Drink of the Week: A Noble Experiment by Chris Clewell at Acorn

Noble Experiment at AcornThe Noble Experiment at AcornIt’s ironic that the flavors often associated with the winter holidays actually come from tropical climates. Nutmeg, for example, is a seed plucked from trees indigenous to Indonesia. Allspice hails from Mexico and Central America. And cloves are flower buds that grow on…

Blazing Through a Century-Old Happy Hour at Buckhorn Exchange

Climbing a fourteener. Dabs. Margaritas and Skee-Ball at Casa Bonita. A show at Red Rocks. Green chile with fat chunks of pork. There are certain things you simply must do when in Colorado, and visiting Denver’s oldest restaurant should be one of them. The Buckhorn Exchange was founded in 1893 and…

Cerebral Brewing Opens Smartly on Colfax

Cerebral Brewing opened last weekend on East Colfax Avenue, and drinking beer there is like going back to science class but a lot more fun. Founded by Sean Buchan, Chris Washenberger and Dan McGuire, the brewery takes its name and its theme from the professional backgrounds of Washenberger, a molecular biologist,…

Local Focus Puts Blackbelly Market on the Happy Hour Map

It’s become caught up in a life of brunch, curing meat, cannabis and yoga. This is Denver, after all. With the opening of his Boulder restaurant Blackbelly Market, Chef Hosea Rosenberg’s interests encompass those hobbies and far beyond. A ways away from the extravagance of West Boulder, Blackbelly still does…

Drink of the Week: A Parisian Beauty at Black Eye Coffee

Green Girls of Paris at Black Eye CoffeeWhen bartenders love an ingredient — the way it tastes, the way it smells, the way it’s made, the story behind it — they find a way to create a cocktail centered on that ingredient. When the the first drops of the cocktail…

Remodeled Bar at 1515 Restaurant Features Molecular Cocktails

1515 Restaurant has been undergoing some changes to the ground-floor lounge and bar. Owner Gene Tang is already committed to modern, cutting-edge cuisine in the kitchen, and now that modern flair is being reflected in the bar’s decor and cocktail program. The dining room at 1515 is on the second floor,…

Happy Hour at The Squeaky Bean is Fun on a Smaller Plate

A number of things have changed at the Squeaky Bean, but Farrah Fawcett still watches over all the comings and goings. Her candlelit memorial is a touchstone every time I return to the Bean, through chef changes, ups and downs and meals both inspiring and confusing. Though I love sitting…

Beer Calendar: Warm Sweaters, Big Beers and Holiday Bashes

It’s brilliant marketing: Engender lots of goodwill from the buying public and plenty of national attention by eschewing profits for one day, Black Friday. Then watch that goodwill pay off later — in the form of big bucks. REI pulled off a nice PR coup earlier this month when it…

Ototo Follows a Tradition of Good Happy Hours on South Pearl

It’s hard to get a second chance in a business where, statistically speaking, close to half of your peers are doomed to failure. But everybody loves a good comeback story, especially one about a good restaurant. Ototo closed on South Pearl Street in 2012, but the Den Family held on…

Is Denver’s Brewery Boom Slowing Down?

Over the past five years, Denver has seen a brewery boom that took our collective breath away. In 2010, when Strange Brewing (not Strange Craft Beer) opened, there were only about eight beer-makers in town. By the end of 2015, there will be more than sixty. But the pace of…