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Mike and Brian McMenamin seem steadfast in their belief that if a thing should be done, it should be done a lot. Their Edgefield distillery built up to 9- and 13-year brandies before becoming one of the first in Portland to both distill and age its whiskeys three years. They have 24 separate breweries. And if one McMenamins hotel was a good idea, why not 10? And so of course when the McBrothers converted their old Nob Hill haunt The Rams Head (2282 NW Hoyt St., 221-0098, mcmenamins.com) into an artisanal cocktail bar, the starting drink menu was a wee 14 pages long. There are liquor jellies, four whiskey flights, and flights for brandy, rum and tequila. Among the mixed drinks, an endless list of classics shares page space with variants made from Edgefield and Cornelius Pass' stock: A Nieux Carre with Hogshead whiskey instead of rye (and their excellent 13-year Alambic brandy in place of cognac) is a slightly caramelly take on the classic Cajun cocktail Vieux Carre, while a Manhattan variant makes the same whiskey trade but compensates with a bit of hot sherry. There's still some tuning to do in the balance of those drinks, but a classic gin fizz was a perfect example of the form. A pomegranate-infused sparkler was a revelation as part of a three-deep bartender's choice cocktail flight—a novel and welcome addition to the mixology repertoire—matched with a serviceable Blood and Sand and a copper-cupped Apple Pie that tasted a lot like apple pie. Patrons haven't all caught on to the change yet—we saw a lot of beer in the booths—but with cocktail prices significantly lower than Pearl and West End competitors', the Rams Head will get into the mix soon enough.
WWeek 2015