Drink: Page 21

Feeling Crotchety?

Drink

As usual, we begin this month’s wine column with a digression, about thinking and the emergence of taste, eventually returning to wine: In classes I taught at LCC, we had a rule: no use of cell phones during class (exceptions for possible emergencies). One morning, I was filling the whiteboard with notes and noticed a student in the back row looking down at his cupped hands. My students might think I’m a bit dim about their current stratagems but I knew what was going on. “Kyle,” I said, “are you on your cell?” Continue reading →

Bike for Beers

Drink

Whether you’re a tour guide for out-of-town friends during Eugene Beer Week or you just want to soak up some sun while enjoying a few brews, a self-guided bike tour of breweries is an entertaining way to get immersed in the feel of Eugene and Springfield. Continue reading →

April’s Cruelties

Vintners lose sleep in this unpredictable month

Drink

Every year, Oregon’s April just hammers me. I’ll toddle briskly through winter’s months, savoring the rains, blissfully indulging an interior life, inside our house and inside my own skull. I revel in the rains, regard them as profound blessings, in their various forms, from the feathermist, so light it won’t dimple the meniscus on a pond but will leave a walker soaked, to the guttergusher that floods fields and leaps river banks. I fret when, as recently, we enter a dry spell. Continue reading →

Gunz & G-vertz

Come armed, with checkbooks

Drink

I guess I let myself feel complacent, thinking that after the last election, when Obama and the Dems turned back the wingnuts, and D’Faz thrashed Tea-Partier Art Robinson, I could maybe relax a little, stop lathering about politics and concentrate on the pleasures of life: I’d think and write about my beamish grandkids, our bursting garden and, of course, bounties in wine. Continue reading →

Game On!

Board games and booze at The Barn Light

Drink

Monday nights are usually reserved for recovering from a big weekend or loathing the realities of a new week. At The Barn Light, however, Mondays take on a new meaning: game night.  Sure, it’s nothing compared to the rowdiness of Eugene’s weekend bar scene, but that’s not the intention. On Monday nights, Barn Light is like the ultimate living room with a stocked bar, baristas and board games at the ready. Game night isn’t about whom you know or what you’re wearing, it’s about coming together and rolling the dice.  Continue reading →

Sexiest Bartender: Teren Baker

Eirrin’s Bistro and Pub, Springfield

Drink

A self-described “townie” (he graduated from South Eugene High School), Eirrin’s Bistro and Pub bartender Teren Baker began tending bar two years ago at Emerald Valley Golf & Resort, where he mastered a mean Tom Collins. He juggles slinging drinks with slaying the guitar in his punk-rock band, Pirate Radio, and doing “daddy duty” with his 6-month-old daughter. Ask him about his Guinness Irish bread (yes, that’s a thing). Don’t ask him to store your 12-pack from home in Eirrin’s fridge (yes, that’s happened). Continue reading →

Sexiest Bartender: Summer McCarty

Jackalope Lounge

Drink

Born but not raised in Eugene, Jackalope bartender Summer McCarty returned to the Willamette Valley in ’93 from Southern Cali, bringing the sunshine with her. After graduating from high school a year early in Junction City, and living in a home that’s been in her father’s family for “over 100 years,” McCarty couch-surfed her way into Eugene residency. When she’s not helping customers down drinks, the yoga lover is doing downward dog, or spending time with her hubby and three kids. What do you drink? Continue reading →

Listen for the Bell

Patrón Hour at Starlight Lounge keeps patrons coming back

Drink

It’s a minute before half past nine on a Saturday night in downtown Eugene’s Barmuda Triangle. Four bartenders dressed in sleek black stand at their posts behind the long, narrow bar at Starlight Lounge. The bar stools have been removed, the limes have been cut and the saltshakers are at the ready. Ding! Ding! Ding! The clock strikes 9:30 and bartender Jonna Threlkeld taps the ceremonial brass bell with a stirring spoon. Patrón Hour has begun; crowds line up at the wooden bar and the cool blue agave nectar flows down rows of shot glasses. Continue reading →

In Search of an Irish Cocktail

With St. Paddy’s Day around the corner, Mr. Kennedy seeks to expand his libatious horizons

Drink

A guy named Kennedy walks into a bar two weeks before St. Patrick’s Day. That sounds like the start of a bad joke, and sometimes it is. Kennedy: a quintessentially Irish name. St. Paddy’s Day: America’s most Irish of holidays. Commemorating the Patron Saint of Ireland, St. Paddy’s has lost its religious meaning, particularly in the U.S., becoming instead an excuse to eat a lot, drink more and toast all things Eire.  Continue reading →