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Last week, Eater PDX joined all the other Eaters in our 20 sister cities to celebrate the fourth annual Cocktail Week. During that time, we got to know plenty of bartenders, mapped every place you need to go for great drinks and cheap ones, and made an abbreviated deep dive into one of Portland's most venerable dive bars, My Father's Place.
It all went by really fast—and just in time, too, as it nicely dovetails with Portland Cocktail Week, which is already well underway.
Interviews: Jackknife's Justin Diaz explained the art of tea-infused cocktails, Interurban's Jeff Seymour told us what and who inspired him to be the bartender he is today, and writer Michelle DeVona didn't really profile a person; rather she profiled a place—My Father's Place—and all the faces throughout the years that have made that place what is today.
Maps: Last week, we considered this city's bars (so many bars) so that we could tell you where to find some of this city's best fall cocktails and its consistently cheapest ones. We also gave you our take on what are this town's most important cocktails bars, and summed it all up by directing you to what we consider to be the 22 essential Portland joints to get late-night food with your late-night drinks.
About Those Cocktails: This year, our plan was to contact five bartending veterans and newcomers, and ask them to get creative for our Drink This feature, a once-a-day recipe series in which they all ginned up signature drinks for us to celebrate the week. The plan almost worked. Actually, it turned out in our favor, because we got six drinks instead of five. There was the Driftwood Room's autumnal Harvest Moon, Bit House Saloon's tiki-inspired Wexter's Playground (complete with a jungle of fruit and plastic monkeys to roam it), Teardrop Lounge's resoundingly complex bourbon-based Shooting the Moon, Saucebox's Jubilee (a martini-Mai Tai mash-up), Victoria's Princess Bride-inspired Storming the Castle, and the White Owl's Funeralappolos (a new apple brandy take on a vieux carre).
Now, these cocktails ran all last week, and last week only, but we're guessing that if you're polite and ask nicely (and tip handsomely), then the folks at these half-dozen spots will stir you one up, so long as they have all the necessary ingredients on hand.
Recommended reading over on Eater National:
