May 23rd, 2009
Stretch your Memorial Day weekend festivities by stopping by Deep Ellum’s Redneck Luau on Tuesday, May 26 starting at 6:00 p.m. for some down-home barbecue, hillbilly-tiki cocktails and … free glassware! Yep, if you tell the doorman that you read about the party on drinkboston, you will receive a totally random beer or cocktail glass logo’d with anything from Mahr’s Pils to Crown Royal.
No cover charge, no reservations required for the Redneck Luau — just good ol’ boys and girls hungry for barbecued pig (they’re borrowing East Coast Grill’s pig box to roast a whole one) and Dallas-style brisket, thirsty for whiskey and locally produced rum, and itching to usher in summer on the back deck of a bar in Allston. Yee-haw! A big plate of barbecue with a heap of sides (mac n’ cheese, cheddar-jalapeno cornbread, slaw, etc) and a pile of sliced watermelon can be had for $16. Drinks and beers are a la carte.
Bar manager Max Toste and his staff came up with a whole new genre of cocktails for this occasion. Imagine if Donn Beach had opened up the first tiki bar in Alabama instead of L.A. …
The Volcano: Ragged Mountain Rum, Cherry Heering, muddled orange and lime, aromatic bitters, orange tiki bitters (made by bartender Paul Calvert). Shaken and served over ice in a double-old fashioned glass, rinsed with absinthe and topped with an umbrella.
Suffering Hillbilly: rye, grenadine, pineapple juice, half a lime plus the rind, allspice dram, orgeat syrup. Shaken and served over ice in a double-old fashioned glass and garnished with mint.
The Grass Kilt: Blended Scotch, Creme de Apricot, honey ginger syrup, half a lime plus the rind, aromatic bitters. Shaken and strained over ice in a double-old fashioned glass, topped with ginger beer and garnished with lime zest.
The Shipwreck: Triple 8 Hurricane Rum, house-made Picon, Swedish Punsch, half a lime plus the rind. Shaken and served over ice in a double-old fashioned glass and topped with an umbrella.
Hope to see you there, y’all!
Tags: Allston, barbecue, Deep Ellum, Massachusetts rum, tiki
Posted in Rum, Whiskey | 2 Comments »
April 17th, 2009
In the last post I mentioned that the annual Craft Brewers Conference is coming to Boston next week and that the event is spurring local beer bars to show hop heads what they got. Little did I know what an understatement that was. Turns out that Deep Ellum in Allston, in partnership with Shelton Brothers beer importers of Amherst, MA, are hosting what they’re calling the First Annual Citizens of the World Party and what I’m calling the Most Amazing Gathering of Brewers in One Boston Bar. Seriously — Jean Van Roy of Belgium’s fabled lambic brewery, Cantillon, will be there. He has never set foot in the U.S. before.
From Wednesday through Saturday, Van Roy and a couple dozen other artisanal brewers from Belgium, Germany, Scandinavia, Japan, England, Quebec and, of course, the U.S. will drop by Deep Ellum to schmooze and booze. They are responsible for most of the 80+ draught beers that will be tapped over the course of the four-day fest. (There’ll be special bottled beers, too.) Brasserie de la Senne (Belgium), Mahr’s (Germany), Ridgeway (England) and Dieu de Ciel (Quebec), plus the U.S. breweries Russian River (CA), Southampton Publick House (NY), Jolly Pumpkin (MI), Sly Fox (PA), Allagash (ME) and High & Mighty (MA), are just a sampling of the breweries represented. Check in with the Shelton Brothers blog for details and updates.
Each night has a theme: Wednesday is Welcome to the Craft Brewers Conference with BeerAdvocate; Thursday is East of the Mississippi; Friday is West of the Mississippi; and it looks like Saturday will be Day of the Belgians (check in with the abovementioned blog or with Deep Ellum about exact times). And last, but so not least, the Shelton Brothers and Dogfish Head are co-hosting a beer party Tuesday night at the Other Side Cafe on Newbury St.
Inform your friends in Allston that you are crashing on their couch next week, and come check this out.
Tags: artisanal beer, Cantillon, craft beer, Deep Ellum, world brewers
Posted in Beer, Boston bars | 7 Comments »
March 12th, 2008
“The prospect of drinking with Lauren Clark, booze journalist and walking alcohol encyclopedia, is daunting.”
So begins an article in the latest Weekly Dig. It’s part of a twice-per-year feature called 5 Drink Minimum, where the Dig sends its writers out to report as much as they can remember of a long evening at a local bar. This year, some of the writers paired up with various, um, industry professionals at the bar of the latter’s choice. That’s how I wound up drinking at Deep Ellum with News Editor Cara Bayles. We had a bang-up time, and I have to say she did a nice job with the piece considering what her notebook looked like at the end of the night.
Tags: 5 drink minimum, Deep Ellum, Weekly Dig
Posted in drinkboston in the news | 2 Comments »