Skip to main content"A whiskey and cigarettes diet?" the garrulous waitress asks the occupants of an outdoor table at Pope House Bourbon Lounge (2075 NW Glisan St., 222-1056). "That's been my summer." There are few more pleasant places to enjoy the final warm nights of the season than the former location of martini bar Brazen Bean. The gothic manor, located above a hair salon, remains mostly unaltered. It's distinguished by a circular parlor that recalls the elevator entrance to Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, but a few Churchill Downs prints hint at a Kentucky theme—which the drinks reiterate with force. A deceptively sweet Lynchburg Lemonade ($7) packs a dizzying kick of Jack Daniel's, while the floozy-named Nurse's Night Out ($8) is basically a St. Germain gimlet with blood-orange vodka: Enjoy these as a double feature, and you'll hear the thoroughbred hooves pounding. Naturally, there's a considerable stock of bourbons, with the Basil Hayden's a value at $9 a shot. As they say where I'm from, it's high time to put a little South in your mouth.
WWeek 2015