Tonight I'll recommend, to any of my Los Angeles brethren, the lovely locale of Barkeeper.
Barkeeper is located in Silver Lake, a terrific little spot frequented and populated by a lively, youthful crowd including hipsters, hippies, post-hippies, yuppies, and apparently anyone that owns a dog. Silver-Lakers love their canines.
Barkeeper is, as the name would imply, a store for securing and maintaining one's bar. As anyone that knew me in college, (which would, if the last party I attended is any measure of the matter, be about a fourth of the Los Angeles population) should know, keeping a solid bar is a matter that I've always regarded as fairly important, if only to make certain that guests of mine are at their most comfortable and least lucid.
They offer a variety of products, from muddlers to absinthe fountains, from juicers to jiggers, from the lowly ashtray, elevated by it's design, to the stately, antique bar set, everything except the liquor itself. (A matter which we shall return to shortly.)
The products are varied, certainly, and contain just enough marijuana paraphenalia to warrant technically also being a "head shop". However, each item that they offer tends to be quality or, at the very least, novelty. And I mean that in the sense that most "novelty" shops offer up products of an inferior nature that have achieved the status as little more than a meme in and of themselves, whereas this location seems to offer novelty as items worthwhile of the sentiment.
It was at this location that I purchased the martini and champagne glasses that I now own, both reinforced with titanium and "party proof", both highly resistant to breakage. In fact, at one recent night in which I managed to get the majority of my twelve-plus resident house intoxicated, I knocked over my champagne glass in an elegant, shatter-sure arc of ninety degrees onto our marble kitchen table, and while it spilled the remainder of the bubbly in my glass, the flute itself merely bounced and giggled against the black rock that assaulted it. Surely there can be no better account to attest to the resilience of this durable silicate.
What's more, the staff is friendly and helpful: I frequently find myself, a Los Angeles neophyte, seeking the advice of the owner and his various adjutants in finding something to do about town, whether it be the nearest and best sake bar, the closest and most reliable place to get a decent rolfing, or just a location to purchase a cheap and efficient ramekin for making French onion soup, I can always expect to find advice as reliable as that of good old Jeeves himself at the spot, and have followed it to much satisfaction in the past.
I also feel compelled to comment on the wonderful library available at the store. While not incredibly extensive, it seems that it has been the regard of the staff to select only helpful, accessible books that are moderately priced to aid in an understanding of how to provide various inebriating substances for ones guests in a highly efficient manner. Indeed, I spend much of my time paging through the books that are both for sale, and of the exclusive collection available only for viewing within the store itself, both being highly interesting and enjoyable.
Now, in regards to the matter mentioned earlier: no, there is no actual liquor for sale in the store itself, the consumable products being limited mainly to Fee Brothers bitters and a selection of infused simple syrups, both of which I have myself purchased and found extremely reliable and even excellent. However, I personally hope that the store maintains this policy of avoiding a liquor license as, once a month, it invites a special guest from one place or another to grace the locale with a cocktail or two of their own invention, usually bolstered by something mixed at the door by the staff of the shop. As they maintain no liquor license, they are forced, by this circumstance, to give these potables away for free, in the hopes that the various inebriates who turn up, without exception, myself included, to lap away at the wonderful concoctions that they provide, might feel obliged to purchase some of the wares of the place.
I, myself, rarely escape without doing so. I hope that the same might ultimately be said for you.
Barkeeper is located in Silver Lake, a terrific little spot frequented and populated by a lively, youthful crowd including hipsters, hippies, post-hippies, yuppies, and apparently anyone that owns a dog. Silver-Lakers love their canines.
Barkeeper is, as the name would imply, a store for securing and maintaining one's bar. As anyone that knew me in college, (which would, if the last party I attended is any measure of the matter, be about a fourth of the Los Angeles population) should know, keeping a solid bar is a matter that I've always regarded as fairly important, if only to make certain that guests of mine are at their most comfortable and least lucid.
They offer a variety of products, from muddlers to absinthe fountains, from juicers to jiggers, from the lowly ashtray, elevated by it's design, to the stately, antique bar set, everything except the liquor itself. (A matter which we shall return to shortly.)
The products are varied, certainly, and contain just enough marijuana paraphenalia to warrant technically also being a "head shop". However, each item that they offer tends to be quality or, at the very least, novelty. And I mean that in the sense that most "novelty" shops offer up products of an inferior nature that have achieved the status as little more than a meme in and of themselves, whereas this location seems to offer novelty as items worthwhile of the sentiment.
It was at this location that I purchased the martini and champagne glasses that I now own, both reinforced with titanium and "party proof", both highly resistant to breakage. In fact, at one recent night in which I managed to get the majority of my twelve-plus resident house intoxicated, I knocked over my champagne glass in an elegant, shatter-sure arc of ninety degrees onto our marble kitchen table, and while it spilled the remainder of the bubbly in my glass, the flute itself merely bounced and giggled against the black rock that assaulted it. Surely there can be no better account to attest to the resilience of this durable silicate.
What's more, the staff is friendly and helpful: I frequently find myself, a Los Angeles neophyte, seeking the advice of the owner and his various adjutants in finding something to do about town, whether it be the nearest and best sake bar, the closest and most reliable place to get a decent rolfing, or just a location to purchase a cheap and efficient ramekin for making French onion soup, I can always expect to find advice as reliable as that of good old Jeeves himself at the spot, and have followed it to much satisfaction in the past.
I also feel compelled to comment on the wonderful library available at the store. While not incredibly extensive, it seems that it has been the regard of the staff to select only helpful, accessible books that are moderately priced to aid in an understanding of how to provide various inebriating substances for ones guests in a highly efficient manner. Indeed, I spend much of my time paging through the books that are both for sale, and of the exclusive collection available only for viewing within the store itself, both being highly interesting and enjoyable.
Now, in regards to the matter mentioned earlier: no, there is no actual liquor for sale in the store itself, the consumable products being limited mainly to Fee Brothers bitters and a selection of infused simple syrups, both of which I have myself purchased and found extremely reliable and even excellent. However, I personally hope that the store maintains this policy of avoiding a liquor license as, once a month, it invites a special guest from one place or another to grace the locale with a cocktail or two of their own invention, usually bolstered by something mixed at the door by the staff of the shop. As they maintain no liquor license, they are forced, by this circumstance, to give these potables away for free, in the hopes that the various inebriates who turn up, without exception, myself included, to lap away at the wonderful concoctions that they provide, might feel obliged to purchase some of the wares of the place.
I, myself, rarely escape without doing so. I hope that the same might ultimately be said for you.
m0ngrel:
i love that place