ON DECEMBER 14TH, 2016, after experiencing what some cities might consider a “dusting” of snow, I spent three hours in the car trying to get to the airport to pick up a visiting friend. At some point during that drive, a switch flipped in my brain. I wasn’t in my car on Columbia waiting for some Tercel a mile up to stop spinning its tires and get on its way, I was in a warm whiskey bar, cupping my hands around a glass of brown grain spirit.
Like a rogue Westworld robot, I lived in these reveries between spurts of action (feet or inches gained, passing a school bus at 3 mph, etc). As I passed a Car2Go on the curb, its hazards flashing and its driver screaming silently into the night, my dashboard shimmered and stretched into the glittery gold bartop at North Portland’s Pinky’s Bar Nowhere. I sipped a Campbeltown whiskey—say, the Springbank 16, finished in amontillado casks. Or I was at Paydirt in the Zipper Building on NE 28th and Sandy, warmed by a rare bourbon and a Fernet Branca on draft.
But where I really wanted to be was a neighborhood bar with a legitimate whiskey list, a TV or two, and at least some measure of comradely coziness. You can find this anywhere: a friend in the Brooklyn neighborhood introduced me to the Brooklyn Park Pub, which fits the bill to a tee. Like my own neighborhood whiskey bar (Paydirt’s older sibling the Old Gold), the Brooklyn Park Pub has a chalkboard of available whiskeys and a whiskey club. Complete a certain number of tastings to earn access to the special reserve of rare bottles—and an everyday discount on whiskey.