Ordinary, one of the city’s marquee cocktail bars, is never that far from being decorated for Halloween. Sooty iron chandeliers always conjure the medieval. Wooden vines crowning the backbar always show their thorns. Flickering lanterns always just barely pierce the shadow that reigns over the lengthy bar top.
Which is all the more reason to appreciate that Ordinary still puts a lot of effort into its costume. This year’s theme, a vampire fancy titled “What We Drink in the Shadows,” has the bar’s front portal stuffed with bloodsucking ephemera. Farther in, under red accent lights and a vampire perched opposite his coffin, the barroom is lined with dozens of local artist Greg Shea’s old-timey tintype portraits, cleverly winding back the clock to a gothically inclined period when we humans stood even less of a chance against a thirsty nightwalker.
My own thirst, both for cocktails and fun, had me starting off a recent visit with the Through the Heart ($15), mixing pisco, lemon juice and cucumber/beet ices with a bloody chamoy-tajin rim-drip and a literal wooden stake. The bartender instructed me to take the stake and stab the drink’s cold heart, a hunk of housemade popsicle whose rending, he said, would release the drink’s sweet components and balance the otherwise very tart elixir. Naturally, I stabbed away, over and over, with only a little bit of viscera escaping the glass.
Obviously, the drink earned top marks for concept and presentation. As for the actual drinking? Top marks too. The taste was wild to start—more sour, less sweet and even a little spicy and savory thanks to the ‘blood.’ But, as promised, the flavor balance changed dramatically, with the icy sweetness taming the tartness against the beautiful constant of the chamoy-tajin drip, which laced every sip with rich, fruity, slightly funky delight.
Next up was The Prelude Cocktail ($14), a blend of dark rum, absinthe, apricot/chili liqueurs and locally made bitters whose spooky reference point, if any, escapes me. An implausible nose of curry, green vegetables and fragrant flowers led to a more intuitive and unified palate laced with a low spicy heat from the chili liqueur. Otherwise, it was difficult to pluck out the specific influences of flavors few would expect to work together. But they really did, and, like any good Halloween trick, they had me wondering how.
Finally, I ordered the Something Stirred ($26), whose pricing incorporates a $13 contribution to Haven’s Harvest. With brandy, crème de cacao, hazelnut liqueur, mole bitters and orange blossom mist, the flavor of the drink began like a Tootsie Pop, a fruity, chocolatey Halloween mainstay. It finished as an adult holiday treat: a Ferrero Rocher truffle. Both phases drank easily and pleasingly, with the influence of the hazelnut liqueur, like the thirst of a conflicted vampire trying not to kill again, only growing and growing.
It was another treat with a trick, and you don’t even need to yell “Trick or treat!” to stake your claim to one.
Written and photographed by Dan Mims.
