Cocktail Correspondent: Erik Komarnicki
Wednesday, May 22 – I'm in Milwaukee for work this week. It turns out Milwaukee is a secret cocktail mecca. There are tons of places serving up creative cocktails in a quirky urban setting. It’s just after 6 PM and, today, I’m visiting a local place called Pufferfish: an outdoor tiki bar secreted on the rooftop of a fancy downtown hotel (411 E Mason Street, 6th Floor, Milwaukee) Zaniness and whimsy is on the menu.
It's a weird experience going up to the bar because you go up the elevator of this fancy hotel and then walk down a hallway to a nondescript entrance, which then opens into the willfully tacky tiki bar: Pufferfish.
I walk up to the bartender and say that I like whiskey-based drinks ... like an old-fashioned, but something more novel and fun. The guy responds by saying a bunch of stuff I can't hear over the music, so of course I say: Sure, that sounds great. He mixes the drink in a shaker and then pours it over ice. It’s an orange-colored drink with a lot of ice and a flower in it. Tacky and Tiki – this is the way! Apparently the drink is called Misery Loves Kentucky.
And here's what this cah-rae-zee drink looks like:
This was a no-straw cocktail, so you're sipping out the side of their custom pufferfish glass (which is a great cocktail glass). Overall, the drink looks appealing. There's a lot of ice and the dominant flavours are definitely mango, flavored by the bitters and the salt (a spicy, powered salt). You do taste the bourbon in the drink, but I don't think you'd have to be a whiskey lover to love this cocktail. The Misery Loves Kentucky is a rich, fruity cocktail with a nice amount of booze, salt and bitters to add complexity to the sweetness of the mango juice.
Okay! Now things are heating up – I just discovered (Internet) that there’s a band called "the Fire Escape" – a psychedelic band from San Francisco back in ’67 made up of “unknown studio musicians”. They have an album and the album is almost all garage covers, like Psychotic Reaction and 96 Tears.
Apparently, some believe that one of the guys in the Fire Escape was Sky Saxon, from the Seeds! As you would suspect, I’m now listening to the Fire Escape and shutting out the 90s rock on the patio (is this Limp Bizkit?). Here’s the song list from the The Fire Escape album:
Side one
Psychotic Reaction - 2:50
Talk Talk - 1:50
Love Special Delivery (L.S.D.) - 2:14
The Trip - 1:48
96 Tears - 2:31
Side two
Blood Beat - 2:08
Trip Maker - 2:53
Journey's End - 2:39
Pictures and Designs- 2:28
Fortune Teller - 2:15
In closing, I would indeed recommend Pufferfish with the crucial caveat that one must bring headphones and listen to The Fire Escape (or else take over the DJ duties, accordingly). Later!
Erik Komarnicki is a musician & composer and one of the hosts of In The Past: Garage Rock Podcast, found at https://www.buzzsprout.com/1456510
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