Five Beers to Try at the Big Texas Beer Fest

Don’t forget: Big Texas Beer Fest is 1 to 6 p.m. tomorrow, and noon for the VIPs who paid $25 more for the opportunity to be first at the taps and close down the event at the Deep Ellum Brewing Co. after-party. But if you haven’t gotten around to obtaining a…

Texas Craft Cocktail Event Coming to Dallas

Attention all bourbon enthusiasts, gin guzzlers, Manhattan drinkers and budding mixologists: a massive four-day craft cocktails event is coming to Dallas June 14 through June 17; The brainchild of local booze magicians Brian McCullough (Smoke, The Standard Pour) and Nico Ponce (The Chesterfield), the event is brought to you by…

Making Booze-y Memories at the Chesterfield

A well-balanced cocktail is a work of magic. A handful of quality ingredients, combined with a sometimes subtle and sometimes vigorous agitation, transform into something significantly larger than the sum of their parts. While slurping oysters at the Chesterfield, the subject of this week’s review, I asked my tablemates whether…

Today is Alcohol Screening Day. Really.

Today is National Alcohol Screening Day, a day on which almost 1,000 community-based organizations, colleges and military installations will offer free, anonymous screenings to help people determine whether or not they have a drinking problem. The website HowDoYouScore.org is sponsored by another site called “Mental Health Screening,” which, according to…

Someone Please Title This, Because I’m Drunk

With the deadline for this weekly blog post quickly approaching (and then passing — sorry, editor) and a very minimal amount of cash in my pocket after paying rent, I did what any responsible booze blogger would do: I went to the corner store by my apartment and purchased a…

The Michelada Is The Greatest Beer Cocktail Of All Time At Work

This weekend I celebrated my birthday at brunch. I’m not much of a bruncher, but there I was at Canne Rosso, a glass of water in hand listening to my waitress offer me a choice of mimosa, Bloody Mary or michelada. Hearing the great beer cocktail mentioned immediately brightened my…

Where and How to Drink Fernet in Dallas

In a recent episode of Anthony Bourdain’s The Layover, he and famed English chef Fergus Henderson bond over a shot of something called Fernet Branca, seated at a London sidewalk café for an afternoon pick me-up. “Steadying,” Bourdain declares after shooting the dark brown, slightly ominous syrupy liquid. Curious as to the…

An(other) Ode to Deep Ellum’s Black Swan

On my first pilgrimage to Deep Ellum’s Black Swan Saloon, I walked right past the place, thinking the small, windowed room was just an extension of La Grange. There’s no sign to speak of; I had to consult my iPhone (“Siri, where the fuck am I?”) and double back to…