Booze: The Reason for the Season!
The Phenomenon: The lies we tell ourselves.
The Bars: Xunta, Tortilla Flats, Zombie Hut, Blind Tiger Ale House, Loreley.
This whole season thing is a scam. As soon as Labor Day comes and goes, we all nod and agree that fall has arrived. Summer hours are over, after all. The stores are filled with sweaters and corduroy, everybody’s back from vacation, kids are back in school. One could completely imagine that fall is upon us, except for one tiny detail: it is going to be fucking hot for another month and a half, minimum. It has always astounded me how little the reality of weather patterns impact some people. You see chicks wearing blazers in like 85-degree weather, thankful that they spend most of their time in an air-conditioned office. It’s 85 degrees! I don’t care what the calendar says! That is not jacket weather!
The same thing happens in the spring. Round about March 21, which, yes, is the first day of spring, Forever 21 takes down its off-the-shoulder sweaters and puts the wispy tank tops in the window, as though maybe this year will be magically different and we won’t have weeks of below-freezing weather well into April. Perhaps it is only because I’m from Texas, a place where “winter” means “below 70,” that I don’t understand this mass self-deception. I mean, yeah, we all want it to be fall now, we’re all tired of wearing the same four pit-stained T-shirts, but that doesn’t make it not stupid to be sweating through your wool pants.
And as go the clothes shops, so go the bars, I’m afraid. You can kiss your sangria and hefeweissen goodbye. Delis even stop selling iced coffee, which is sad. I mean, it’s not like anybody’s going to die of exposure from drinking a cool beverage after the end of August. I understand the utility of seasonal drinks — mulled cider in steamy weather is a definite no — but I think people are similarly needlessly slavish to the perceived “season” of a beverage. I say, drink what ya like, when ya like. So this “fall,” remember: Xunta (First Ave and 10th St) is always happy to make you some nice sangria. Tortilla Flats (Washington and 12th St) has excellent margaritas all the year ‘round, and the Zombie Hut (Smith and Degraw Sts) serves endless amounts of stupid fruity drinks. Blind Tiger Ale House (Hudson and W 10th St) and Loreley (Rivington and Bowery) are always good bets for the wheat beer. Don’t let the system get you down, man.
