The House Specialty: Baltimore Bars and Their Signature Drinks

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Most people are pretty predictable drinkers. There’s definitely something to be said for having a go-to drink that can see you through thick and thin. It’s a great feeling to walk into your regular bar, good day or bad, and see your favorite bartender at the ready- say ‘I’ll have the usual.’ Sometimes though, you need a little variety in life. Sometimes you may find yourself someplace else, where the un-usual is par for the course.

Sometimes you’ve got to go with the flow, and often that means the flow of the taps. You wouldn’t call for a complex cocktail in a rock and roll club, and you wouldn’t ask for a Boh at the four Seasons (Although apparently, they have it). Today we present you with our quick-reference guide to house specialties and best bets for some of our favorite bars in Baltimore. If you’ve never been to some of these places, you really ought to check them out. And if you do, take a word of advice from the Chop and order accordingly.

if your bartender is wearing this hat, you should probably just turn around and leave.

Any wine bar or tapas place: Go for the ‘gria. Wine bars are very wine-centric (duh), as are most tapas joints. As we’ve already stated, we prefer our wine from a box, so we’re not impressed much by tasting flights and ‘good years.’ If the place you’re in offers a house-made sangria, it’s going to be the cheapest stuff they’ve got, doctored up to taste better than some of the best stuff they’ve got. Sangria is almost always the best bargain in the house.

Bertha’s: Bertha’s Best Bitter. Enough iconic Baltimore landmarks have fallen by the wayside that it’s fair to say that landmark status alone isn’t enough to keep a place in business. Bertha’s is still there though, and still hand pouring the beer that was literally born in the bar in 1988, which is all but pre-historic in craft beer terms. BBB is as local as it gets, and as good as it gets too.

The Brewer’s Art: Ozzy. Brewer’s has long been famous for its signature Resurrection ale, but for our money Ozzy’s the only way to go if you’re drinking here. Lighter, crisper, a bit fruity without containing any actual fruit; it’s easier to drink than Resurrection while actually being slightly higher in ABV.

Clementine: The Stonewall. We’ll tell anyone who will listen that Clementine has probably the best cocktail list in the city, which is part of the reason we’re so excited for the debut of their second location at the Creative Alliance on May 24. it’s hard to go wrong with anything from their bar, but The Stonewall features Pear Cider, Bourbon, and Ginger Liqueur, and is simple perfection in a glass at any time of year.

Club Charles: A Martini. The inside of Club Chuck shouts dusty deco decadence, and there’s probably no better place in Maryland to enjoy a proper Martini. They’ll serve it up in a generous glass and right to spec. Stop by for Martini Mondaze, (Mondays) when they’re on special and there’s enough elbow room not to slosh your second one all over the bar.

Heavy Seas Ale House Gold Ale. If you’re going to a beer-branded bar, we’re just going to go ahead and assume you’re there for that bar’s brand of beer. There’s plenty of choices under the Heavy Seas banner, and nary a bad one in the bunch. If you’re making a day of it, try them all. If you’re just popping in for a quick one though, Gold Ale is a perennial favorite of ours. We recommend it highly.

Idle Hour: Chartreuse. When you walk into Idle Hour and see so many bottles of Chartreuse lined up on display, it’s hard to ask for anything else. Watching those green bottles shimmer in the dim red light makes it almost impossible to order anything else. Idle Hour sells more Chartreuse than just about anywhere, so don’t be shy about asking the bartenders if they’ve got any Carthusian mixological tricks up their sleeves.

Joe Squared: Something rummy. You wouldn’t expect an inner-city pizza joint to specialize in rum, but Joe Squared boasts a better rum selection than most tiki bars, including ones in resort towns. In fact, Joe may be the only place you can try some of these rums without annoying tourists and tacky decor all around you. They’ll make up a proper version of any classic rum drink, and have a few of their own that measure up to the old classics.

Little Havana: A Mojito. We’re not going to aver that Little Havana makes some life-changingly great Mojito, but they do make a lot of them. Most bars don’t keep a ton of fresh mint on hand, and most bartenders are painfully slow with Mojitos. That’s not the case here. Little Havana sells so many of these things that the bartenders can make them with their eyes closed in the time it takes to pour a Bud Lite, and they won’t cost you $12 each, either.

Mount Royal Tavern: The Pikesville Manhattan. A Pikesville Manhattan has been the Tavern’s signature drink since forever. It comes in a topped-off rocks glass, and the last time we ordered one they were still $2.50 (although, admittedly, it’s been a while). They may not be the fanciest drink in town, nut they might just be the strongest.

One World Cafe: A Bottle of Wine. Wine is usually the last thing we’d order in a bar, but One World Cafe is no ordinary bar, and their wine list is no vin ordinaire. Okay, maybe it is a little ordinaire, but that’s the beauty of it. Their small wine list is full of some of the same bottles you’ve probably brought home a few times, and they aren’t marked up too high. If memory serves they’ve even got a weeknight wine special, so a bottle of wine will carry you from happy hour through dinner, and all the way to your vegan dessert.

Ottobar: National Bohemian. It’s a rock club. The rules are basically the same at all rock clubs- you paid a cover to get in and you’re mostly there for the music. There’s probably a crowd, which means volume behind the bar and not much space in front of it. Order generic beer or rail highballs and keep them coming. Save the fancy stuff for the fancy joints.

Peter’s: One of Baltimore’s best kept open secrets, Peter’s (near the corner of Saint Paul and Water streets) offers 32 oz domestic drafts including Yuengling every day all day. For fifty cents more you can upgrade to Shiner Bock, which might be the best beer deal in the city.

Rocket to Venus: Crispin Cider. While Summer may be the season of rock music and cheap beer, man cannot live by Boh alone. RTV Has Crispin on draft, and serves it over ice in a tall 22 oz glass, making it the best possible thing you can drink on a hot Summer day. Unless it’s happy hour, then go for the toddlers.

Rye: The Pony Express. The thing we like most about Rye is that it seems to succeed without trying too hard. This classic-cocktail type bar has only a small handful of drinks on its cocktail menu, but it only really needs one. The Pony Express is their own take on a forgotten recipe, and is a perfect balance of Overholt, local honey, citrus and Prosecco. At $7, you’d be wise to make it your signature drink as well.

The Couch Chronicles, Volume VIII

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When we entered the Test it, Blog it, Win it contest a few months ago, it was a great opportunity for us not only to ‘test drive’ a brand new sofa, but also to fill a whole living room full of custom furniture from Su Casa.

A couple of weeks ago we took delivery of our brand new handmade wool rug, which we posted about in detail. We’ve been loving it so far, although it’s been pretty lonely lying on the floor by itself. Fortunately, it’s now got some company.

Su Casa and their sister store Pad offer absolutely free delivery on everything they sell, and they haven’t been shy about sending the truck around multiple times as the items in our order become available. We weren’t expecting any of our furniture to be ready until at least the end of this month, but last week the call came that our pair of Highland chairs was ready for delivery.

We’ve got to hand it to the Su Casa delivery team. They were real pros, showing up right on time and getting to work so fast we barely had time to snap these pictures. They cut off all that packing material right there by the truck, so that stuff never even made it inside. They asked us exactly where we wanted them placed, and if our pieces had required any assembly they would have done that too.

Before they left, they made absolutely sure that we were happy with how the chairs looked. It can be really difficult to imagine an 8″ fabric swatch covering an entire piece of furniture, so Su Casa actually allows its customers to make returns for any reason at all… including “Aw shucks, it just doesn’t look as good as I thought it would.”

Our new pair of chairs.

This is the current state of our living room. The chairs look great matched with our rug, as well as some pillows and curtains we picked up along the way. You can even see here the DIY floor vase project that we posted about last week.

(Careful observers will note the fuzzy feet on the bottom. These chairs actually came with some decorative steel footers which we removed immediately. The felt pads we installed in their place are much too thick, so we’re only using them temporarily until we can pick up some thinner ones that will cut to size more easily and remain invisible.)

Highland chair

Deep seats and rolling arms: every bit as comfortable as it looks.

These armchairs are every bit as comfortable as they are beautiful, but perhaps our favorite aspect of these pieces is what you can’t see so apparently, at least not in the pictures. These things are solid wood, and right under the cushion they sport a Made in the USA label.

We did a hell of a lot of shopping around before we were ready to buy, and take our word for it: it’s damned difficult to find a chair anywhere that’s made in the US for less than a thousand dollars. Rowe and the the other lines carried at Su Casa guarantee top-quality pieces, and after buying two of them we’ve got around $900 left over from what similar pieces would have cost elsewhere.

Can't decide which one we like better.

Since one of our design inspirations for this room was menswear, we opted for this classic herringbone tweed, which can be seen in a close-up shot here. The gray will closely complement our sofa, although we had scores of fabrics to choose from. In fact, this particular chair was even featured in a piece about color-matching in the March issue of Better Homes and Gardens. We can only follow that to its logical end and conclude that thanks to Su Casa, the Chophouse officially qualifies as Better.

highland chairs

Classic, but not old-fashioned.

So that’s where we stand this week. We can hardly wait for our sofa to be delivered and to finish out the room, but we’re really pleased with how it’s coming along so far. What do you all think? How would you bring it along from here? Are there any particular colors or small accent pieces we should add to the mix? Is there something in your living room that you couldn’t live without? Let us hear about it in the comments!

Charm City Roller Girls @ Du Burns Arena Tomorrow

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A couple of years ago we wrote our first post about going to a roller derby bout. We were pretty happy with how it turned out, and it was probably the most popular post of 2010.

Problem is, we kind of said everything we know about roller derby right there. It can be kind of tough to write about as a casual observer. But it’s still fun to watch and we’re going to go tomorrow because it’s a nice date-type activity. For the purposes of making a blog, we’d really like to be able to churn out the kind of top-notch copy you’ll find on the CCRG website:

    “The interleague season kicks into high gear as Female Trouble makes its 2012 debut with a showdown against a burgeoning Maryland league, the Salisbury Roller Girls. Female Trouble is primed for a winning season due to their extensive roster of utilitarian players and long-time veterans. However, the upstarts from the heart of the Eastern Shore are looking to make their mark on the national roller derby stage by giving Female Trouble a fight to the finish.

2012 CCRG bout poster

CCRG's May bout is tomorrow at Du Burns Arena.

Some things never change too much. In that first post, we mentioned wanting to go see Vivian Girls after the bout. In a subsequent roller derby post we talked about the phenomenon of Awesome Saturday, how shows and events all seem to pile up on a particular Saturday or the month. Last Saturday there was a hell of a lot going on, and tomorrow also features two shows we want to give a shout-out to.

The first is down at Sonar and features locals Big Mouth and quasi-locals Diamond. This show is worth seeing if for no other reason than these two bands both sound like nothing else that’s being played today. And we mean that in a good way. They definitely don’t sound like each other, which has been a pet peeve of ours lately: booking 3-4 bands on a show that all sound exactly the same. If you do that, stop it!

The other is a benefit for Ride for the Feast and features Paper Dragons, South Carey, The Skipjack, and Hey Hon Let’s Go! at the Charm City Art Space. That’s such a Baltimore-overdose that anyone who sees the show is probably going to get the nods on the Howard Street Bridge afterward.

Dead Mechanical/Widows Watch @ CCAS Tonight

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Maybe the closest to Zen thought that a lot of us ever get on a regular basis is to ponder the question “Is Punk dead, or is Punk not dead?” It’s a real tree falling in the forest kind of thing. Punks have been asking that question in one form or another for thirty years now, and have arrived at every possible conclusion. Even someone as up-the-punx as we are sometimes has our doubts about how alive Punk actually is when we see old bands trotting around the country on yet another reunion tour.

We also have to check ourselves when we end up at shows featuring bands like Lower Dens and Celebration. They’re great bands, to be sure, but not punk bands.

Tonight we’re going to go see some punk bands. Tonight we’re absolutely sure that Punk’s not dead, because if it was then the Charm City Art Space wouldn’t be putting on a good old fashioned Summertime bands-buds-and-bollocks punk rock show, which is exactly what they’re doing tonight.

Widows Watch plays CCAS tonight. Click below to hear the third track from their demo, Everything Has a Name.

CCAS’ own house-band Dead Mechanical headlines tonight. We never get tired of watching these guys and for good reason: Addict Rhythms solidified their place at the top of the Baltimore punk heap. They gotta watch though, the crown ain’t safe.

The watch they need to be watching is Widow’s Watch. We saw these guys last month when they opened up for Deep Sleep at the Art Space, and walked away duly impressed. They just got started this Spring, but that’s the thing about dudes in their 30’s that start bands… they get up to speed real quick. These guys used to be in bands like the Pee Tanks, Gamma Rays, and Chernobyl Kids among others, so what do you expect? That they wouldn’t totally rule???

Kind of easy to see a band like that coming. What we didn’t see coming was Westminster trio Dartagnan. When a band is ten years younger and lives in basements, they tend to stay under the radar, you know? Apparently, we weren’t the only one that didn’t see them coming but when we landed on their Bandcamp site it didn’t take long for us to say “Oh shit these guys are for real!” Their 6 song ep Breadwinner sounds like some of the best stuff from the No Idea catalog; Gunmoll, the Tim Version, Unitas, et al.

Also hard to see coming is tonight’s sole touring act, Arms Aloft. Hard to see anything in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Is that even a real place? Is there anything there except trees and cheese and shit? Apparently there is… punk rock. Musically, these guys fit right in with the Charm City locals. They are likewise for real, and who knows? If they keep driving vans around the country they could end up being as beloved in Baltimore as another Wisconsin import: Natty Boh.

Wedding Cockrings: Our Bi-Weekly Political Roundup

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Two weeks ago in this space we wrote that the dog days of political Summer have come early this year, and so far it looks like we were right. There haven’t been a whole hell of a lot of interesting or important things happening in the world of national politics lately. Since the last time we wrote, unemployment has ticked down, gas prices have ticked down, and we stopped a bunch of terrorists from blowing up another airplane. You know, all in a day’s work for Barack Obama.

The country is unmistakably heading in the right direction under the president, and all the Romney folks can say about it is “Yeah, well, uhhh, well, yeah we could have done better probably we guess.” If John Edwards’ trial is getting any kind of headlines at all, you know there’s not much of actual importance happening in the news.

So we’re going to talk today about something a little more sexy in the world of politics. Penises. Penises with wedding rings on them. Gay penises with wedding cockrings getting gay married gayly. We fully endorse that.

Even as we type this we’re watching some people from North Carolina argue about the semantics and minutiae of exactly how banned gay marriage should be in their state. There’s a referendum there today asking voters to approve a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. Of course, enshrining bigotry into a constitution is hateful and loathsome and redundant and silly and all of that. But we say go ahead and do it, NC. Or don’t. Either way, it doesn’t matter at all. Won’t make a bit of difference.

Joe the Biden was on Meet the Press last Sunday. He personally endorsed gay marriage. When asked if the president would push for same sex marriage protections in a second term he did not say no. In the world of politics, not saying no is always a resounding yes.

Barack Obama is as savvy a politician as has ever set foot inside the beltway. He knows how to get things done. Part of the way you get marriage equality done is not by shouting it from the rooftops every chance you get. All of the whiny lefties who wring their hands and bitch and moan that Obama isn’t a Progressive super hero need to understand that. They need to understand it and go out and vote for him anyway, because not voting for him is the same as endorsing both Romney and the Republican House. And when they do go vote for him and he wins his second term, he’s still not going to say anything about gay marriage…

Until the State of the Union speech. That is our prediction. We’re not even going to predict which one. Could be 2014, could be 2015. It’s likely going to depend on what happens to the house of representatives both this year and in 2014. No matter what though, Obama will make the repeal of DOMA and the protection of marriage equality a SOTU level priority. It’s something that’s as important to his own legacy as it is to the country, which is why he’s been so careful to handle it at the time of his own choosing.

And when he does North Carolina’s constitutional amendment won’t matter. Nor will any of the others out there. We’ll have a supreme court fight on this, and we’ll do it in the next four years.

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Oh yeah, almost forgot: The Baltimore chapter of Drinking Liberally meets at Liam Flynn’s Ale House tonight at 7 pm. 22 W. North Avenue in Station North.