After a lengthy (one hour plus!) conversation with the gentlemen at Portland Trading Company, I took my free, unsolicited over to the Hunt + Alpine Club. Mama needed a drawnk after that. So, I headed around the corner for a tipple and to digest everything that just came my way.

The menu was a very fun, folded map. Loved their logo.

I was naturally (always) after popcorn and champagne. My favorite even! Billecart-Salmon and some spicy popcorn, what could be better….. Thankfully, for my stomach and wallet I abstained, as my neighbors just down the bar sent me all sorts of tastes from their Smorgasboard. I thought this crew of merry strangers were old friends enjoying a Friday afternoon as myself. Wrong. They’d all just met. Then, they met me and we agreed to head off on a bar crawl with the enthusiasm that only a bunch of strangers on vacation could have.

However, the courage juice that spurred the cancellation of my dinner reservation at Scales and threw me into the night was the aptly named, ‘Heavy Weather,’ which was a neatly decked out vodka grapefruit concoction.

If you find yourself in Portland, on a really lovely best-day-ever type of day, please do yourself the favor of stopping into this institution. You could end up leaving with new friends, a happy buzz, or maybe even their cocktail book charmingly titled, “Northern Hospitality,” something they had in spades.