Craft cocktails are finally a thing in Dallas. The rest of the country has been drinking better than us for years, but we're catching up. At least parts of the city are, anyway. You can't throw a rock without hitting a craft cocktail bar on Henderson Ave, Lower Greenville or even in Uptown. Where you won't find a single bottle of fancy imported rhum or frothed egg whites in a glass, though, is Addison.
I begrudgingly moved to Addison in a crunch to find an apartment last December. I'd lived in East Dallas for five years, but I didn't realize just how much I would miss everything that the neighborhood, and those within a five minute Uber ride, had to offer. I could go to Proof + Pantry anytime, and hit up Parliament's spontaneous, rainy-day happy hour whenever a craving for one of their perfect Ramos gin fizzes crept up.
Now that I'm up north, too far to drive back to my old haunts for serious drinking, I'm finding booze everywhere, but not a drop of fancy drank. At every restaurant I've visited, I've checked for a bottle of Pernod or some kind of weird infusion behind the bar, and have been disappointed every time. I've been here just over a month, but after exhaustive research, it is damn near impossible to find a craft cocktail bar in Addison.
I started my search with Yelp!, primarily because I'm too lazy to beat the pavement looking for a bar and phone books don't exist anymore. Hilariously, the first (sponsored) suggestion generated by a "craft cocktails" search was Twin Peaks. The second, Vernon's Gastropub, sounded extremely promising. Long story short -- it wasn't.
Go ahead, make your jokes. Everyone knows that Addison is full of chain restaurants, giant malls and people who stereotypically don't care about things like fancy dranks. But that isn't really true. Addison is home to excellent restaurants like Ramen Hakata and a spanking-new Neighborhood Services, so why wouldn't there be equally interesting drink options? Besides, judging by the number of Lexus SUVs I see on a daily basis, there are plenty of people in Addison who would be willing to pony up $11 for a good cocktail.
There are plenty of cocktails, don't get me wrong, but they are generally of the fruity variety, way too sweet, and made with middling spirits and mixers. At Yard House in Village on the Parkway, there is Hendrick's Gin, which may very well be the only thing keeping me sane at this point. There is even a gimlet made with Lillet Blanc and St. Germain, but that is it, and the dinosaurs probably drank gimlets before that big asteroid smashed their faces into fossils.
I am not suggesting that there isn't a decent bar in Addison. There are plenty of places to go slam Jagermeister with your brahs and take tequila shots until you puke up your eyeballs, but those aren't the types of joints that approach cocktails with any level of refinement. Call me snobby, but a well-balanced drink that isn't watered down or made with crappy mixes isn't too much to ask for.
What's most disappointing is that there is really, really great beer in Addison. If I want some kind of weird-ass sour beer or a good milk stout, I can walk to The Flying Saucer or Yard House, both of which have more beers on tap than I have dollars in my savings account. Mercy Wine Bar has wine covered, but I'm still waiting for a place that offers at least a few well-made, inspired cocktails.
If I'm wrong, please tell me exactly where to go drink in the comments so that I never have to endure a "lychee-tini" or "white chocolate snowball" again. I would happily eat my hat for a good cocktail right now.
