Milwaukee (and Kenosha), Wisconsin

Milwaukee is sort of a weird little brother to Chicago.  Maybe it can be thought of as a town that has a lot of the same things that the bigger city 90 miles to the south has to offer, but that is also small enough and ignored enough that things are allowed to grow and fester and mutate into really weird directions.  This makes it an interesting town to drink in, because there are bunches of wacky little bars that have remained undiscovered for decades by everyone but the locals.  I have to admit that with this possible exception of Bryant's, none of the bars listed on this page serve truly amazing drinks.  So, to a degree, I have violated my own mandate by putting them up here.  However, all of them have a certain charm, and are worth visiting for various reasons.  Milwaukee has also been paying attention to what has been happening down in Chicago and over in Cleveland, and I think it is only a matter of time before they have their own Violet Hour or Velvet Tango Room.

Bryant's
1579 S. 9th St., Milwaukee, Wisconsin; (414) 383-2620
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To the delight of cocktail snobs everywhere, Bryant's reopened in July of 2008, after being closed for nine months.  After the death of owner Carl Malmberg, the bar was briefly run by his daughter Debbie, who soon closed it, seemingly for ever.  At the time of the 2007 closing, Bryant's had been the oldest continually operating cocktail bar in Milwaukee, with forty-five years of service interrupted only by a 1971 facelift.  This change was, in turn, the result of a small fire and had the added benefit of prompting the opening of their upstairs level (now open only on weekends).

The veteran bartenders at the menu-less Bryant's were said to have five hundred recipes committed to memory, and encouraged customers to order by flavor.  The new Bryant's has recruited new bartenders (the old-timers had all retired or moved to other jobs during the hiatus - we'll miss Jesus "Chuy" Contreras) and has added a menu.  However, the vibe inside is more or less unchanged, right down to the aquarium, the velvet wallpaper, the plush booths, and the original McIntosh hi-fi playing Rat Pack-era classics.

Gal Friday Night and I visited Bryant's, but they were not yet open for the night when we got there.  The door, however, was unlocked, so we took a quick peek inside and confirmed that things are unchanged within.  We'll report back on the modern status of their drinks lickety-split, but if new owner John Dye - a loyal Bryant's customer before he bought the joint - is to be believed, his new staff has been hand-picked and are fully up to the task of keeping their predecessor's legacy alive.

At Random
2501 S. Delaware Ave, Milwaukee WI  (414) 481-8030
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October, 2007
v1.0
Cocktail Snob review by James Teitelbaum

On the south side of the city, in a residential neighborhood right by Lake Michigan, there is an impenetrable maze of street all named after U.S. states.  Within this warren of curved boulevards and pleasant early 20th century homes, is At Random, nestled comfortably on the corner of S. Delaware and E. Russel streets. The windowless bar is only differentiated from the other houses on the street by the sign on the side of the building.  Climb up the three astro-turfed stairs, ring the doorbell, wait for someone to check you out and buzz you in, and you'll then step into a world of darkness and drinkness.  If you could see your hand in front of your face (you can't) through the blackness, you'd notice that At Random looks like a cross between Frank Sinatra's living room and your grandmother's 1972 basement rec room, but with the lights off. A long curved bar and a few booths dominate the first room; a series of further booths fill up a back room.  A hostess will seat you exactly where she pleases.  Don't even think about asking for a different booth.  A massive CD changer plays mostly rat-pack era stuff; expect to hear Frank, Sammy, and Dino on any given visit, but the selection is large enough that fans of the swingin' mid-century music will get to hear some fairly rare or obscure tunes as well. Randy Zeller, son of the original owners (who opened the place in 1964) still tends the bar. The drink menu is all 'classic drinks' - there is no beer served.  Most of the drinks tend towards the sweet side of the spectrum.  There are a lot of people on dates in At Random, and they don't seem to be looking for strong Martinis, on the whole. The Mai Tai ($9), is a drinkable if overly sweet mutation of Trader Vic's signature drink, although it is not made with anything resembling the traditional recipe. At $16, The Tiki Love Bowl is an amazing fruity concoction served in a huge crystal chalice.  It is a huge drink, probably too much for even the most amorous (and hard-livered) couple.  It'll do you some good. Their Missionary's Downfall ($9) is full of Rum, Brandy, and a hint of Galliano.  We suspect that part of the high price tag on all of the drinks (the cheapest is $7 - that’s a lot for Wisconsin) is to keep the riff raff out of this house of swank.  Works for us.

At Random has a great vibe to it, but we can't quite put it on the must-visit list for this web site, simply because the cocktails are not quite on the 'very impressive' side of the spectrum. 
That said, I do make it a point to stop in every time I am in Milwaukee, mostly for the very cool atmosphere.

Foundation
2718 N. Breman, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; (414) 374-2587

October, 2007

v1.0
Cocktail Snob review by James Teitelbaum

For many years Foundation has been an extremely cool punk rock bar with a weekly Exotica (Tiki) night.  Perhaps it is due to the owner’s growing interest in Polynesian Pop, or to the bar’s regulars growing out of photocopied punk concert fliers and broken cymbals on the walls (in favor of the newly installed pufferfish lamps and forbidden idols), or perhaps the Tiki Tuesdays were just too popular to contain in one night, but the result is all the same: over the past few years, Foundation has slowly mutated from a punk rock bar with a Tiki night to a full-time Polynesian Pop outpost.  A full tropical drinks menu, dim lighting, appropriate music (early in the evenings - the bar’s roots take over later), and lots of Tiki effigies leave no doubt as to the direction this bar has undertaken.  Two post-it notes we spied behind the bar sum it all up: One contains their Mai Tai recipe (Appleton and Coruba rums, by the by), and the other reminds all staff that “pufferfish lights stay on 24-7”.  Woe to the hapless bartender who extinguishes the eternal glow of the sacred puffer.  I am a big fan of Foundation as a quintessential neighborhood Milwaukee bar, but with a definite Tiki vibe to it.  The owners are super cool, and it is another place (along with At Random, and Bryant's) that I always make a point of visiting when I am in town. However from the purely Cocktail Snob perspective: Their drinks definitely veer towards the Tropicals. It is, after all, a Tiki bar.  The owners have their hearts in the right place: traditional Trader Vic and Donn Beach recipes, made with good liquors, and fresh juices. But, quality can vary widely depending on who is working the bar on any given night. I have had some drinks at Foundation that approached very good, and a few that didn't. Check it out.

Hob Nob
277 S. Sheridan Rd, Racine, Wisconsin; (262)-552-8008
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October, 2007

v1.0
Cocktail Snob review by James Teitelbaum

Hob Nob is a lovely vintage 1953 restaurant and lounge. The building, which sits on a quiet stretch of Sheridan Road (also called Route 32) is nestled right up to the shore of Lake Michigan.  Diners in the rearmost dining room, as well as patrons at the bar, have a nice view of the lake. The exterior of Hob Nob is immaculate, a well-maintained time warp to fifty-four years ago.  The interior is largely intact, but it seems like an early 1980s face lift inside resulted in some unfortunate choices in the giant framed prints that hang in the dining room.  The early 1980s was a bad time for restaurant art.  We love the bar itself, which is quite long, with black padded armrests and comfortable thrones for visitors. The entire back wall behind the bar is glass.  When in a Midwestern bar, it is unusual to stare out a window onto a well-manicured hill leading to a large body of water, but Hob Nob is your place to do so. When we showed up at Hob Nob, there were some staunch regulars who were on a first-name basis with the bartender, himself a dead ringer for John Ritter's character on the old sitcom Three's Company (maybe he selected the wall art). Gal Friday Night had a Bombay Sapphire Martini, and was a bit disappointed that a bunch of ice chips had ended up in the drink.  She may be harder to please than I am, but you know what they say: behind every whiny Cocktail Snob is a Gal Friday Night who keeps him on his toes.  I had a Sidecar (I didn't viddy that Mr. Tripper could handle anything more challenging) and it was marginally drinkable.  Rail-quality brandy, sour mix (not fresh lemon), and Curacao (not Cointreau).  It was also served on the rocks, which is a little unusual.  Drinks are $7.  Perhaps if I had specified better ingredients he could have made the drink more up to spec - his bar skills seemed adequate even if his recipe was a bit ghetto. But this brings me to the whole raison d'etre of the Cocktail Snob web site: there is poor, there is acceptable, there is good, and there is great.  This drink was just on the wrong side of acceptable.  Maybe a 'great' drink is more than the average proletariat needs or wants or is willing to pay for, but serving something that is at least 'good' should be the rule, not the exception.  'Good' is next to impossible to find, and 'great' is what gets you listed on the main list of this web site.  Bar people: make it happen.  Although we were unhappy with the Sidecar at Hob Nob, we had an acceptable-to-good (not great) Martini at least.

What we did really like was the food.

Although it is pricey (especially for Racine, Wisconsin... most entrees are $18 to $25) both of our meals were quite good.

I had a nice fillet of grilled salmon, and Gal Friday Night had roasted chicken.  Cocktail Snob's west coast attache The Jab would have adored the nice list of steaks that dominates the menu.  Both meals came with soup, a nice salad of field greens, and a choice of potatoes.  Be warned: this is not trendy big-city dining here.  The closest thing to modern that we ate was the salad, which we were pleasantly surprised to discover was not iceberg lettuce and a cucumber wedge.  The dishes at Hob Nob match the exterior of the building precisely: this is dining circa 1953.  The good news is that some time during the past half-century, the chefs got things nailed down.  Both the salmon and the chicken were cooked, seasoned, and presented just right.  Portions are generous; we were stuffed.

The only thing that didn't taste good was our waitress engaging in a bit of shifty upselling.  She was a real 'used car salesman', rattling off our soup options, salad options, potato options, entree cooking options, and then sliding in an optional a la carte veggie so fast that we didn't realize we'd be paying extra for it until about a half hour later.  Five bucks extra (each) for a bit of steamed broccoli left a bad taste in the mouth after having it slid into our order as slick as a greased pig.  You don't need the veggie anyway - the rest of the meal is plenty.

Rendez’vous
1700 52nd St., Kenosha, Wisconsin; (262) 652-0992

October, 2007

v1.0
Cocktail Snob review by James Teitelbaum

This fun little bar - stuck right between Chicago and Milwaukee - is a sort of pirates and zombies and Tikis hybrid bar.  Red and black are the predominant colors of the comfortable space, with lots of interesting artifacts everywhere you look.  Exotica album covers are nailed to the walls, and for a relatively new bar (vintage 2005), their collection of ‘junk’ is pretty astounding.  Owner Mike is friendly and enthusiastic about meeting new faces who dig what he has put together. 

The tropical drinks at Rendez’vous are made from traditional Beachcomber / Trader recipes, but they do vary widely from bartender to bartender. We have had a few really nice ones there, and a few that were borderline undrinkable.  All Mike needs is a little encouragement, and a bar staff that cares as much as he does.  His heart is in the right place.  Rendez’vous is your best bet for a Tiki bar to visit on Halloween... and the other 364 days a year aren’t bad either.

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