Introductions

Maybe the mainstream is for you. Personally, I prefer to go off the beaten path for my beverages. As an intermittent day drinker, I loathe the idea of sitting in a “regular” bar during the afternoon. By “regular bar” I mean some place that could be anywhere in the world, has little or no charm, offers a giant array of flat screen TV’s, and aside from a small army of exhausted, high-volume servers gearing up for another night of rowdy body shots and cheesy dance parties the place is empty. I’d rather drink in the gutter, if that was my only choice.

Fortunately, there are alternatives. Finding them is not always the easiest thing to do. I’ve asked people “where’s a good place to get a drink around three in the afternoon?” only to be looked at like a pathetic cur. I’ve looked online and in print and found a few, but only after weeding through hundreds of “Top Places” that are, indeed, great, if you show up at 11pm on a Saturday night. At 2:30pm on a Tuesday, these places generally and quite literally stink.

This column (oh, must I call it a blog? Ok, fine). This blog… is a series of reviews of good places to get an afternoon buzz. While most of my research is done during the afternoon and early evening, I make it a point to see a place at least once during “normal” prime drinking hours (10pm to 2am). I don’t submit my reviews until I have been to a place at least 5 times. I try to keep an objective eye, regardless of how much I want to sleep with the bartender.

I begin this weekly column in the Phoenix/Scottsdale area (a city desperately in need of non-homogenized, non-pasteurized reviews), but I can not predict where my travels will take me. It’s plausible that before the winter is over, I could be reviewing watering holes in any of the numerous cities, countries and continents on my list of places to go. One thing is for sure, my love of dive bars is more than just a hobby and perhaps, someday, someone will try to pay me to saddle up to a bar and down a few pints.