Popination Alliteration

a series of unhinged personal essays disguised as pub reviews. Today: The W Hotel bar. But also (or, mainly?) Stranahan’s Whiskey Lodge.

One of many liminal spaces in this hotel. Not even the fancy ones are immune.

This past weekend, my partner’s oldest was competing in an all-state mountain bike race a few hours’ drive up into the mountains. So we decided to go stay in Aspen the night before the race, have ourselves a little posh staycation to loosen the stress brains of us both and live it up a little. So we got ourselves a weird little surrealist-arty room at the W, and took a long evening to ourselves. 

Now. We are neither of us what I’d call wealthy, but he does pretty well for himself, as much as I remain a dirt-broke adjunct faculty and freelance writer (emphasis on the ‘free’). And my theatrical work is sporadic enough it’s not really something I tend to include in what I describe as ‘my living.’ And you know I’ve discussed class differences and my impostor syndrome before—this was a fascinating little vacay to reflect on, for a few reasons, that being one of them: I no longer feel nearly as fish-out-of-water doing things like dining at a shmancy hotel bar or strolling around downtown Aspen as I used to, especially in those earliest-written sections of that above-linked Popination. 

What a dump, amirite?

Double You

The W Hotel in Aspen is a really cool place, weirdly arranged even more in a near-non-Euclidean way than most hotels always are. It had oddly atomically age chairs hanging in the bar, a table under a lit-up geodesic dome, and blue swirls in the carpets. Our room had an angled foyer and burnished steel and white marble and frosted glass doors on the shower and toilet room. And strangely orange and green art objects and lamps. We got there and dropped off our backpacks and then made a snap decision: let’s go for a walk!

Popination Interruption

Stranahan’s!

We had made a reservation at a nice-looking restaurant before we drove up the mountain, but we learned it was a hotel restaurant (just a different hotel than the one we were staying at). So we decided to cancel that and see what was going on in off-season downtown Aspen instead, and go where we felt led. And we were irresistibly drawn to the tasting room of Colorado’s most famousest whiskey: Stranahan’s.

What a cool little leather-padded barstooled bar was Stranahan’s! Adorned with posh cowboy decor, it was a lovely little L-shaped bar with some ballooned party happening in the closed-off back room. Off-season locals were curled up in the armchaired nooks, nursing unusual cocktails made with some of the highest quality whiskey you can get anywhere. And we drooled over the merch in the little gift shop corner. Cracker Barrel, this ain’t.

I had a Sazerac, which was wee and perfectly balanced in flavor, totally delicious. But Partner ordered a fey concoction called a Smoked Old Fashioned, which was garnished at the end by a little lid with a raised area where the mixologist burned wood shavings, which the device allowed to suck down into the top portion of the tumbler, making a cool grey head of sorts on the drink. When the lid was lifted, the smoke sank, and stayed atop the drink, so that when you sipped it, the smooth smoke went part up the nose, part in the mouth in the sip. When the smoke dissipated, a delicious residue stayed behind to add to the full palate of the cocktail. So unique, so good.

But then we wanted dinner at the hotel, so we went back, walking in our nice cowboy boots in the autumn coolth, and sat at the W’s upstairs bar for our meal.

One of my partner’s hobbies is dabbling in wristwatches as part of his menswear. Within the budget, natch, but there’s a surprising variety of devices you can get without mortgaging your nonexistent house to do so. I don’t know what this one is; ask him for the details. 

Double Me?

Dinner at the W was delightful. We ordered elk sausage and steak and ate well, chatting intimately and ending our night in a redolent and full and happy way. The bar itself housed even more surreality than our arty room had, and we marveled at how kinda reasonable a weekend out in a posh place is, as long as it’s the off season. And how much we looked forward to seeing the race. And connecting as we parceled out the challenges of our work week just passed, and the work week to come. Lots of chaos in our world at the mo, and it felt good to process together. 

We need to take advantage of the off-season for places like Aspen, to have a lovely time without having to sell his firstborn. What a perfectly lovely weekend. And if you think that a whiskey tasting room and a hotel bar don’t count for my Popinations, I must remind you that I include all kinds of drinking establishments in my series, from nightclubs to theatre concession stands to, yes, hotel bars. I think I’ve done two so far, haven’t I?

What’s that? You want to hear how the kid did in his glorious all-state bike race? Well…

How about you like and leave a comment if you do, and I’ll indulge you then? Deal? Deal.

Don’t you just want to curl up here for a bit with some smoked cocktails?