Single-Malt Scotch, You My Only Friend

After a long, sweaty shift surrounded by fire, razor sharp objects and mildly retarded service staff, pounding down shot after shot of cheap whiskey is a brilliant way to take the edge off. But one does not simply get completely shit-housed every single day. Whenever I get the occasional day off (days which come with diminishing frequency during the consumerist cluster-fuck that is the holiday season), kicking back with a three-finger pour of Scotland's finest is all I'm lookin' for...or at least, the finest I can afford with my pushing-the-poverty-line paycheck. Clynelish, Balvenie, Aberlour, Macallan or even Laphroig, the taste of which resembles taking a face-plant in to a Scottish peat bog. A fifth of most of these run anywhere between $35-$55, though I did see a 25 year old Macallan for $600. When the Apocalypse hits, I'll be at the liquor store filling shopping carts with obscenely-priced scotch.

Speaking of obscenely-priced scotch, the Royal Salute's "Tribute To Honour" limited edition scotch sells at a  retail price of $200,000 per 750ml bottle. 200 grand for a goddamn bottle of scotch. Only 21 bottles were made.

 

Royal Salute, an award-winning scotch whiskey brand, with ties to the British Royal family, was an offshoot of Chival Regal created as a tribute to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The "Honours of Scotland" is the collective title of Scotland's Crown, Sceptre and Sword of State, the oldest crown jewels (over 500 years old) in the British Isles.

Each bottle is meticulously hand-crafted, adorned with 22 carats of black and white diamonds, each one set in gold and silver. The bottle itself was made from black porcelain and it was said that 200 bottles were created, with only 21 chosen for retail. The scotch is a blend of rare whiskeys, each one barrel-aged for a minimum of 45 years.

Needless to say, only British Royalty and the super-rich will ever taste this most precious of scotches.

A Walk Down Memory Lane

After a recent battle between myself and my 1930s gas oven, in which the oven won, I decided to make a trip home to Seattle. With Friday night calling my name, saddled by my four best friends and boyfriend, I was drawn to a much loved and cherished favorite, The Ballard Smoke Shop.  A place I called home for almost two years of my life as a server and the original fisherman's bar in Ballard, Seattle, I try to stop in whenever I get home. The building is a bar on one side and a restaurant on the other. The upstairs is filled with rooms that have been converted from their brothel days to studios and the cigarette machine still covers up the stairs that lead to the basement speakeasy. The bar brings you back to brown leather booths, brass rails and orange tile. The walls are covered in pictures of fishing boats and beloved regulars. The horseshoe bar is surrounded by bar flys who have stools named after them, fisherman, and ballard locals. Its where people go to hide, be scandalous, pull tabs, and have a stiff drink. Darlene has been there for 30 some odd years and is a no bullshit but fun and caring bartender partnered up with Kelah, who is a personal favorite and has a special place in my heart.

The Smoke Shop is how my friends and I always end the night when we decide to haunt historic Ballard Ave. Its where we go for our wretched addiction of applesauce shots, $4 triple pours, and pints of mai tais that will put hair on anyone's chest. Sprawling out over a corner booth and a second table, we plant ourselves to watch the show with the occasional intermission of small world after all moments. Its a place where you can share a shot with your neighbors, get dragged into a picture for the simple fact that you're wearing plaid, and feel the wrath of Darlene's squirt gun if you get too lipy or gropey.

I recommend the institution that has seen Ballard go from town to city but with a piece of advice that should not be taken lightly: Do not, whatever you do, let one of the old timers hear you call it a dive bar. I have watched over the years many a naive soul fall victim to their poor word choice met by the regulars rioting with inebriated pride over how much it is NOT a dive bar. From chairs being the thrown, to glasses flying from the thump of fists pounding the bar, you will quickly find out that previous generations don't take kindly to the word that we "youngins" loosely throw around to describe our favorite watering holes. 

Needless to say it was another well spent booze filled night, spent gossiping and laughing over things that make no sense. My hangover was well deserved and unminded in the morning when we woke up to the havoc wrecked once again by the Smoke Shop's heavy hand.

Nicolas Cage Losing His Shit

This is the way humanity makes my brain feel:

An Ode to The Bitter End

The Bitter End; so long. The Bitter End pub, formerly located on 20th and West Burnside, just across from Jeld Wen field, recently closed down. Sad times, kinda makes me long for the end of the world predicted to occur on the winter solstice of this year...

The Bitter, The End, whatever the regulars called it, was one of the sponsor bars for the Timber Army, one of the MAIN bars. After every game, a buncha boozed-up soccer hooligans crashed the bar, and I do literally mean "crashed." The place was a wreck every time. Home of the infamous "Timbers Tim," one of the greatest bartenders in the entire city (this author's humble opinion) was reason enough to frequent this diviest of dive bars. Staggeringly stiff drinks, dilapidated pool tables that were usually missing a few balls, friendly regulars, awesome bartenders, stiff drinks, Trophy Buck (arguably one of the best bar arcade games ever), pinball tables, stiff drinks, all kinds of Timbers swag, cool pictures, oh, did I mention the stiff drinks? I'm talking about a pint glass full of whiskey with a spritz of coke...though I suppose that may have been a privilege of frequent patronage.

What most people DON'T KNOW is what's below the bar. Having been constructed during the early 1900's, the building has an eerie, prohibition-tunnels kinda thing going on below including, but not limited to a room that supposedly was the last room an early owner saw right before he hung himself (rumors suggest his ghost still haunts the establishment.) Beyond that is a concrete room (also haunted) where a giant boiler once stood. Stories about human sacrifices.

We're gonna miss you, you and your broken heater stuck on kill in the back of the bar, your never ending supply of cracked-out hookers traipsing in to put their last dollar in the video poker machines, the guy wandering up and down Burnside trying to sell roses and all the other crazy characters that were part of the ambiance of The Bitter End.

Sometimes We Just Need Some Whiskey...

It was one of those nights where one word sets the tone. Force and I looked at each other with grumbled demeanor and uttered "Whiskey?". With a nod it was off to find a dive bar to set the backdrop for the much needed rant fest to come. A celebratory day for me as I was rid of the passive aggressive man-child that was my couch squatter and finally turning in a research project only 4 days after the class ended. It was also Dustin's Saturday which in itself deserved the clink and knock of a shot.As I stood outside of B-Side finishing my red, a guy comes out. He stops, looks at me then turns and walks away. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him turn and slowly walk back. The Seattle in me kicked in as I prepared myself for the "hey, you got an extra cigarette?" (Which by the way, no, I never have an extra fucking cigarette. My pack that I bought with the change left over from my measly server's paycheck that I worked my ass off for, didn't accidentally come with 21 in the pack.) Oddly enough it was to say hi and ask how work was. We must have known each other for years and I'd somehow forgotten. More on him later.

Finding Dustin in a darkened corner booth, we started off the night by....honestly, cant remember shit from those first 15, good ol R&R robbed me of those memories. We somehow went down the path of family, it may have been fueled by my mother's descent upon my studio apartment with no 'return home' date insight. Swapping stories of crazed grandmothers and how we come by our alcoholic tendencies honestly, led us to vulgar rants filled with tangents, back tracking, lewd hand gestures, and boisterous explanations of our favorite idiots; co-workers, roommates, and other cuntly humanoids. 

As the conversation progressed and we chain smoked our way through more R&R and beer, tallies of Rainier for myself and pints of PBR for him, I spot my friend from earlier in the evening. Approaching me to rudely interrupt Dustin and what I'm sure was a beautifully cynicism-filled nugget of life in the food industry, he stops at our table, opens his jacket and reveals his 22 of pyramid to me. He slurs at me that it's ok, he had just gone grocery shopping and that he promises not to drink it in the bar but he just wanted me to know so I wouldn't be mad at him. Eyes half open and slightly swaying, he assures me he would never disrespect me or B-Side, he just loves that bar too much. He apologizes and mumbles he's leaving after wishing us a good night. I guess I had also forgotten I was an employee of B-Side along with the fact that him and I are old chums.

All in all a successful night as we had not only accomplished filling our livers with whiskey but completely lost the time from 9:36 to 1:11 somewhere between the patio and the bar. Stumbling home at 2:30 after the inevitable "just one more shot", relishing the fact that I've once again screwed myself with my 5:30 am wake up taunting me, I happily thought to myself, Who needs a therapist when you have booze and good friends?

B-Side

B Side: Yet another grungy hole-in-the-wall off Portland's infamous Burnside Blvd, just east of the river. While there's nothing specifically down-trodden about the entrance, one step inside reveals the truth about this little gem. Dim lighting, unadorned concrete floors, darkly-painted cinder block walls clad in obscure artwork, including a framed, flowery needlepoint reading "Fuck you in the face." One of the bartenders sporting the pink hair, pierced face, and tattoos everywhere else look, and for some reason a kilt...all the staff was friendly enough though. The clientele was about the same as anywhere else in Portland, eclectic as all hell, ranging from goth-punks, to hipsters, to your average, run-of-the-mill, PBR-drinking Portlander. Though, by the end of the night, I had some creepy looking dude sitting in the next booth over, staring at me with glassy, doe-eyes and an disturbingly absent look on his face.

We made ample use of the covered smoking patio out back, furnished with wooden benches and tables, heaters to stave off the mild chill and pissing rain that makes up 75% of Portland's weather (which by the way, if you've never been to Portland, there are only two seasons: Summer and rain). Naturally, every table surface was carved or graffitied with skulls, lewd comments or crudely drawn phallic symbols. The bathrooms were of a similar nature; what was once an artist's proud work of art had become a medium for the rest of the city's erratic, sharpie-drawn opinions. Cursing of all manners, some in different languages, more dicks, advice as to how one should live one's life, instructions to "eat shit and die..." you know, the standard fare.

All in all, an interesting and entertaining place to score some cheap drinks and people watch.