Walking into Elway’s, I couldn’t help but recall one of my favorite expressions: “There’s only one ŒI’ in Œteam,’ but there are two in Œmartini.'” So I went right to the bar and ordered a Pomegranate Cosmo Martini ($8) made with Absolut Citron, POM Wonderful pomegranate juice and triple sec…

“You’ve got to try Fernet-Branca; it’s my new favorite drink,” said Ryan O’Brien, the knowledgeable, solicitous and darling bartender at Barolo Grill. “I’ve heard Sean Penn orders it by the case.” When my medical doctor prescribes drugs, I take them. So when my drink doctor gave his prescription, I drank…

Joey Buttafuoco. I can’t get my car serviced without thinking about Joey Buttafuoco, so you can imagine that going to a bar with “Garage” in its name was not high on my to-do list. Happily, a less mechanically inclined drinking companion convinced me to try the new Bannock Street Garage,…

I don’t know which brilliant person figured out that if you add a full bar to the upper deck at a sports facility and call it “the club level,” you can charge people more money for seats on that level than they would pay to sit right next to the…

Yeah, baby, yeah! Maybe it’s because I grew up in a house where there was always some groovy Burt Bacharach hit on the record player, but I love anything from the ’60s. So when I walked into Harry’s Bar at the Magnolia Hotel, I fell instantly in love. This place…

My first cocktail-waitress job was at the Bull & Bush, and even back in the day, I knew the Bull was a special place. A Cheers-like place, full of womanizers like Sam Malone, lovable losers like Norm, annoying know-it-alls like Cliff, and at least one wiseass young cocktail waitress like…

I have a terrible weakness for young, handsome, cocky bartenders. Young and handsome alone don’t do it, but add a little arrogance and I’m a goner. So when our young, handsome bartender said “Tsingtao is a Chinese beer, you moron, and we only have Japanese beers,” I knew I was…

When my dining companion asked the waitress, “Is your salmon wild or is it farm-raised, and if it is wild, has it been injected with red dye?” I thought, holy Grateful Dead, if that isn’t affirmation I’m in Boulder, I don’t know what is. So I gave my Boulder-raised friend…

During college, we’d go to a notorious party town to blow off steam after a long stretch of school in a notoriously boring town. We’d all shack up at some condo where, after the three beds and two couches were taken, the safest spots to sleep were under the kitchen…

Sparrows are considered rather common, but common is not the word you would use to describe the new restaurant that bears the bird’s name. An enthusiastic foursome is trying to make Sparrow fly in the space that over the past two decades has housed Transalpin, JV’s the Cork, Sacre Bleu…

Serial bartender: It’s a scary concept. Okay, not nearly as frightening as Ted Bundy or some other serial types, but Oran Feild is almost as well known in this state. He could even go by one name, like Cher or Madonna. So when I entered Monarck, the latest alcohol-dispensing venue…

“You’ve never had Hpnotiq? Hpno’s the shit, dog!” said Dave Herrera, a man recognized more for his music knowledge than for his cocktail choices. “Drink Hpno and you’re gonna be bangin’ with Dre by the end of the night.” Hpnotiq, also known as “blue juice,” has been a favorite of…

There are two types of people — those who love the Palm, and those who don’t understand why other people love the Palm. I was a member of the latter group when I lived in Manhattan, and craggy, ancient salesmen would take me to the original Palm on Second Avenue…

Certain tastes and smells take you back to a specific time in your life, sometimes even when you don’t want to go there. I dropped by Tryst — a lounge whose masterful design created sophisticated space out of thin air in Writer Square — on a trip to check out…

I don’t know if it was the cocktail waitress’s cheerleader voice or the fact that she called me “ma’am” three times prior to actually delivering my drink, but I detested her from the start. At what point do you become a “ma’am” or a “sir”? Yes, I was significantly older…

After a game of golf out by DIA, friends suggested a drink at the nearest bar: Outback Steakhouse. Hey, any port in a storm. But the second I stepped inside, my disdain for mid-level chain restaurants came flooding back like a repressed memory. Can someone please explain to me how…

A large Buddha behind the bar in the Tom Tom Room, formerly the site of Tommy Tsunami’s, was supposed to be enveloped in smoke, but after a few sputters and grunts, it was clear that the Buddha had performance anxiety. Happily, this was the only performance problem I experienced at…

In Mexico, I do what every travel guide tells you not to do — I eat food bought on the street. Have I gotten sick? Yes, very. Was it worth it? Absolutely. At the restaurants that cater to the vacationing hordes, you can’t find any of this street fare –…

I hated all card games as a kid, but the true bane of my existence was the mind-numbing Go Fish. Even before I started losing brain cells from a combination of booze, age and bad genes, memory was never one of my strengths. And now the Go Fish Grille –…

After too many jobs that required way too much travel, I try to avoid hotel bars. They depress me. They’re usually filled with smoke and professional salesmen who spend 90 percent of their lives on the road and typically believe that their marriage vows are legitimate only within a hundred…