I love a good cocktail and a bar that does them well will always have me as a customer. I heard about a Speak Easy – @18th & 21st, near my sister and I was anxious to try it out. Mom, Sister I and I went. And try it out we did. 😊 Cocktails. Dinner. Dessert.

The Speak Easy was neat - a bar inside of a restaurant. A separate space walled off with a door inside of the restaurant. The jazz band was great and décor had a 1930s vibe. It is intimate (smallish) lush and made me feel like Harlem Renaissance or even The Great Gatsby. Love it+

Dinner was tasty and dessert was equally so. We all were in the mood for scallops and dessert ranged from doughnut bread pudding (me), homemade ice cream (Denise) and Bourbon pecan tarte (Juliet).

But let’s focus on the cocktails. The cocktails were on DRAFT. Yes, you read that correctly. I was intrigued and told the bartender that I’ve never heard about a cocktail on tap. She promptly gave us sample and said we never heard of computers 40 years ago and now they are in our pockets. True dat. Let the pouring begin!

I ordered for all of us as my family 1) are not big drinkers AND 2) bourbon beginners – bless their cask strength souls. I ordered a Smoked Old Fashioned (sister) made with Old Bardstown bourbon, 18th & 21st Manhattan (Mom) made with Elijah Craig single barrel and Cold Brew Boulevadier also made with Elijah Craig. The Smoked Old Fashioned was the best drink out of the three. It was smooth and blended well. Mom’s drink, 18&21, was the miss out of the trio. Juliet said it had after taste of robitussin. I’m 100% certain that was NOT the taste they were going for, lol. But she was kind of right. So, I ordered Denise a Smoked Old Fashioned. My drink was tasty, though I was the only one who thought so. I love coffee and bourbon individually; so together they should have been a home run. It was good; but not a grand slam. I couldn’t really put my finger on what was ‘off’ but it was something.

And then in the middle of the night, it hit me. The cocktails were flat. They lacked dimension and hit and held one note. The smoked old fashioned should’ve had multiple layers, a complexity with each sip, the reality – it was pretty flat. It tasted good; I mean it’s hard to mess up a classic Old Fashioned if you use traditional ingredients. But I didn’t taste the smoke. Mom’s drink, well that just wasn’t for us. And finally, my drink the cold brew was ok but could have really been great. What was missing??? The hand mixing of a cocktail. These were on draft and they tasted like it.

Beer and maybe wine, MAYBE, should be on draft. Cocktails – not so much.

Cheers
~Kimberly Elise

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