Where to Get Great, Cheap Cocktails During Happy Hour

Bartini

2108 NW Glisan St., 503-224-7919, bartinipdx.com. 3:30-6:30 pm, 10 pm-close daily; all day Monday.

[CHEESE PLZ] There are a few places you'll go that will cause certain people to call you "basic." Buffalo Wild Wings, all of Southwest Portland—and Bartini. It's like Portland's own little Sex and the City bus tour shrunk down into a tiny room bordering a fondue restaurant. But with shiny black walls, giant paintings of goldfish in martini glasses, princessy glass chandeliers, a dozen-page book of 100-plus drinks, and an '80s Jazzercise-esque logo, what's not to love? It'll take a while to eat your way through the 30-item food menu (each with its own happy-hour price), so here's a tip: The Gorgonzola-brie fondue is the best, and it's easily shareable. Skip the $6 cheeseburger, but definitely get the $3 mashed potatoes in a martini glass, served with a wedge of brie. Drinks are half-price during happy hour, which is most of the hours Bartini is open. Expect sweetness and possibly a flower or sprig of mint; but at $4 apiece, these drinks seem to say what your best friend would. Treat yourself, girl—you deserve it! SOPHIA JUNE.

Best deal: $4 cocktails. If you're not into sweet, go for the lemon-basil. The $8 fondue pot comes with a plate of sourdough bread cubes.

Branch

2926 NE Alberta St., 503-206-6266, branchportland.com. 5-6 pm daily.

[CHEAP-WHISKEY MIRROR WORLD] Tiny Branch is often forgotten, a whiskey hidey-hole for the upper-incomed on Alberta, with 3-ounce scotch and bourbon taster flights cresting $25, and rotating food that might include a bechamel mac and cheese for the somewhat audacious price of $16, or duckfat-drenched fries served for $7. But come at happy hour, and suddenly all your economic sins are forgiven: Welcome to the land of $7 Old Fashioneds and $7 Manhattans. What a difference an hour makes. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Best deal: Watching anyone make a correct Old Fashioned for $7 is a pleasure.

Clyde Common

1014 SW Stark St., 503-228-3333, clydecommon.com. 3-6 pm daily.

[THE LESS COMMON CLYDE] Clyde Common's now-legendary happy hour is best known for the burger, and for the cocktails of celebrity bartender Jeffrey Morgenthaler. But chef Carlo Lamagna's Filipino-inflected menu offers a few new and interesting treats since last year: Freshly fried chicharrones ($4) may be revelatory to folks used to munching on grease-bomb pork rinds from a bag, especially when they're as light and airy as these. Very subtly seasoned, the lemon and sour cream accompaniments add a nice piquant note to the overall unctuousness. Deep-fried lumpia ($5) are the mainstays of Filipino potlucks worldwide, and while Clyde's version is a touch larger than the tight cigarillo Shanghai variety that the dish harks back to, it meets all the garlicky, porky notes that the style requires. But still: Get those $6 cocktails. Damn. BRIAN PANGANIBAN.

Best deal: Consider yourself #blessed paying only $6 for either a Bittersweet Symphony—a gin-aperol-punt e mes Negroni variant—or the tequila-Becherovka-horchata Southbound Suarez that's pretty much a CC staple by now

Double Dragon

1235 SE Division St., 503-230-8340, doubledragonpdx.com. 4-6 pm Monday-Friday.

[MEAL DEALS] Unobtrusively cool nighttime hang Double Dragon, one of the few decent bars on Division Street despite being a restaurant, has recently updated its happy-hour menu from burger-and-dog-and-tallboy specials to include one of the more solid happy-hour cocktail menus in town. Its vodka-lemongrass Telephone Line ($6 at happy hour) is made with house pho bitters, while the $6 happy-hour "Really Good Daiquiri" lives heartily up to its name. The masterpiece on the drink menu costs more—but at $8, the frothy tequila-mezcal-genepy Summer Babe (Winter Version) is well worth the upgrade. The banh mis and rice bowls drop a couple bucks to $8 and $6, respectively—but I gotta say, I miss that beautiful happy-hour kimchi hot dog. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Best deal: $6 daiquiri.

Fireside

801 NW 23rd Ave., 503-477-9505, pdxfireside.com. 3-5:30 pm Monday-Friday.

[BOOZE, UP] Fireside offers one of the finest early-afternoon drunks in town. It's shocking there aren't more retired Nob Hill doctors ruining their dinners here every day at 4 pm. The bites, from $6 flatbread to a $7 French dip that's worth precisely $7, offer neither full meals nor especially exciting deals. But dear Lord, that $6 cocktail menu is all booze—and all good booze. In particular, the excellent Preakness—bourbon, vermouth, Benedictine—will get you well down the track, as will the inventive Hoopla mixing brandy, Cocchi vermouth and triple sec, and a gin-vodka Vesper martini, designed by James Bond himself, that will make you think fondly of Eva Green. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Best deal: The $6 Preakness is a winner.

Hale Pele

2733 NE Broadway, 503-662-8454, halepele.com. 4-6 pm daily.

[TIKI, NOT TACKY] Hale Pele is everything you could ever possibly want from a high-end tiki bar—from a delightfully kitschy interior (pufferfish lanterns and periodic thunderstorms) to a remarkably broad assortment of things being set on fire. But where Hale Pele really sets a high bar (or low limbo stick?) is in the quality of its cocktails. But, of course, you pay mixologist prices: $12 to $15. Well, welcome to the only thing geeks love more than tiki—a cheap-as-all-holy-hell happy hour with $5 pork sandwiches and cubanos, a $4 "weebimbap" Korean beef and rice bowl, and an array of $6 tiki-style improvisations like the neon blue curaçao, or more refined takes like a frothy pink vodka gimlet made with demerara syrup and an orgeat-falernum number made with gin and passionfruit called the Saturn.

Best deal: $4 weebimbab, $6 Saturn cocktail.

Hamlet

232 NW 12th Ave., 503-241-4009, hamletpdx.com. 4-7 pm Monday-Saturday.

[CURED HAM, CURED PEOPLE] At Ryan Magarian and Cathy Whims' ham-centric Pearl District bar, prices can skyrocket—except at happy hour. La Quercia prosciutto is the pride of Iowa, a beautifully marbled, cured ham that's just $5 for a thinly sliced ounce during happy hour alongside other La Quercia cuts. A select draft knocks down to $4 and Portuguese wine is $6, but drink liquor. Hamlet's well-made happy-hour cocktails drop to $7 and $8 (from closer to $12). The menu rotates, but standout regulars are the Blood and Sand and Sazerac, two often middlingly prepared cocktails that benefit from Magarian's meticulous, almost fussy liquor sourcing and sizing—seriously, the man mixes Peychaud's and Angostura bitters 3-to-1 for his preferred Sazerac-bitter blend (an eccentricity also preferred by Clyde Common's Jeffrey Morgenthaler)—and he dug deep for the Famous Grouse blended scotch for the Blood and Sand. It matters. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Best deal: $9 gets you smoked ham and mezcal together, as they should be. But for belly-filler, get a $6 tortilla espanola with your $7 Blood and Sand.

Kachka

720 SE Grand Ave., 235-0059, kachkapdx.com. 4-6 pm, 10 pm-midnight daily.

[NA ZDOROVIE] After 10 pm since this June or so, Kachka has become one of the very best bars in a neighborhood of bars. Late and early, it now serves a world of vodka accompaniments that includes a self-consciously named $12 drinking board named after Bonnie's dad Slava and packed with cured meats and cheese and pickles, plus treats on the cheap from $2 fish jerky to $5 mussels. The justly famous Siberian pelmeni dumplings drop, meanwhile, from $13 to $9. All of these things pair quite well with a $5 Moscow mule or a $9 hundred-milliliter serving (about three 1-ounce shots) of house-infused vodka from horseradish to sea buckthorn berry to cacao nib or dill. Life is good, here. And drunk. And good. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Best deal: You will not drink cheaper better than with 100 milliliters of the horseradish vodka for $9.

Luc Lac

835 SW 2nd Ave., 503-222-0047, luclackitchen.com. 4-7pm daily

[VIETNAMESE TAPAS] It isn't uncommon to see a line of eager customers waiting outside of Luc Lac's tiny downtown storefront at 5 minutes to 4 on weekend afternoons. Staffed by impeccably hip 20-somethings and decorated with parasols hanging from the ceiling, this counter-service Vietnamese eatery has one of downtown's most generous non-burger-themed happy hours. The menu is stocked with more than a dozen $2 plates, tasty snacks from pork- and shrimp-stuffed salad rolls to cream cheese wontons and backed up with a small selection of $3 salads. Luc Lac sports a deep tap list, including Pfriem Wit, Germany's Kostritzer Scharzbier and Belgium's Brasserie Dupont Farmhouse, all $4, with house wines for the same price and a rotating cocktail at $6. You can fill up for about $6, but if you're hungry, don't be afraid to order more from the bar. WALKER MACMURDO.

Best deal: The cream cheese wontons, shrimp spring and crispy rolls, and a chicken salad is a four-course dinner for $9, and a $4 Kostritzer Schwarzbier is a rare treat.

Moloko

3967 N Mississippi Ave., 503-288-6272, molokopdx.com. 4-7 pm daily.

[FRESH-SQUEEZED] Amid Portland's—especially North Portland's—unending sea of irony, thrift-store tchotchkes and tallboys, it's almost refreshing to see something modern: swoopy cutaway-back chairs, a white bar, no signage. Creepy Clockwork Orange overtones aside, Moloko's most striking feature is the presence of five large, spotlessly maintained saltwater fish tanks that cast a purplish glow over shelves of hand-labeled infusions and tinctures. Its other most distinguishing feature? A windless enclosed rear patio where you can drink cocktails with fresh-squeezed juice for $4.50 at happy hour, alongside your buddy and his $1.50 Rainier and your other buddy with a $3.50 gin and tonic.

Best deal: $1.50 Rainier pint, $5 tuna melt or salami sandwich.

Pope House Bourbon Lounge

2075 NW Glisan St., 503-222-1056, popehouselounge.com. 4-7 pm daily.

[WHISKEY PATIO] Pope House has a generous happy hour—everyday from 4 to 7 pm, $6 gets you a well-made brown derby (an Old Fashioned variant with grapefruit) or jackalope (a Negroni variant with IPA and grapefruit). But among the $6 pours, the only one that will reward not getting the excellent $10 Old Fashioned is the Four Roses-vermouth-bitters half man (of which the other half is obviously a Manhattan). If you're truly going budget, pick up a $4 pour of Rebel Yell or Evan Williams and drink it with a $7 pair of bulky pork sliders that will serve as a full meal while you enjoy one of Nob Hill's finest patios. MARTIN CIZMAR.

Best deal: $4 Rebel Yell (mixer optional), $7 pork sliders.

Red Star Tavern

503 SW Alder St., 503-222-0005, redstartavern.com. 4-7 pm daily.

[STRONG WEAK SAUCE] Our very favorite happy-hour cocktail in all of Portland has two distinct qualities: It tastes wonderful, and it's meant as a clapback to our newspaper. We're proud to be associated. The Willamette Weak Sauce ($7) martini— gin, dolin blanc and lemon mixed with a serrano-honey-blossom syrup—is one of the few cocktails with chili heat that doesn't end up an acid bath. Its maker, Brandon Lockman, says serrano doesn't bond with syrup the way it does with alcohol, so the heat doesn't overstay its welcome. Get it with a $6 "dirty bird" confit chicken made sweet with peach.

Best deal: Willamette Weak Sauce for $7, and $6 dirty birds. (The WW Sauce is available off-menu outside happy hour, by the way. You just have to ask.)

Rum Club

720 SE Sandy Blvd., 503-265-8807, rumclubpdx.com. 4-6 pm daily.

[A REAL PEACH] The horseshoe-shaped African mahogany bar surrounded by long-legged chairs totally dominates the floor plan at this little nook. All the better to grab a seat and watch the bartenders at work. Though the menu is rum-happy and loosely tropical—it opened as the casual little sister of the long-departed Beaker & Flask—of late it's gotten more mileage out of bourbon and muscat brandy. But at happy hour, the manly men drink the Hemingway daiquiri, a $6 drink for the sweet-tongued and hardhearted made of aged light rum, grapefruit, lime, demerara syrup and maraschino. But the real gem on that happy-hour menu is a Bolivian take on the Andean chilcano. The drink is usually made with the similar pisco liquor of Peru and Chile, but Rum Club mixes in the more floral Bolivian muscat-grape liquor Singani with lime and ginger beer for a singular $6 refreshment. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Best deal: $6 chilcano, $5 daily punch, or a $5 gin and tonic with much better tonic than you're used to.

Sapphire Hotel

5008 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-232-6333, thesapphirehotel.com. 4-6 daily, 10-close Sunday-Thursday.

[HAUTE AND HAPPY] The Sapphire is a lover's haven. The low-lit bar is tucked behind a framing store at the end of Hawthorne and populated by two-seater tables, decorated with red velvet curtains and gold enamel wall murals. Cheap $6 hummus mezza aside, this is not the place for after-work beers with your bros. But if you want to make a classy date cheap (in the best way), the five-spice chicken skewers decorated with sambal and a honey tamari sauce are only $6 and pair perfectly with a $5 red wine. The late-night happy hour runs on school nights only, but maybe it's not a terrible idea to take a third date here early on Friday and finally see them in daylight. ENID SPITZ.

Best deal: $6 chicken skewers and a $2 Pabst or $6 specialty cocktail.

Saucebox

214 SW Broadway, 503-241-3393, saucebox.com. 4:30-6:30 pm Monday-Friday, 4:30-6 pm Saturday.

[BANGIN' BURGER] Happy hour at Saucebox is the place to go to find people in button-down J. Crew shirts who work the type of office jobs where the boss doesn't notice if they step out at 4 pm instead of 6. As at many other restaurants that have to ramp up for busy dinner service, your server or bartender may get momentarily caught up in rolling silverware sets or polishing glassware, but it's never really a problem. A boxcar cocktail served in a vertiginous, sugar-rimmed martini glass functions as a sophisticated stand-in for a lemon drop, and comes in at a reasonable $5. For food, you can order from a limited nigiri selection for $4, or tofu pad thai for $5. But you can't do much better than the Saucebox burger, which is only $6 and comes with Tillamook cheddar, bacon and a slaw made from daikon radish. ZACH MIDDLETON.

Best deal: $6 Saucebox burger.

Southpark

901 SW Salmon St., 503-326-1300, southparkseafood.com. 3-6 pm, 10 pm-midnight.

[BURSTING WITH FISH] Southpark is that restaurant with the fish stuck in the building's corner as if caught midjump by a bear. For years it's been the staid and clubby hang of the Schnitz sponsor and theater crowd, much more sexagenarian than sexy. But lately? The happy hour's a little bit sexy. The restaurant's devotion to cheap oysters continues, but it recently shoved some of its best new sides onto the $5 happy-hour menu. The fennel and pistachio-brittle beet plate is one of the best new salads I've had this year—and it's $5 at happy hour. Also $5 are an excellent Mediterranean-inflected butter lettuce with za'atar and yogurt dressing, a build-your-own charcuterie board, a single-serve pizza, clam chowder containing gnocchi, and just about any drink you're likely to get: wine, drafts, well cocktails or a sweet-minded cherry sangria. Don't bother with the $8 burger, though—if you want filler, get the $10 clams instead. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Best deal: Stick to the $5 menu, and it's all cheap.

Swine Bar

808 SW Taylor St., 503-943-5844, swankandswine.com. 3-6 pm daily, 9:30 pm-close Sunday-Thursday.

[LIPSTICK ON A PIG] Abutting Director Park and just behind Portland's theater district, the Paramount Hotel's Swine Bar sees more incidental foot traffic than most bars in Portland. And it's built an excellent happy hour of Southern-cum-Pacific Northwestern snacks and cocktails in a modern space that looks like Chipotle's Appalachian cousin, well-catered to those looking for a post-matinee or pre-Schnitzer beverage. Swine chops $4 off most cocktails ($6) and a few bucks off most of its small plates, with modest discounts to wine, beer and well drinks across the board. WALKER MACMURDO.

Best deal: The Wilcox (Azuñia blanco tequila, Campari, cucumber syrup, lime, grapefruit, Peychaud's bitters, Sprite) tastes like a grown-up pink lemonade—dry with grapefruit rind and roundly astringent across the tongue—making it an excellent foil to the bacon cheesecake ($6), as rich as it sounds. Throw in some deviled eggs with Mama Lil's and bacon ($3).

Tapalaya

28 NE 28th Ave., 503-232-6652, tapalaya.com. 4-6 pm daily.

[WING THING] Tapalaya is a not a Cajun restaurant per se—it's a New Orleans restaurant, and here that means a hefty dose of Vietnamese from its second-generation Vietnamese Big Easy chef, Anh Lu. Which is a roundabout way of saying get the $6 fish sauce wings at happy hour, because they're great: spicy, crispy, sweet and large. They pair just fine with a $3 martini or a $5 gris-gris margarita, which—as it turns out—is a fine idea. Other Vietnamese-inflected dishes include a decent-enough $5 lemongrass steak skewer and the best $5 banh mi within a square mile of the restaurant. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Best deal: $6 wings, $3 martinis.

Teardrop Lounge

1015 NW Everett St., 503-445-8109, teardroplounge.com. 4-7 pm Monday-Friday.

[FINEST MIXED DRINKS] The rare Portland bar where you'll feel out of place among the olds and feel underdressed in a hoodie, this Pearl spot definitely isn't a hang. And yet, if you're out for a night in the neighborhood and wearing a shirt with buttons, you should plan to drop by, because Teardrop makes some of the very finest cocktails in the city. And at happy hour, some of them are $7. In particular, the Neverland is a raspberry-vodka sparkler that tastes like a very subtle take on British hard candy, while the Graduate is a stiff Manhattan leavened by curacao. Don't be suckered by the $5 kitchen deals—that "grown-up" grilled cheese is a naive notion of adulthood involving crusty bread, and $5 for olives is no deal I recognize. You're here to drink fine things, and so you shall. MARTIN CIZMAR.

Best deal: The Graduate is a fine, fine $7 cocktail.

Trifecta

726 SE 6th Ave., 503-841-6675, trifectapdx.com, 5-6 pm Monday-Thursday, 4-6 pm Friday and Sunday, 4-5 pm Saturday.

[FAT HEAVEN] Every day except dishonest Friday and Sunday—when your time window inexplicably doubles—happy hour is one hour only, the first hour Trifecta is open. But it is enough time to fulfill your entire calorie quota for the day by eating a $10 pimento cheeseburger—oozing and monstrous and double-stacked with both patties and cheeses in a thick bun that simply can't compete with the protein-packed salt and fat of the thing. Combine that with a $6 Old Fashioned, Sazerac or Negroni, and you are either off to a hell of a start on your weekend or in a Monday food coma that will take you straight home. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Best deal: You're here for the burger and the cocktail. Get the burger and the cocktail.

Tryst

19 SW 2nd Ave., 503-477-8637, bartryst.com. 4-7 pm Wednesday-Sunday.

Tryst is a rare comfort spot amid the racket of Old Town's Ankeny alley. A half-year into its tenure, it remains largely undiscovered by the human cocktail of suburbanites that crowd the 'hood. But nearby office workers should discover this place damn quick—because at 5 pm quittin' time, that deliciously buttery $7 hoisin-Sichuan burger is a sleeper choice for best happy-hour meal in the district, with options on $6 katsu or banh mi sandwiches. Wine, wells, cocktails and drafts drop the customary buck—and none are all that pricey to start with, meaning a $5 glass of wine or $7 Old Fashioned is always within grasp. But whatever you get, always order the fries ($3 at happy hour). That ginger ketchup, paired with furikake seasoning on the fries, is probably perfect.

Best deal: That $7 happy-hour burger drops to $5 on Wednesdays.

Vault Martini

226 NW 12th Ave., 503-224-4909, vaultmartinibar.com. 4-7 pm daily; all day Sunday, Monday and for ladies-only Thursday.

[7 DEADLY SINS] Vault is the spot I always imagined I'd frequent as a grown-up: a dimly lit bar with low couches, a marble bar, an exposed-pipe ceiling painted black, groups of high-heeled 30-somethings grabbing bacon-stuffed appetizers after work, and a pink drink in a martini glass in front of me. Thanks to happy hour, when prices are slashed by $3 to $4 for most items, I can achieve this aesthetic. For just $5, you can get bacon-wrapped dates or shrimp sunomono. The drink menu is daunting, but you can't go wrong with the $6 Seven Deadly Sins cocktails. The Envy is a sour without being overly sweet, a mix of citrus vodka, melon liqueur, pineapple juice and fresh lime with pineapple garnish. SOPHIA JUNE.

Best deal: The Seven Deadly Sins cocktails are $6 on Mondays. Fresh popcorn with Parmesan, red pepper, white truffle oil is $4 and easily split between two people.

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