Calcium With My Alcohol: 800M MILK BAR

The Cocktails: Clockwork, Andes
The Place: 800M MILK BAR
The Location: 803 N 3rd St, Phoenix, AZ 85004

It’s Date Night 2015, as I like to call it to mess with my girlfriend. Strolling through the streets of Downtown Phoenix, and we are quite thirsty for something new…and, also, in the traditional sense of being parched. Go home summer. No one even wants you here.

Our plan is to head over to the Milk Bar on the corner of 3rd and McKinley, check out the place that has been darkened for the summer, waiting for cooler times. As I later find out, Milk Bar or Bar Mleczny is a term used for the local diners/bars in Europe, more specifically, in Poland. Then someone got the idea to slap some modernity to it and bring one to Phoenix.

While we’re on the topic, here’s an easy way to get into a scrum with a Pole. Tell them vodka was first created in Russia. They love that.

We arrive to the joint, a stark white, adobe-styled building, glowing in multicolored and bright white lights. It looks like a desert home from an alien planet, like maybe something from the Star Wars planet Tattooine. (I tried to explain this to someone earlier in the day, but they responded by calling me a nerd and taking my lunch money.)

Two silver stools right up at the bar beckon us to sit on them, comfortable cradling us at the marble counter. A next-level hip vibe flows through the interior design and customer base. Our suspender bartender hands us the menu, which we immediately open to the drink page, because, well, I don’t know…judge away.

Now, for those who are hip enough to catch the vague reference to “A Clockwork Orange” (i.e. Milk Bar, suspenders), you’ll be happy to know that the first drink I requested was called “Clockwork”, which included orange liquor. I’m not sure who’s in the back of this place cranking out these ideas, but you continue to do you.

The full drink was Zlota Gorska orange & clove vodka, irish cream, cointreau, whipped cream, and a curly orange rind. It tasted as spectacular as the movie is disturbing. I knew I wanted a creamy-based cocktail, and this satisfied all expectations I had for the place, which were pretty high.

Next drink up, Kailua, creme de menthe, chocolate and the almighty milk. They called it the Andes. Guess what that tasted like… (For those who really don’t know, it was minty and chocolate flavor.) Just as delicious for their chocolatey version of a traditional Grasshopper.

For the sake of arriving home at a reasonable time, we settle the bill with our bartender who’s name I totally still remember. They’ll be seeing me again very soon, in large part because that Clockwork drink continues to haunt me at all hours. Like clockwork. The name operates on too many levels.

Later droogs.