Best of 2011

Believe it or not another year has gone bye, which means it is time once again for the Best of MySideOfTheBar. Without further ado here you have it.

Best Surprise Bar – The Season’s 52 Grill on the KC Plaza is a clear choice for best here This is a great bar, with a great menu and they have live piano music every evening. This will be a new favorite hang out for us.

Best Lounge for Atmosphere – The bar at The Fogo de Chao on the KC Plaza. This is a great bar just to relax in and the Mixologist Vegas is the best. Be sure to ask for the cheese platter while relaxing in the bar or waiting for a table in the restaurant.

Best Manhattan – This years nod goes to The Fogo de Chao on the KC Plaza. While Joel still makes a great Manhattan he no longer is available so the nod goes to Vegas at the Fogo de Chao.

Best Single Malt Scotch – Glen Farclas Single Malt. This truly is a smooth Scotch with hints of vanilla and spices.

Best Blended Scotch – Grants Scotch another very smooth Scotch and one of the cheapest I have found

Best Bourbon – For those of you who follow this blog or my Twitter account, @mysideofthebar you know there is only Bourbon that could be the best and that is again this year Four Roses. I really prefer the Yellow Label which is also the least expensive of the Four Roses Line. I would also give a nod to Markers 46 which is also an excellent choice.

Best Rye Whiskey – This was a tough choice this year, however (ri)1 (pronounced Rye One) won out as to me it is the smoothest.


A couple of others that are worth an mention are Templeton Rye and Bulleit Rye.

Best Martini Vodka – We discovered a new Vodka this year that takes the top honors away from Svedka. It is Shpilka Vodka. Shpilka is a very smooth Russian wheat vodka and makes an excellent Martini.




Best Vodka for mixed drinks – Burnetts Vodka. Very smooth and an excellent, inexpensive choice for all mixed Vodka drinks and recently won the blind Vodka tasting by the Usual Suspects.

Best Cigar – Again this year it was the the Kristoff Ligero Maduro Matador. For me to pick this cigar you know it has to be good as last year it unseated the Kristoff Maduro Matador. Honorable mention goes to the Kristoff Crillo.

Side note: I had the privilege of meeting Kristoff owner Glen Case a while back so look for more on this in an upcoming blog.

Best Place to Purchase Cigars – Again this year it is Fidel’s Cigar Shop in West Port. Great service from Tom and staff and an excellent selection of Cigars and a fantastic smoking lounge.

We here at MySideOfTheBar want to take this time to thank all the followers of both the blog and on Twitter and wish a Happy New Year to you and yours.

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

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

A Spittoon and a Blanket

Yes, what I really meant was a chamber pot; however at one in the morning staging down the long dim hallway with the creaky wooden floors and facing the long stairway down to the bathroom spittoon was all I could think of. The evening started innocent enough as we were traversing the interstate from K.C. MO to NW Iowa for a visit. I did not have a drink until after 5:00 and I was not driving, but as usually I never went anywhere without my trusty ten shot flask. That day it was loaded with Buffalo Trace Bourbon. By the way it had been awhile since I had imbibed in Buffalo Trace and I had forgotten how good it was. We arrived at the farm and continued happy hour. As the night progressed I opened the new bottle of Four Roses (the official Bourbon of MySideOfTheBar) that Central Patti had purchased as part of a case and kept drinking throughout the night. As the night progressed and the bottle emptied we headed up the afore mentioned stairs and to bed. I woke a couple of hours later a...
Read more