over ice into a rocks glass.

While this version makes a light refreshing drink, my preference is for more spirit-forward cocktails. The Edith Bunker has good bones though so I played around with the proportions a bit and came up with my own variant, which I’m calling The Dingbat. This second version preserves the flavors of the original while allowing the whiskey to carry the drink. I used Rittenhouse rye in both versions.

The Dingbat (Cocktailia variant)

• 1 1/2 ounces 100 proof rye whiskey
• 1/2 ounce Lillet Blanc
• 1/4 ounce maraschino
• 1/2 ounce fresh orange juice
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters

Combine ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker and shake until cold. Strain over ice into a rocks glass.

Thanks again to Stew E. for the recipe. You can see what Stew’s mixing up on his Facebook page, Mixology Meet: The Daily Cocktail(s). And don’t forget to Like the Cocktailia Facebook page as well.

Got a recipe of your own you’d like to see here? Let us know!

While we do love a cocktail, sometimes a little ice and a great whiskey is all you need. The winner of this first-ever Cocktailia giveaway will receive an Ours decanter and your choice of His/Hers, Hers/Hers, or His/His glasses. Wouldn’t this make a fantastic wedding present? Or a great addition to your own bar?

This set was designed by Meg Moorehouse who runs Love & Victory, a Brooklyn-based design company. In addition to being an awesome person, she makes some really great stuff. Check out her web site for more.

But before you do, Like our Facebook page and leave a comment here with what you’ll fill this with if you win. We’ll select a random commenter on Monday, June 20 and ship that lucky person one of these sets with two glasses of their choice. Due to shipping costs we’re only shipping to US addresses but non-US readers can feel free to enter if you have a friend in the states we can ship to.

Find more of Meg’s creations at Love & Victory and leave your comment below!

Update: We have a winner!

I used the random number generator at random.org and it selected David Cole, also in Brooklyn, as the winner of the decanter set. He’ll soon be filling it up with premixed Blood & Sand (just don’t let it sit too long with that fresh orange juice).

Thanks for participating, everyone!

The weekend of June 4–5, Portland was home to the first annual World Domination Summit, an unconvention focused on independent business, unconventional travel, and “how to live a remarkable life in a conventional world”. Gathering together 500 people from around the world for three days of events, the weekend was a huge success.

The WDS team recruited volunteers to lead informal city tours after the sessions on Saturday in order to show our out-of-town visitors the best of what Portland has to offer. I was approached by one of the WDS organizers about leading a loose band of adventurers around to some of downtown Portland’s better cocktail bars and jumped at the chance.

We started the evening at 7:00pm at Teardrop Lounge where most of us had a couple rounds and a bite to eat. Second up was Gilt Club at 9:00, and we wrapped up the evening at Clyde Common at 10:30 where we stayed until well after midnight. The tour was very loosely organized, with just a timeline holding us together. While we had reservations at the three bars, our group was actually much bigger than the reservation size and we pretty much took over every place we went, with groups of varying numbers filling out the bars and surrounding tables.

The other WDS tours included a craft store tour and one of some of Portland’s many microbreweries and brewpubs. Some of this last group coincidentally converged upon Clyde Common at the same time as our group. It was nice being able to mingle with people from the other group but I don’t think the Clyde Common staff was prepared for the onslaught (sorry about that, guys).

Leading 30+ people around some of the city’s top cocktail bars, drinking all the way, presented some interesting logistical challenges but I’m happy to report the tour went extremely smoothly with no issues whatsoever. We got a number of compliments the following day and I can’t wait to do it again next year.

Thanks to Chris Guillebeau and Armosa Studios for the use of these photos.

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While doing a little research for a recent trip to Denver, the oddly-named Squeaky Bean kept coming up. This was my first time in Denver and while I usually keep list of notable bars in a variety of cities I may find myself in, I didn’t have any here. But the number of recommendations I got for it made The Squeaky Bean a good bet.

So after a fantastic dinner at Watercourse Foods, we made our way up to Denver’s Highland neighborhood. We arrived around 8:00pm and managed to get seats at the bar where Sean Kenyon was mixing up drinks. We had met briefly via Twitter in the days before our visit so we introduced ourselves and settled into the serious business of exploring the menu.

We had a couple rounds during our visit, trying the Smoking Frenchman, The Gooch, The Drinkable Molly Brown, and their signature Rock and Rye. All were great, but the Smoking Frenchman really nailed it. Their house-bottled Rock and Rye was also very neat, having been bottled up with their own custom labels. Delicious too.

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