Popination Exaggeration

a series of unhinged personal essays disguised as pub reviews. Today: Bedlam Bar

(Also, Milk Bar and Repent again, sort of. After.)

I was appearing in a friend’s burlesque/drag/fetish show Friday, a witchy themed Halloween party and I was slated to perform a burlesque act involving cutting apart much of my costume with prop knives. To Clutch’s song ‘I’m a Sucker For the Witch.’ I planned to sacrifice a black lace teddy that was one of the first burlesque pieces I ever owned. It had many (mended) holes in it and it didn’t fit me well anymore, in my middle aged spread endowed state. So I was to salute its service to my art and sacrifice it that night. Which I did. But back to my Popination, which came first.

Now normally when I do the Repent shows, I go to The Crypt for French onion soup  and a pint beforehand. But Partner had told me about this cool-looking bar he’d passed the other day and so I thought I’d go give it a try. It looked steampunky and intriguing. 

Bedlam Bar

Turns out it was kinda Victorian/steampunky inside, too, and also tragically hip. Exposed brick, a wooden bar, and a list of whimsically named cocktails. Specials written in outlandish lettering on a blackboard behind the bar. Stacks of dusty books that have obviously never been cracked open sporadically adorning the shelves. Crystal-encrusted chandeliers illuminating a burgundy and wood pool table, being played on by two young men wearing glasses and trendy facial hair. Menus printed on tan cardstock, signed (by whom? The chef?), and fastened at an upper corner with an ornamental brass brad. 

The cocktail list was pretty wacky: names like ‘the Woo Girl,’ ‘the Day Drinker,’ and ‘Your Mom’s Fun.’ And there was one called the Chainsmoker which…what did that partially blocked out word say, in the ingredients? Tobacco? Is that? Can it be?*

You can totally get something normal here, too (they even have a regular beer list), but then they also have Lays and caviar, so, like. And before you ask: no, I didn’t get that; I wanted to wait till I brought my partner with me for that level of nonsense. That’s some whimsical pinnacle sh*t right there, to go right with the whimsically named drinks. I did get a little chocolatey dessert bite, though, to assuage period symptoms (it having come 9 days late just so’s I could be dealing with that whilst onstage taking my clothes off. Sigh. Perimenopause is deeply annoying). The dessert came (appropriately) deconstructed, but was creamy and delicious.

My go-to fancy cocktail in the autumn and winter is usually a Sazerac (in summer, it’s a Negroni). So I navigated through the funny names on Bedlam’s menu and ordered their version of the drink. It took the hipster bartender about a year to make it. Which, isn’t always a red flag when it comes to higher-end cocktails, I’ve found. In places like this (and like last week’s posh Stranahan’s lounge, it’s expected that you can’t rush art. And they didn’t. And it was delicious—not overpowering with the absinthe, not too sweet nor too dry, just a pleasant, strong, well balanced treat. 

One cute thing: as I waited patiently for the drink to be created, I saw the glass catch fire with a strange transparent aqua flame. The bartender turned towards me finally to place the drink in front of me on the bar, and the flame went out as soon as he turned. He, crestfallen, apologized the drink wasn’t aflame when he presented it to me. I reassured him that I’d seen the fire over there and thought it was very cool. I’d never had a Sazerac lit up before—it added some happy smoky flavor to the complex concoction, and it worked great. Speaking of smoke in a drink: 

This is the Chainsmoker. Yummy!

*However, I’m sure you agree: I’d be remiss if I didn’t try the Chainsmoker. So I did. And: DUDE. Delicious! And so the story behind the presence of tobacco in this Manhattan-like drink was revealed to me as I sipped. They apparently make a tobacco simple syrup for the purposes of this cocktail: they steep tobacco leaves the way you do with tea, and infuse it into syrup. It’s so subtle and tasty and not really smoky, surprisingly. It just added a lovely dark herbal sweetness to a not-too-sweet Manhattan-ish concoction, and it was so good! The bartender told me that there’s some kind of law or rule involving including tobacco in food or drink like that, and so. Well, I hope I didn’t say too much, because I highly recommend that drink, if you’re a fan of whiskey drinks.

Sipping on this and listening to the story about how they made the tobacco syrup made me remember the first time I was not asked ‘smoking or non’ when entering a restaurant or bar. Do you remember that sudden change? I don’t recall it being a gradual evolution, in Boulder where I lived at the time: one day, we were answering ‘non’ or expecting smoke when we sat at the bar, the next? nobody asked and there were no smokers inside, them all relegated to hunching in the doorways or around the corner in the alleys to engage. There are a couple places in Boulder left (and I’m sure many more in Denver) that still show that particular patina, and even a ghost of a scent in certain circumstances, but. Anyway. Tasting this surreptitious syrup made me wax nostalgic, for sure.

I’ll have what the lamp’s having.

Maybe it’s a hipster? Maybe it’s Maybelline…

I will say this: Bedlam has a beautiful staff: all gracefully gliding amid the manufactured intellectual bric a brac, wearing hipster beards with waxy ‘staches, or perfect winged eyeliner, depending on gender expression. All quiet and courteous of mien. Instead of the classic bartender rags, black bandanas draped artfully from back pockets.

When suddenly! a youngish guy strode in, obviously meaning business, upping the energy and attacking the POS screen. He was wearing a tracksuit and a gold chain. I was immediately intrigued: what with the body language and focused high level energy, was this a tough guy manager? A well-monied co-owner with nefarious sources for his money? I listened in on his conversation with the regulars next to me and. Ah no—he’s dressed up for Halloween as a Beastie Boy. He shakes his head, laughing, disappointed that none of his fellow bartenders decided to dress up that night. Dang I thought he was a real live gangster. Aw well…

It was Professor Plum, with the chandelier, in the billiard room.

Now, I normally don’t do research for any Popinations, as you well know if you’ve been following me, but I couldn’t help but notice that Bedlam’s slogan on their  website goes: ‘Come for billiards, beverages, and arguments about Oxford commas.’ Doesn’t seem like any of these young beauts would be able to do that with me even if I wanted to. Which I don’t.* But. The bookish atmosphere is aesthetically pleasing, but feels a bit manufactured. Which. I’m not too worried about that—it’s a cool surrounding, and I’m not nearly as pretentious as an English prof as many might expect. 

*As far as Oxford commas, honestly I’m not super butthurt about them. They’re good in general, but in some styles or for some publications or some audiences of readers, it won’t be appropriate. It’s not a super big deal, IMO—if you know your readership, you know how to write for them, both in content and mechanics. Can’t we all just get along?

I had the deconstructed chocolate pie to help with all that whiskey and it was really good! Pretention be darned!

Oh, and I had a very fun show after my trip to Bedlam. It was a cool-looking, fun, tasty beginning to a raucously fun night to end. And that? Amid the chaos of these days? That’s enough.