Take a sip of a sandwich

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This article was published 16/12/2021 (1107 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Some like their vodka with a twist of lime, others like it tasting of french fries and Kewpie mayo. Of course, the latter is a relatively small group of people who’ve indulged in the wild new menu at distillery Patent 5’s cocktail bar.

From now into the new year, the bar has transformed itself into “the world’s strangest diner.” Menu items include chips and guacamole, pineapple pizza and pastrami on rye. Those wouldn’t be too strange (although, the pineapple pizza may spark its usual debate), except for the fact that none are actually food. They are cocktails, flush with house-made tequilas, vodkas, bourbons and gins.

The “chicken and waffles,” for example, is a Patent 5 barrel-aged gin, fat washed with duck fat, infused with waffles, and mixed with maple syrup, butter and Frank’s RedHot.

“A lot of our menus, they’re pretty adventurous,” said Callan Anderson, bartender and occasional maker of understatements.

There are some items for the less brazen, too. The key lime pie and bananas foster, while still elaborate creations involving whey caramel or coconut cream, still fall in the more familiar and sugary realm of classic cocktails.

Anderson said she was worried the “out-there” items wouldn’t sell, but in the menu’s first week, customers have been gung-ho to try it all.

“The novelty factor is definitely working as we had hoped it would,” Anderson said. “The drinks we were nervous people would shy away from are the ones they were most intrigued by.”

With the pandemic having recently shut down most of the hospitality industry for months at a time, this menu is a sort of celebration of getting out of the house and trying something new, Anderson said.

“Coming up on two years of COVID, which has been pretty heavy, it feels like there’s sometimes not enough fun to be had. We just wanted something that could capture the beautiful escapism that we get in a bar. Not necessarily to leave your troubles at the door, but come in, forget what’s going on in your everyday and sit down with someone that you love or that you care about … it’s a warm, fuzzy feeling that isn’t necessarily from having a couple too many.”

The whole Patent 5 team worked together on the menu, and Anderson said the group’s collective drive has paid off with the creation of its memorable menu.

“We’re really fortunate to work with a group of people who are very passionate about what we do. And that passion is infectious,” Anderson said. “I would say that we have a pretty creative and free-flowing approach to what we do.”

The distillery and cocktail bar is in an old, brick building at 108 Alexander Ave. It opens to the cocktail bar, filled with polished oak tables, chairs and countertop. The smell of the distillery lingers in the air, a sweet and pungent fermentation that consumes you as wholly as one consumes a cocktail. Liquor bottles line shelves behind the bar.

The bar is open each week Tuesday to Saturday, from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m.