Bourbon and Bunnies

 Cocktail Correspondent: Weldon Gardner Hunter

On Saturday, June 8, I was heading down Main Street towards The Rickshaw Theatre to see legendary Vancouver new wave band Images in Vogue. Lots of very stylish 60-somethings, former habitués of a not-forgotten dance club called Luv-a-Fair would be in attendance. The show felt elegaic somehow: I remember falling in love with the song "Save It" after seeing the band on Video Hits in the summer of 85. Oblique haircuts, swooning synths, digital drums - sigh. 

But before all that, I fortified myself with some cocktails from my favourite place in town, Friendlie's Bar (208 East 12th Avenue, Vancouver). Friendlie's is a small room tucked away in a condo complex just off Main. It has room for about 30 people and it's an intimate and slightly-divey (in the best way) ambience, with fairy lights and distressed upholstery:

I dream of living above the room, it's close to the college and it's the cutest cocktail bar in the city. Here's proof:

The Bunny Hutch

It could be the portal to a whimsical children's wonderland, with rolling green hills and bunnies who live forever, but I think it's just a storage space. 

One of the many great things about Friendlie's is that Lily, the owner and head bartender, creates beautiful laminated menus with a rotating list of drinks. In addition to the regular menu, there's a monthly "sheet" with experimental cocktails, and this month, it's "The Bourbon Sheet," in honour of the then-upcoming National Bourbon Day on June 14. I assume some nations (Albania?) didn't observe.

The Bourbon Sheet, June 2024

I started off with a Wooden Train, which is obviously a variation on the Paper Plane, with Averna subbing for Nonino. See my "Wrestling The Goat" post (June 3) for another variation, which I and Christine at Brewhall invented. When's Stambecco month?

Wooden Train: Old Forester, Aperol, Averna, Lemon

This is a Paper Plane that's been through some stuff. The Averna gives it a dark Dr. Pepper colour, and cola-like notes. I really liked it. While I was sipping it, "La Shmoove" by Fu-Schnickens came on and isn't that a bop? I should mention that Lily seems to only "spin" 90s hiphop, and it's a feature of the place. It works.

Next up was a Tropical Trilby:

Tropical Trilby: Old Forester, Tamarind, Lychee, Grapefruit, Lime, Peach Bitters

There's a drink at Friendlie's called a Fruit Bazooka which I often order, but this is like a Fruit Howitzer. My scribbled notes (no laptop this time) tell me that I found the lime and lychee to be the leaders of the pack. Notes of watermelon. I've only ever had Tamarind in a cocktail once before, once again at Friendlie's, on a quiet Wednesday night after work when I was the only patron for awhile, and Lily indulged me by concocting a drink from the baby Stambecco bottle (50ml) she had stashed somewhere: Pisco, Stambecco, Tamarind, Lemon, Pomegranate. If she's not busy (and she usually is), she's happy to make you a bespoke cocktail. Her passion for mixology is signalled by the same happy fingers Homer does when he's about to eat something: 

Anyways, the Pisco/Stambecco drink is yet unnamed, but I'd call it "Hot Singles in Your Area." 

The Tropical Trilby is undoubtedly a cute cocktail, because it has an orange hat:

Millinery and Mixology! The Bourbon is a stolid ingredient in the Trilby, amongst all the fruity zing and Fascinator fashion. 

Sadly, there were no cocktails at The Rickshaw, but I did enjoy having a Phillip's Implosion Pilsner in the balcony seats while the bygone Bowies preened and pranced down on the dancefloor. I took no pictures, check next month's Vogue.