Nancy Whiskey

Not many people realize that Detroit motto is “Resurget Cineribus” which means “It shall rise again from the ashes. I was meditating on this idea as I sat down at Nancy Whiskey in Corktown this week. The bar is the proud owner of Detroit’s oldest liquor license (I’m not sure how they count prohibition, but whatever). Located on Harrison street the bar is completely embedded into the community, the building itself is virtual indistinguishable from the neighboring houses.

It’s this at home feeling that struck me most about this place. It was like Cheers, but without an annoying laugh track. Regulars seemed to just plop down next to me and begin telling me their life stories. I heard tales of woe “our husband and I lost our house last winter” and humor “I might be a carpenter, but I’m not Jesus”.

One woman sat me down and explained her religious views. I confess, I was rather confused by her assertion to be Roman Catholic while she told me about her past lives and her favorite books by new age guru Sylvia Browne.

“I just don’t know about this whole Jesus thing.” She said with concerned look. Her fears disappeared once another shot of tequila appeared in front of her from her husband. He grinned at me while I nodded in approval.

One of the bartenders sat next to me for a while, apparently she was off duty. She told me about the history of the bar and ordered “two shots of piss”. A shot glass full to the brim with tullamore dew materialized in front of me and she told me a story. Apparently when the owners (Nancy and Owen) bought the bar tullamore dew was not available in the United States. They took a yearly pilgrimage back to Ireland and brought a cask home with them. Every newcomer to the bar gets a shot of the golden liquid, if you don’t drink you’re not welcome to return.

“We call it angel piss” she says, “it’s like an angel is taking a leak in your mouth”.

I decide to take a shot before I really think about that colorful endorsement, we cheers, tap our glasses on the bar and drink.

I feel the warm liquid hitting the back of my throat. It burns lightly then smoothens out quickly, it hits my stomach and its warmth spreads through my body for the next few minutes. This is one hell of a tradition.

A couple of years ago Nancy Whiskey’s had a fire. It destroyed much of the interior of the building. I’ve been told prior to that the place was rather dingy, with ratty carpet and poor lighting. I can only imagine the decisions the owners must have had, staring at the burnt out remains of their business. At that time Detroit’s future was looking especially shaky, GM and Chrysler were in rough shape and the city was often on the cover of national magazines. The entire country was facing financial collapse.

But they decided to rise again from the ashes and Corktown is so much better for it.  

The Gaelic League

Oh the Gaelic League. I’ve long driven past it and wondered about it. I had always assumed that the place was forbidden to non members and expected there to be a gentlemen named Finnegan at the door with a sock full of quarters ready to dissuade any invaders. Instead I found a warm welcoming place full of friendly people and great music that is supported by a rich history and oppenness.

Entering the Gaelic League is a bit of an experience, you open the front door and find yourself in a small entryway. Just ahead is another door that gives you access to the rest of the building but it’s locked. I walked in and wondered if the tiny room was going to fill with a poison gas and began to mentally prepare for a Batman level break out. My girlfriend pushed the buzzer by the door and the bartender let us in without even looking up. Good thing I left my batarangs at home.

Entering the bar I saw rows upon rows of upbeat, smiling people from all walks of life. Contrary to my initial suspicions I did not have to prove my Irish ancestry upon entering (thankfully, as I’m woefully ignorant of my ethnic heritage). We gradually nudged are way through the see of chipper patrons and found a seat in the back corner of the establishment. Pints of Guinness arrived promptly after us. I took a deep sip and a long glance around the bar. It was time to take it all in.

The white balls are criss-crossed with brown beams and the room is seperated into two areas by a small step. A small stage rests at the end of the room where my prof Jon Freeman’s band was playing a mix of Irish folk and Americana. The crowd was listening enthusiastically while talking to one another and nodding in rhythm with the music.

Despite being well air conditioned I couldn’t help but feel a warmth emanating from the room. It never made me sweat but rather comforted like a well warn wool sweater. Despite this being my first time I instantly felt very comfortable there. The lack of bullshit posturing and pretension was a refreshing change of pace from the various bars I frequent in Ferndale.

A few days prior to visiting the League with friends I had actually gone there with my ethnography class. Kathleen, a member of the league’s inner government, told us about the place. The Gaelic League itself is an actual club with a dedicated membership roster and is only open to confirmed Irish Americans. Outside of that is the Irish American club which welcomes anyone who agrees with the missions of the League. The league formed from a core of fifty Irish ex patriots who came together out of concern for their homeland. At the time Ireland was in political upheaval and the league worked to increase political pressure and send money home.

Kathleen beams with pride as she talks about the league. It’s clear that the place is special to her and that she is special to hit. She was its first female president, and she’s very proud of how open and inclusive the place has become.

To me that’s the real fascinating thing about the league. It’s not just for the Irish anymore, the Irish American club welcomes all kinds of people. The League itself has put on festivals with the Mexicantown community. It’s clear that they treat “Irish” not just as a heritage but also a set of ideals. Music, conversation, and pride all coalesce to form a new identity that is very American while retaining it’s Gaelic feeling.

So I raise my glass to the Gaelic League. It truly is a emerald gem for the city of Detroit.

Magic Stick

It’s a balmy evening as I make my way to the magic stick. The air was rancid with humidity, leaving me feeling hazy and already somewhat tired. I took a deep breath as I exited my car on Woodward avenue, my glasses immediately fogging over from the sudden change from my cold air conditioned Chevy Cobalt to the sticky night air. I wandered slowly down the sidewalk, passing the old C-Pop building and gradually making my way to the neon signs of the Majestic complex.

Complex is a good way to describe the Majestic building. It feels like a cult compound for the great church of rock and roll. The building has five possible venues for concerts, a bowling alley, a pizza parlor and a restaurant. If David Koresh had spent more time listening to the Stooges he would have built the Majestic.

It’s quiet as I enter the magic stick. The bar is almost vacant, only a few thirty somethings are moseying around absorbing the air conditioning and alcohol. I look around and spot my accomplice for the evening, John Freeman. A shaking of hands and a few jokes. Inky black Guinness pints in our hands. We hold them tightly yet shake them through the air like conductor’s batons. We swap stories of our time in bands, mutual acquaintances and writing ideas.

The bartender looking over his black plastic frames at me. I order a Guinness, John does the same. A deep swig as soon as it arrives. The dark cold beverage rolls down my throat.

Jon introduces me to “Elbow”. A hulking bassist for the first band. An American flag tattoo on his right should, the red and blue popping from his pale white skin. He’s smiling but he seems slightly nervous.

Screech! A shrill feedback fills the room. I feel my ear drums shudder and my eyes blink reflexively. A few loud murmurs from the bar. Sound check has begun. Guitars begin to hum and drums heads are tightened. The vocalist speaking clearly into the microphone. More feedback. More winces.

Then ignition. The punk machine revs and pulses. The guitars howling over a thumping rhythm section. The band has begun their set. The music propelling the small crowd into a frenzy. A mosh pit promptly erupts. The band is called Bad Assets and ironically they’re quite good. Large men slam into one another, reveling in the joy of the mosh pit.

One man flies through the air, a tomahawk missile with love handles and tattoos. This WMD is clad in a stained wife beater and cut off shorts. He collides with a skinny twenty something in a Subhumanz t-shirt and a cabby hat. The two ricochet off one another before shifting their momentum to collide again. This process continues amidst a hurricane of elbows. The driving drum beat guiding them into a recurring battle of body against body. They’re joined by two other tribe members, all drawn by the cacophonous roar the band is creating. The punk rhythms serving as a tribal drum chant.

All of this is the illusion of chaos. Within the small group there is a camaraderie like none other. The warriors battle each other not to the death but rather to mirth. Every slam is carefully is actually a surgical strike. Whenever one of them falls down they immediately pick him up. Despite its Darwinian appearance, the mosh pit is actually incredibly empathic. Every member contributing to the enjoyment of the rest.

A mosh pit is not a battle. It’s not an act of anger or an expression of violence. A mosh pit is a group of people creating a problem for the sole purpose fixing it together. The bodies large and and small slamming together. If someone falls they’re picked back up before the next beat. Every pit is like a forest fire, a combination of living and dead elements creating an unpredictable scene. No two mosh pits are the same. There’s a rhythm to the sweaty elbows and bobbing heads that guides and moves its participants. If you haven’t been in one then you don’t understand.

Outsiders just see anger. They see frustration and rage. It’s true that some people join the pit to release those feelings. Those people are assholes and tourists. They’re not members of the tribe but instead a foreign parasite sucking the positivity from the crowd.

Even if you stand outside from the mosh pit you still feel it’s pulse. It shakes the floor beneath your shoes. Occasionally you push one of its members back into its gaping maw.

The bodies slam together. The snare drum rings through the air. Screeching microphones continue feeding back into a Ouroboros of noise. Cheap beer and shots of whiskey. Neon lighting. Testosterone and flatulence mixing with sweat and booze. The smiles and laughing. Grown men sticking to their guns and making the sounds of their youth. Shirts come off and they continue to collide. One of them falls, as soon as he hits the ground his former opponent reaches down and lifts him up. They whisper something to each other and smile pausing for a second before they resume moshing.

Kinship, brotherhood. The second band was half the members of the first, they only added a guitarist and bassists. The singer of the first band would occasionally push through the mosh pit to sing back up for the second. More cheerful glances and laughter. He knows all the words to their songs.

A ‘hot chick’ walks by. Her outfit roughly the size of an eye patch. Her polished lips stuck in a permanent “duck face”. The light bouncing off them as she slowly walked past.  Not a single attendee batted an eye in her direction.

What is the nature of punk rock? This strange beast has been around for roughly forty years. It’s a piece of culture with no discernible start or end point. Some think that punk is dead. It’s message muted under a sea of disposable teen pop. Avril Lavigne is a thief. It’s drifted far from it’s old roots of political and social upheaval. It’s founders are either dead or retired. Are the remaining few idealists or fools? Punk rock was never seen as an intellectual pursuit perhaps being the fool is the goal.

Is punk rock youth? Is it rebellion? Does it mean keeping with traditions of chuck tailors and safety pins? Have we created a punk rock uniform? A punk rock philosophy? Do these men represent a vanguard of a noble tradition or are they instead the tattered remains of a once noble movement? Are they the keepers of the flame?

All of these things run through my mind as I watch these sweaty titans clash before me. Resting comfortably in my bar stool nursing my Guinness. The men laugh and shout as the music continues.

My ears were filled with a perpetual sine wave. The bright hum seemed to compliment the warm night sky. Walking back to my car. I’m tired and frazzled from the derangement I observed. Sometimes being a non participant can be exhausting. I wonder if I should have joined the festivities. I felt a call to join the pit. A call of the wild stirring within me. A strong desire to run with the wolves once more and howl to the moon. I supress it. Those days are long passed. I’m older now. Fatter. My ankle is bad. My glasses could fall off and be broken. I’m half the size of those guys. But it’s okay, I’m content to be a spectator, remembering bygone days and enjoying the war chants.

Bronx Bar

The classic advice to the aspiring author is “write what you know”. I would say that to be pretty sensible but sometimes there is a risk of writing about things that are too familiar. Writing about the Bronx bar for me seems to be straddling that thin line. The Bronx was an old haunt of mine. I remember it as being very dark and Dionysian. I would walk there from my old apartment and sip beer for hours occasionally punctuating my evenings with shots of whiskey.

Then I moved. Away from the Cass corridor and all it’s gems. I’ve since found new watering holes but I still miss my old ones from time to time. So I went to the Bronx the other day, my first visit in years. My God, how things have changed.

First thing, while approaching it’s hard not to notice their new patio. The doors of which are similar to a garage door that opens up the whole establishment like a can of sardines. This means more space and better lighting for the bar’s resident drunks. But at what cost?

The Bronx that I remember made you wish you brought a flashlight. It was dimmer than a Kardashian (zing!) and greasier than Paris Hilton (okay, I’m done, I promise). But times change and so do bars. The clientele seems to have shifted also, instead of the usual hipster infestation the bar was stocked with white collar yuppies. I was literally the only customer in there who wasn’t dressed in business casual attire. I never thought I would say this: I missed the hipsters. I could at least relate to the hipsters by bitching about how much I hate hipsters (self hatred is the key to successful hipster-nicity).

So there I sat, contemplating change in this small bar. I was sipping a Blatz beer and wondering “have I too become a sell out mainstream shill?”. Then I realized that I was still being a curmudgeonly bastard, albeit one with a nicer car than before. This is the great dilemma I was faced with while evaluating this bar: did the establishment go bad, or am I just upset by change?

Gone are the days of my dingy loft apartment in the corridor. Now I live in a cute house in the suburbs. Instead of band practice in the evening I now fire up the grill and have a cold beer in my backyard. My visitors consist of young professionals, other college students, and their dogs; as opposed to my old acquaintances who preferred to hang from metal hooks and go on three day vodka and cocaine benders.

Back to the bar: the beer was cheap and cold. I ordered a burger and out came one of the best damn sandwiches I’ve ever had. The staff was friendly and interesting. A white haired woman in a red tank top delivered my drinks between her cigarettes while cursing at one of her coworkers. She would stop every few minutes to go hack up a lung outside.

Behind the bar were the classic mirrors and a painting of a topless woman. Rows and rows of whiskeys and bourbon were neatly lined up on each side of the cash register. A chalk board sat next to the whiskeys that diagrammed a series of drink exchanges. This allows patrons to buy each other drinks even when they’re not there.

So I lift my glass to the Bronx. Maybe it sold out, maybe it bought in. Either way it’s still a nice place to sit back and remember days gone by.

Slows BBQ

It’s too damn hot in Detroit. I felt sweat dripping down my forehead as I exited my car and walked to Slow’s Barbecue on Michigan Avenue. A cold pint of beer was calling my name as I inhaled a waft of roasting pig. Despite my hatred for hot weather, I couldn’t help but smile as I walked in.



Slow roasting. Time and care. Hot smoke rising and engulfing a slab of tepid pork. Changing it gradually. The proteins inside slowly unwinding and breaking apart releasing millions of new chemicals into the meat and air.



It takes time to make good barbecue, time and the right setting.Slow seems to have found both. Since 2005 it has become a culinary mecca for fans of sloppy sweet barbecue and has drawn national attention for it’s delicious succulent meats. The local draw has been noteworthy too: Slow’s has become a magnet for terrified suburbanites who would rather play Russian roulette than cross 8 mile.



As I seated myself at the bar I pulled out my phone and checked in on foursquare. I pulled up the tip section and chuckled as I read “Slow’s is where white people go to feel safe”. Hmmm... now there is food for thought. I often like mulling over social problems like gentrification while nibbling on ribs and drinking beer, so I ordered a pint (Espresso Love Breakfast Stout, Arbor Brewing) and began to ponder these tough questions.

Slows is an archetypal  example of an overall trend in the city: suburbanites buying a spot and turning it around. The owner, Philip Cooley, is a well known Detroit booster. He’s spent time improving the surrounding area including the median across from the restaurant and working on a park in front of the old train station. He’s often held up as a poster child for “New Detroit”. When Johnny Knoxville came to Detroit to film a documentary about the city Cooley was one of the people that he interviewed. Watching the film you can see a definite glow in his eye as he talks about the city and he remains committed to improving it.



Detroit has a long history of being wary of suburban influence and think it’s these tensions that drive people to criticize places like Slow’s. There is a very valid concern that we’re just bring the suburbs back into the city, and in doing so not really fixing the social problems of the financial devastated areas. But this argument quickly falls apart, Detroit is huge! The cities of Boston, Manhattan and San Francisco can fit inside Detroit.  It would take a substantial spike in population in order for the housing costs to rise that drastically and the local economy would flourish on the way.



I sat pondering all of this while waiting for a friend to join me for another round. I noticed the restaurant was picking up in pace as more and more chipper families walked in. A birthday cake cruised through the restaurant and landed in front of a smiling WASP. A fedora clad woman with freakishly white teeth took a picture of herself with a friend. All of these chipper people made me order another pint (Rumination IPA, Stone Brewing Co.).



Yeah, I guess we all look the same. But if everyone is looking happy? Is that so bad?
So take your suburbanite buddies to Slow’s. Get them hooked on the barbecue. Buy them a nice pint of a local beer and have a great time. Barbecue won’t solve all of the worlds problems but a sincere interest in our communities will sure help.

Down and out in the D

Welcome to drinking Detroit. We try to put the "fun" back into high-functioning-alcoholism. I'm a metro Detroit resident who loves visiting bars and trying new drinks, liquors, beers and fried foods.

I'll be staggering into a couple of bars a week and giving a run down of their strengths, weaknesses and ambiance. Bars will be evaluated by, how well the drinks are made, if they are priced appropriately and how well they serve their target audience. What do I mean by "serving their target audience"? Well, it seems unfair to rate a dive bar by their selection of pomegranate martinis and ludicrous to rate a dance club by its craft beer selection.

If you have a watering hole that you would like to see covered here please drop me a line and let me know about!