Ah, but every once in a while, I want to do the thing up right. I want a by-god cocktail. A cocktail mixed with top-shelf booze, by a bartender who knows what the fuck she’s doing. Something fun. Something jazzy. Something that costs a fucking mint and is worth every goddamn penny.

Problem is, I sometimes run into a stupid level of difficulty obtaining these special libations. No offense to the legion of bartenders who have kept me nice and sozzled over the years, but making a special cocktail takes a special attitude. Not only must the mixologist be inventive and prideful, he or she must actually yearn to prepare quality drinks. Anyone can throw together a tall vodka-tonic, or top off a pint of suds. But a properly assembled champagne cocktail, for example, is a whole other scene.

Which is why my most recent foray into the Land of Classic Cocktails was so wonderfully goddamn pleasing.

I don’t normally use this space to pimp specific taverns, but I’m going to make an exception this time and tell you about a joint in Denver I visited last week called Baur’s. General Manager Matt Jackson invited me down to sample the restaurant’s menu of unique, specialty cocktails, and offer feedback.

The original Baur’s opened in the 1920s, as a soda shop and ice-cream parlor. Over the ensuing decades the space (impossible to miss on the corner of 15^th and Curtis) has been home to numerous restaurants, trading under as many different names. Then, about 18 months back, it reopened as a fine-dining establishment, and again took up the name Baur’s. The décor is gorgeous—all dark wood and white linen—and the bar itself is like a time capsule back to some high-end, big-city speakeasy.

Upon our arrival, my guest and I were given over to the excellent mixing skills of Rachel Meyer, one of Baur’s three gifted bartenders. She presented the drinks menu and asked where we would like to begin. My answer was something along the lines of “Just rack ‘em all up, sweetheart.” Watching Rachel work—confidence, economy of motion—I had the pleasant sensation of knowing I was in the presence of an artist.

One after another, an array of cocktails appeared before us, all shapes, sizes and colors. We sipped and slurped, nodded knowingly and puzzled over unusual flavors. As we worked our way through each, Rachel asked detailed questions and was genuinely interested in hearing, not only our praise, which was effusive, but our thoughts on how a given tipple might be enhanced.

The highlights of my little sojourn through Alcohol Nirvana include:

• The Americana. It’s Baur’s version of the classic champagne cocktail. Bourbon, Peychaud’s bitters, light sugar, and champagne. Served ice-cold in a flute. Whiskey bite and champagne bubbles. The liquid equivalent of being smiled at by a pretty girl.
• The Shot. Citrus vodka, grape liqueur & lemon-lime soda, garnished with frozen grapes. A tad sweet, perhaps, for some, but otherwise a long alcoholic tummy massage.
• Thread the Needle. Flower petals and green apples muddled with rye whiskey, sweet and sour and apple liqueur, and swizzled over crushed ice. I know, it sounds like Metrosexual potpourri, but the taste is astonishing. Not to mention the fact that rye rarely gets its due as a cocktail base.
• The Errol Flynn. Scotch, Drambuie, honey syrup and lime juice. Five or six of these should leave you well braced to go cutlass-to-cutlass with a few pirates.

Baur’s makes most of its own syrups, and does all of its own vodka and gin infusions. And all of the 15 or so drinks on the specialty menu were invented right there behind the very bar you’ll be sitting at.

Be forewarned. You won’t get off cheap. Some of the cocktails run upwards of $12 a pop. Don’t let cost derail your plans, though. For us drunkards, encounters with true sophistication is a bargain at any price.

Here’s to Baur’s. They’re keeping the dream alive.

Cheers.

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