DOUBLE BARREL - IMAGE: Will Corwin
If it’s on the wall at Double Barrel (2002 SE Division St., 234-1420),
it’s either a gun or something it shot. The walls pack more heat than a
Texas wedding party. Even the clocks and mirrors boast taxidermy—or at
least the bronze visage of an eagle—hung against the old building’s
brick. An old Oregonian mailbox hanging by the door looks like
it’s been shot itself, whether as commentary we don’t rightly know.
But
whatever the Western branding, the new Division Street bar by the owners
of Club 21 and Gold Dust Meridian is a place of Dirty Harry
pinball and fireside comforts, with a warm-toned horseshoe bar made of
wood recycled from the building’s roster of now-cut sports bars: KJ’s,
Wynners, Seven Corners, and Dilly’s. Above the bar is a rough awning of
mismatched wood, harvested from the defunct deck of the bar contractor’s
cousin. In mood, it’s a rock-’n’-roll party held at dad’s private bar,
packed on a Friday night with musicians in their 30s and women in their
20s.
Double Barrel’s insistence on carrying not only Pabst and Oly, but
also Hamm’s, Coors, Rainier, High Life and Tecate seems like an almost
ham-fisted statement, though there are also eight taps spouting local
standards like Migration and Boneyard. The cocktail menu is a statement
as well: It’s awful. Three different $8 concoctions of Root liqueur or
marionberry habanero were passed around the table and pronounced
undrinkable. Meanwhile, the bartender will make you a terrific Bulleit
bourbon with lemon and freshly shaved ginger for $2 less.
But a month
in, Double Barrel is classic in form, dim of light and somehow already
aged into its space. It feels like yours the first damn time you walk
in. Order a bourbon and a shitty back, and drink to dear old dad.
