Back at the bar with Sean Kenyon of Steuben’s

This is part two of Nancy Levine’s interview with Sean Kenyon, the bar manager at Steuben’s. You can read the first part of Levine’s interview with Kenyon here. What do you think of bartending school? I am not a believer in generic bartending school as a way to get into…

Tonight: Australian wines at Cru

At 6 p.m. tonight, the original Cru Wine Bar, 1442 Larimer Street, is hosting an Australian wine tasting with grape guru Stephen Chambers, whose collection of fortified Australian wines will be paired with dishes from Cru exec chef, Erasmo Casiano. The four-course dinner, priced at $65 per person, excluding tax…

Behind the Bar: Sean Kenyon of Steuben’s

It seems oxymoronic to call a guy covered in tattoos a geek, but when it comes to cocktails, Sean Kenyon is the biggest geek in town. He has taken his engineering coursework and applied it to the engineering of cocktails, with infusion experimentation and enhancements behind the bar a daily…

Fantasy football party deals abound in Denver

What’s geekier than having a fantasy football draft party at your house? Having it at a bar! And we’ve got three great suggestions for places to go to get your fantasy football geekosity on bigtime. For starters, there’s any one of the Tavern Hospitality Group’s five Denver restaurants (Tavern Uptown,…

Stomp Them Grapes moving north

Stomp Them Grapes, central Denver’s only brew-at-home beer-and- wine store, is moving this week from 2563 15th Street to 4731 Lipan Street, near I-70. But the added driving distance will pay off in added inventory. “We’ve outgrown the space. We’re going from a miserable 860 square feet to 4,800 square…

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…