Seattle Met tips you off to a fun “lost weekend”: Portland’s Cocktail Week.
Ready for a road trip? Try the Distillery Package at the Jupiter Hotel, an East Burnside spot that hosts to several Cocktail Week events: For $169 you get a room, a $40 credit to Distillery Row, a collection of recipes, and a gift certificate to Water Avenue Coffee (which you’re gonna need at the end of the weekend).
I just got back from visiting Clyde Common and the Sapphire Hotel, and can vouch for Portland’s cocktail scene being lively enough to keep a Seattleite from missing home. Liberty‘s Andrew Friedman directed me to Clyde Common, the home of Jeffrey Morgenthaler, saying that if I wanted to try barrel-aged cocktails, I needed to start there.
Morgenthaler had a Negroni (Beefeater gin, Cinzano sweet vermouth, Campari, orange peel) and an El Presidente (Flor de Caña 4-Year rum, dry vermouth, curaçao, house grenadine, orange peel) “just sitting there,” so I had my way with them both.
The Negroni is a revelation, your tongue chasing after an elusive Campari bitterness that ducks and turns away, letting the grenadine and orange peel hit you in waves. The El Presidente is one of those dangerous drinks that no longer tastes strictly alcoholic–after just one I started telling people about the time I stopped the Nazis from invading Cuba.
These may seem staid compared to whatever Morgenthaler is dreaming up for his presentation during Cocktail Week: “Jageritas,” about which you can learn more on Sunday, from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Speakeasy Tavern.
