End of summer pinot party tonight at Lala’s Wine Bar + Pizzeria

While it’s still a few weeks before we bid a formal farewell to summer, the wine geeks at Lala’s Wine Bar + Pizzeria, 410 East Seventh Avenue, see no reason to wait, which, in part, explains why the restaurant and watering hole is hosting an end-of-summer pinot party tonight from…

A combo bar and barber? The Retro Room is a cut above

The combination of liquor licenses and life’s errands has always struck me as clever. In college, I used to frequent a laundromat with a full bar; while grocery shopping, I’ve been known to crack open a near beer while slugging down the aisles. If I wanted to drink during a…

The Living Room is Broadway’s newest lounging pad

Padded bubble chairs, mild-mannered bartenders, cool crowds and an Enomatic Wine Serving System that allows oenophiles to taste eighteen wines by the ounce simply by swiping a card and pressing a button: say hello to the Living Room, the latest bar and restaurant to pop on Broadway — 1055 Broadway,…

Behind the Bar: Ky Belk of Elway’s in Cherry Creek

Ky Belk doesn’t judge who’s coming in the door at Elway’s in Cherry Creek. His best tip was a thousand bucks one night from a guy wearing a Green Bay Packers jersey. And while he won’t say it, I’m sure that some of the flashiest people at the bar have…

Tequila and beer tasting tonight at the Wynkoop Brewery

Tonight, from 6:30 to 9 p.m., the Wynkoop Brewery, 1634 18th Street, is hosting a beer and tequila tasting dinner with tequila honcho Modesta Catagena, an agave expert with Brown Forman, one of the largest wine and spirit companies in the country. To complement those half dozen tequilas and craft…

Gin and Homemade Tonic at TAG

Who doesn’t love an occasional gin and tonic? During the summer in landlocked Denver, a gin and tonic makes me feel like part of the yachting set, like I should be wearing Docksiders and screaming, “Hoist the mainsail! Batten down the hatches!” The gin and tonic is an invention of…

Behind the Bar: Mike Henderson of TAG

Every week, Drink of the Week columnist Nancy Levine gets behind the bar with a local mixologist. Now serving: Mike Henderson, bar manager at TAG. How did you get into bartending? After college, I got a job as a doorman at a bar called Paul’s Club in Madison, Wisconsin. I…

Craft breweries are on a roll

With the Great American Beer Festival (September 24-26) and the first ever Denver Beer Fest (September 18-27) both around the corner, the craft beer industry’s major trade group has released some mid-year statistics on what’s been brewing nationwide. The Brewers Association reports that craft brewers sold 4.2 million barrels of…

The Rio Grande celebrates ten years of tequila on Saturday

The Rio — home of those lethal, neon green margaritas concocted with a combination of secret liquids — is celebrating ten years of getting Denverites absolutely annihilated at its 1525 Blake Street location on Saturday, August 15. The celebration kicks off at 4 p.m. with live music on the patio,…

Behind the Bar: Ann Whitley of the Rio Grande

On Saturday, August 15, the Rio Grande will celebrate ten years of pouring on the fun — and pouring out the booze — in LoDo. This homegrown chain is a margarita powerhouse; with only six restaurants, the Rio Grande restaurant group claims to be the largest seller of Jose Cuervo…

Drinking up history at The Vault

I don’t believe in ghosts. When my wife tells me about presences she’s seen and felt in the middle of the night, I tell her she was dreaming. When she tells me we can’t buy an attractive house in Five Points because a woman who committed suicide there decades ago…

Guess where I’m drinking?

Along with several bottles of the ice-cold Singha calling your name (mine, too, actually) in the above pic, I shared pad Thai, chicken panang curry and a big bowl of steaming poh tak bobbing with shrimp, mussels, scallops and cuttlefish with three friends who would have drunk the joint dry…

Elway’s/Matsuhisa shochu dinner so good

I hated the Curious Case of Benjamin Button. For a year the PR hype machine had told me how great it was going to be, and then everyone I know who saw it told me how great it was and how much I’d love it. So by the time I…

Guess where I’m drinking?

Party! party! You don’t need a special occasion to enjoy a mojito here, but it doesn’t hurt.Guess where I’m drinking, and there will be a mojito with your name on it at the bar…

This weekend: Chocolate, Colorado wines and craft beers

Many restaurants will be offering specials tonight to coincide with First Friday, and the Infinite Monkey Theorem winery, at the edge of the Santa Fe Arts District at Fifth and Santa Fe, is even hosting a wine-tasting at 5 p.m. with light bites from Masterpiece Delicatessen. For info, call 970-260-0710…

Giant Dale’s Pale Ale can attacks Longmont!

A gigantic painting of a can of Dale’s Pale Ale is nearing completion on a silo outside of the Oskar Blues Homemade Liquids & Solids, the brewery which makes Dale’s. This is what the can, which we wrote about here, looked like as of about 4 p.m. on Thursday, August…

Liquor at An’s Lemongrass Grille

Starting next week, you can enjoy some alcohol with your meal at An’s Lemongrass Grille — at least the downtown location at 1617 California Street. It was recently awarded a liquor license, and the plan is to start serving beer and wine, and maybe some sake as well. The local…