So what’s The Boozecan all about? It’s about bringing you the low-down on the best (and worst) places to booze it up, plus other related nonsense from around Vancouver, the Lower Mainland, around the web and wherever else we see fit.
Why? First and foremost, we just got tired of frequenting the same old watering holes. We decided what the people needed (especially us) was a resource of places to drown your sorrows, and places to avoid – everything from holes-in-the-wall to high-end cocktail joints. Which brings us to our second reason.
We were sick of crap bars serving crap drinks at crap prices. We figured you deserve someone who’s going to tell it like it is when it comes to dropping your dough on drinking. And by God, we will.
The Neon Bonfire
This goes out to all of our fellow drinksters, pub players, barflies, club casualties and even the douchebag barstars. A brilliant short film by Thom Stitt called The Neon Bonfire. As the tagline says:
1. Collect painful burdens into container.
2. Assemble at the downtown fire.
3. Burn contents.*
* Contents may not burn. At all.
So Cascade Room, we meet again.
The Cascade Room - 2616 Main St. - www.thecascade.ca
This here review needs a little backstory to set the stage: Rewind to a couple of years ago when The Boozecan’s debut issue as a humble-but-pain-in-ass-to-put-together e-newsletter was sent to an astounding thirty recipients, and The Cascade Room got the “honour” of being one of the first places we ever reviewed. So how’d it go? Well, let’s put it this way–summoning all the power of our sophistimicated wordsmanship, one bar received a glowing review illuminatingly titled “Bar of the month”. The Cascade’s review, on the other hand was brief, brutal, and bore the headline “Not bar of the month.” Yeah, in short, we trashed it.
Not to dwell on it, but it wasn’t a good experience obviously. We’d heard so much buzz about the place, and ended up being colossally disappointed (mainly by the drinks, to be honest). But before you hardcore Cascadians start baying for our alcohol-saturated blood, like many did after our first review, keep in mind that we did give them the benefit of having an “off” night and actually went back a couple of times, only to be let down twice more. So we wrote it off.
Fast forward back to the here and now, and legions of Main Street hipsters and thirsty Vancouverites have proved us wrong–obviously–‘cause the joint’s going gangbusters. So we thought it was about high time we put first, second, and third impressions aside and make a return visit. We’ve got to admit, we were a little bit nervous. It was kinda like repeating a blind date that didn’t pan out the first time.
Well, we’re happy to say it was a way hot date, yo. The place was packed, the tunes were pumpin’ and the drinks were…well, way tasty. And going by the wait to get in, the Cascade’s reputation for said bevvies precedes itself. You can sit at the moderately sized bar if there’s room, but there’s plenty of tables in all manner of configurations in a big cosy room decorated with a mash up of 1940’s style wallpapers. But let’s face it, we weren’t there to eat. And judging by the tables full of the hipster-elite crowd knocking back the sweet stuff, neither were they.
To their obvious credit, the ambitious folks at The Cascade offer up a metric shit-ton of cocktails–too many to list here–but most range from a bit over $8 to just under a tenner (and all containing a generous 2-3 oz of booze and made right with fresh, house-made ingredients). We recommend getting a drink before you start reading, lest you die of thirst before you make it through it. But so you’re not totally overwhelmed by choice, their extensive cocktail menu is nicely categorized:
Specifically, we were digging the Ward 8 (Tennessee sour mash whiskey, lemon & orange juice and a dash of housemade pomegranate grenadine) and their signature Cascade Room Cocktail (bourbon shaken with apple & lime juices, vanilla bean, bitters and egg white). Actually, we were digging several of them.
They’ve got an admirable selection of seven local brews (Red Racer, Russell Cream, Driftwood Ale to name a few) and three imports on tap all in proper 20oz UK pints ranging from just over a fiver up to seven bones, AND they offer half pints at–wait for it–just about half the price (huge shout outs for doing the right thing)! Plus, there’s a good 20 or so beers from around the world available in bottles or cans.
Our only real complaint was slow service. Hence the quote of the night: “Where’s that chick? I need more booze!” (classy, huh?). But hey, it was busy. So kudos to the Cascade. You won us over. At last.
BarBird iPhone App
You know, we here at The Boozecan have sat around many an evening discussing and contemplating our next move to boozy dominance like supervillains holed up in a secret lair … obviously we’ve done this over a few drinks. We’ve hatched many a scheme that were both brilliant and revolutionary … only to be forgotten the next day with the onslaught of gargantuan hangovers. Even those scribbled on bar napkins were rendered indecipherable by overspill and illegible drunken hand writing.
However, an iPhone app was not one to ever be forgotten. Many times had we thought of a magical app that would tell us where to go, what to drink, where the cheap drinks were and maybe where the vibe was right. But alas, we did not possess the superhuman powers to conjure such an app. Blog - sure! Twitter stream - we have the technology! Facebook account - kids play. However, the elusive bitch that is an iPhone app escaped both our intellectual know-how (not surprising) and our meagre pocket books.
Then, like the dawn of new morning light came the app … BarBird!
“Happy hours? Drink Specials? Ladies Nights? Live Music? No Cover? If any of these phrases put a smile on your face, BarBird is the app for you.
BarBird provides a real-time picture of what is happening in the bar, restaurant & concert scene in your area so you can discover deals near you, save money and always know the next best place to go.”
Now, we here at The Boozecan have tried to provide a service such as this, but BarBird does automatically via an iPhone app what we’ve haphazardly tried to take on manually by monitoring various social networks. That is, the following of local bar type establishments and the retweeting of said establishments’ specials, deals and events.
BarBird pulls in relevant tweets from local establishments to find live music venues, bar specials and happy hour deals (although, unfortunately we don’t have drink specials for happy hour - stupid archaic Vancouver laws. BarBird at least included Vancouver as a location otherwise we wouldn’t be writing this).
BarBird has loads of US cities and you can also use the app if you’re in Vancouver (as we mentioned), Toronto, London, Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane!
How does BarBird work you ask?
We suggest you download the app and try it out as the app is FREE (as in beer) but if you need a few details, here they are extrapolated from BarBird’s blog post.
For full details and screen shots check out BarBirds blog post:
http://barbirdinc.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/barbird-iphone-app/
Does this mean The Boozecan is obsolete? HELL NO! We’ll continue to bring you our brand of acerbic wit, sarcasm and caustic attitude to our local (and occasionally not-so-local) watering holes both on www.theboozecan.com and www.granvillemag.com. There’s always room for more. After all … great minds drink alike.
Bravo to the boys of BarBird … finally an app worth downloading!
Merry Boozemas to one and all!
And may your 2011 be 40% by volume, 100% of the time. Uh…whatever that means.
All the best to all our followers from The Boozecan!
The Fringe Café - the little bar that could.
3124 W. Broadway - www.fringecafe.ca
You know, it’s absolutely amazing that The Fringe is still around. And that’s not a slam, by the way. That’s the ultimate compliment in a city where, more often than not, as soon as a bar/pub/restaurant/whatever opens, the countdown to closing begins. Eating and drinking establishments in Vancouver are like tubs of yoghurt, they seem to come with an expiry date. In fact, we used to joke that there must be a secret city bylaw requiring places to implode after two years. And if that didn’t do it, what establishment could possibly withstand the awesome business-withering power of fickle Vancouverites who can turn the hottest room into last week’s cold porridge at the drop of a martini glass?
The Fringe could, that’s who. Twenty years in business and this humble institution is still going strong. And it really hasn’t changed much. Why would they? People come here to drink ‘cause it’s “real”—no pretense, no ‘tudes and (at least the night we were there) no douchebags! It’s small (like 48 seats small), dark and cramped—just the way we like it. Honestly it’s the kind of place that would seem more at home on Commercial Drive, or tucked away on a San Fran side street. And yeah, there’s a bit of a boho vibe to it, but that’s what makes it different.
But enough of our rambling—onto the drinks, or specifically, beers. Here’s the mostest bestest thing about drinking at The Fringe - $3.99 pint specials EVERY DAY! Hellz, YEAH! And it’s not big brewery swill either. It usually rotates through a choice of local beers on tap. Take your pick of:
Or, you can order from their impressive selection of canned and bottled brews. The giant fridge is stocked like a beeraholic’s wet dream—everything from Smithwicks, Cooper’s, Newcastle Brown, Anchor, Red Stripe, Tsing Tao and on and on and on. There’s even Smirnoff Ice on hand just in case the ‘bag crowd does show up. Isn’t that thoughtful?
The Fringe is proof that character trumps corporate every time. So come early, grab a seat or sidle up to the bar, and along with your drink, soak up some atmosphere you rarely get in this town.
‘Twas the weekend before Christmas…
So make sure you’re around to see it.
Not to be total downers at this time of year, but it’s the weekend preceding Christmas, which means there’ll be a shit load of parties and soirees going on. And that means a shit load of drinking going on. Now, we here at The Boozecan love to have a good time and obviously love to imbibe and we kid around about drinking. But one thing we absolutely cannot tolerate is DRINKING AND DRIVING. Just don’t fucking do it! Don’t even think about it! In this day and age there is no fucking excuse for that type of shit. If you’re drinking and driving, YOU are in a rolling fucking death machine of glass, plastic, rubber and steel. This is probably one of the best anti drunk driving campaigns we’ve ever seen. Actually it’s a montage of all the Australian Transport Accident Commission’s road safety commercials from the last 20 years. Be warned - it features some very graphic scenes and images but we don’t think we’ve ever seen something that really gets the fucking point across as effectively as this does. And yes, that last f-bomb was absolutely necessary. So drink responsibly, or don’t drink at all.
