Jamaican Pub Crawl

Recently we took MySideOfTheBar on the road to the beautiful island country of Jamaica. Central Patti and I set aside one day to do a Jamaican Pub Crawl to some of the local (and semi-local) pubs. I thought you may enjoy a recap of the day.

The first stop on the crawl was a beach bar that was semi-local. What I mean by that is that it was on the beach and kind of in a tourist area, however outside of our small group, it looked to be only locals in attendance.

Bourbon Beach


I made two observances here at Bourbon Beach; 1 was they did not have bourbon ;) and the other was while you immediately smelled marijuana when entering you saw this sign at the beach bar.

  
This was the only stop on the crawl that you received Jamaican currency back in change, however if you planned correctly you could simply give your change back for a tip. I enjoyed a couple of Gin and Tonics and Central Patti sipped on a Vodka Tonic.

Bourbon Beach was a great place and despite no Bourbon it was on the beach ;)


The next stop I will let you see the name for yourself, because you would not believe me if I told you.



You read right, the Palm Court Sports Bar and Jerk Centre. You could have drive up Jerk (insert jokes here) The prices here were unbelievably cheap. Central Patti is pictured with one of you new friends and her husband bought a round of Red Stripe beer, 12 for 28$ U.S. The pool table is all I remember that had to do with sports, but the bar tender was very friendly and courteous. 



Next it was on to Xtabi on the Cliff. While this was not solely a local bar, it was off the beaten path and visited by a lot of the locals with a little more $$. 


They had some interesting art work in the garden area and


walk down and dive right into the ocean. And you could enjoy a cigar with a view.



The next stop is perhaps one of the most unique bars/restaurants I have ever been in. Just Natural Seafood and Bar is in the middle of a jungle 



and if you click the link above you can see a great video tour. We walked through the entire "establishment". Don't miss the fact that they grow a lot of the ingredients used to prepare your meals right off the path you walk on between tables.



Our last stop was my favorite, The Red Dragon. 


Two of us had them serve us an order of the Jerk Pork for lunch and the cost was only 10$ for an order that could feed many more people than we had with us. I handed the bartender a 20 and she gives me back a 10. Again, the concept of tipping in Jamaica seems to be very foreign. I had a couple of ones so I took care of her.

While I was ordering food Central Patti went to get us both a Vodka Tonic, she came back laughing as the two drinks came to three dollars american. We truly were in a local bar. The was a place next door for rent and I was tempted into moving as even on my small pension I could live here with no issues!



All in all it was one of the most unique and best pub crawls I have ever been on. One great day in paradise.

Cheers
The Professor

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Riding the Rails, Clickety Clack

Image
A few weeks back we took the Amtrak from K.C. to Naperville Ill. and as usual we had a great time. If you have never taken the opportunity to travel by train you do not know what you are missing. I recommend for your first trip nothing over four hours just in case you may not enjoy train travel. Also this will keep the price at a minimum and I recommend choosing your travel dates that are not during the peek seasons. (From around June 15th to August 15th.) to avoid high ticket prices You will be pleasantly surprised by the size of the train cars and the size of the seats. The cars are two levels with the lower level where you put your luggage when boarding, handicap seating and the rest room/changing rooms. We generally sit in the club car (now called the observation car) where they have many booths and seats and then entire care is plexieglass so you can see the beautiful sites as you travel. You can even carry on your own food and drinks and yes this means you can carry on your own
Read more

Cigar Infusion

Image
For those of you who follow MySideOfTheBar, you undoubtedly remember some posts on infusing Alcohol (See Jan 10 – Infused Vodka Part I and August 23 – Infused Vodka Part 2 ). So it seemed logical for us to attempt infusing cigars. Now infused cigars are no strangers here as Central Patti enjoys them often. One of her favorites is CAO’s Moontrance as well as a Hazel Nut/Coffee cigar. I started by fresh roasting some coffee beans from Ethiopia. The reason I choose those particular beans is that when roasted properly they are very, very oily and I believe they would be just right for infusing cigars. I took an empty cigar box and placed two cigars ( Graycliff Avelino Lara ) the fresh roasted and ground coffee beans and a small bowl of water. The cigars were a light tobacco which I hoped would absorb more flavor than a darker cigar might. The water was to not only assist with humidity, but to also aide in the infusing process. I left the cigars in the box for about 3 weeks checking ev
Read more

The Key West Cocktail Challenge

Image
Recently we were on the road with MySideOfTheBar in Key West with a couple of "Unusual Suspect" friends of ours. As you might expect we were in a bar when A.S. found a brochure for the Key West Cocktail Challenge. Also as you might expect we took up the challenge. The premise was easy, visit 6 participating bars, enjoy their signature cocktail and you get a T-Shirt. You can visit them in any order and take as long as you need to. (you could even do it in 6 days, but...) I am not going to try to describe each bar as you can follow the links to see and learn more. The first stop was The Green Parrot Bar . The Green Parrot is an open air old school bar that I absolutely loved. Their signature drink was Root Beer Barrel and at least two of us liked it ;) Stop two took us to Charlie Mac's and beside the great Signature Drink, it is also a BBQ joint. We only had the chicken wings, however they were awesome. The drink here was the Huckleberry Lemonade and I have to
Read more