In search of a more adventurous night out in Baltimore, I skipped my usual weekend dance parties in favor of Baltimore's storied neighborhood bars. Over a whirlwind of a week, I dragged along a few friends to visit a bunch of Baltimore's dive bars, corner joints, and neighborhood watering holes....
Charles North and the surrounding neighborhoods have some pretty cool “secret” bars that aren’t really known to the regular bar-hopping crowd. There’s the one inside a carry-out at 25th and St. Paul Street, the Korean bar under the barber shop on 22nd Street, and now there’s a new one we can happily...
2300 Boston St., (410) 777-5502, 2300baltimore.com
When Ginny Lawhorn of Sticky Rice and Baltimore Style fame invited us to join the festivities of the first Baltimore Cocktail Week, we scanned through the main events—a welcome cocktail party, sessions on wellness and money management for those in the hospitality industry, a movie night with tastings...
807 Key Highway, (667) 239-3105, sipbaltimore.com
444 Eastern Blvd., Essex, (443) 969-2706
Since City Paper is Baltimore’s Most Cynical Alternative Weekly, expectations weren’t exactly elevated when we arrived at the Arundel Mills Corporate Park on a cloudy Thursday to taste what The City That Drinks would consider an oxymoron: a proprietary craft beer on tap at the Greene Turtle. It...
What’s the scariest thing in the bar scene this time of year? This: Canton’s Hudson Street Stackhouse had 20 pumpkin beers on tap—over half its draft offerings are given over to the god-awful gourd. Indeed, most bars sport plentiful jack-o’-lantern tap handles. Put me amid the burgeoning backlash...
3131 Eastern Ave., 410-276-8755, matthewspizza.com
A short while ago, we were out drinking and noticed that the coaster advertised Alaska Distillery’s Smoked Salmon Vodka (ultra premium!). We’ve had some interesting infusions in our day—from bacon/Nilla Wafer vodka to leather-infused bourbon and beyond—but the idea of taking the "essence" of a...
2322 Boston St., (443) 759-9360, theforkandwrench.com Bars throughout Charm City are eager to pull in weeknight drinkers and often offer late-night specials or other incentives, but few are as unique and entertaining as Fork & Wrench’s Thursday night Bar Battle, or Iron Bar, competition. Every...
Imagine this: not one, but two liquor-retailer events scheduled for a Monday afternoon in Baltimore. What was The City That Drinks supposed to do? We could attend the big distributor’s show at Horseshoe Casino or the open house at Baltimore’s “alternative” liquor distributor, Legends Limited. Because...
702 S. Broadway, (443) 835-1336, therockwellbaltimore.com There’s been some hype, mostly in the form of scorn, about the announcement that Jack Barakat, guitarist for the homegrown pop-punk band All Time Low, is now the co-owner of Fells Point bar The Rockwell. We never really cared about All Time...
3126 Greenmount Ave., (410) 366-6536, melbasplace.com Charles Village is a house divided. Its white residents tend to migrate toward watering holes like Charles Village Pub in the north and the younger, hipper places like P.J.’s Pub and the so-called “secret bar” a little farther south, while the...
So everyone was pretty psyched when Flying Dog announced Dead Rise, their Old Bay-flavored beer. When it was released in May, we’d yet to have our first taste of Chesapeake crabs this year and so the mere thought of beer and Old Bay set the mouth to watering. And, if you’re trying to be a good...