B-Side Lounge
As of yesterday I’m a year older and wiser, and my friends were kind enough to treat me to birthday drinks last night at the B-Side Lounge in Cambridge. It’s been open for a good while, and it’s a place people have always been telling me I need to go to - but it was my first time there. It won’t be the last. It should be the destination of anyone who likes fine cocktails done right.
The drinks menu runs the gamut from revived vintage cocktails to their own inventions. Their martinis were excellent, the sidecars not weird (this is the chanciest drink to order out), but the winner for me was a drink called the Last Word, a combination of gin, Chartreuse, maraschino liqueur and lime juice. It was one of the best cocktails I’ve ordered out. The bar staff are professional: after he noticed a stray bit of mint when pouring a sidecar, our bartender whisked away the drink and made a new one from scratch. The prices are reasonable, 8 dollars for most cocktails. The only negative was that the music played a smidge too loud; it was like they were trying too hard to play up the rock-and-roll diner theme. They should just let the drinks speak for themselves.
B-Side Lounge is located at 92 Hampshire Street, Cambridge, between Kendall, Inman, and Central squares.
Happy birthday–hope you had a good time.
I ditto your remarks on the Last Word–it’s on the house cocktail list at Zig Zag Cafe in Seattle, and it’s one of my recent favorites.
Do either of you guys know the recipe? I looked on cocktailDB but came up dry.
Happy birthday! The Last Word sounds similar to the Aviation, which I like a lot but usually has lemon instead.
Last Word - equal parts gin, lime juice, maraschino and green Chartreuse. First listing I’ve found for it is in Ted Saucier’s Bottoms Up, a great (and kind of risque) cocktail guide from the 1950s that you can still pick up on eBay for less than $30. I’ve been planning a post on it (along with a bunch of other stuff)–a really delicious drink.
(a good variation can also be made by substituting rye for the gin and lemon for the lime. No name that I know of)
Wow!
It’s like a mystical wizard showed up at my door and said, “Ye, I grant ye (I’m not sure why he has a Braveheart accent) a new potation. It will be like nothing ye’ve tasted before, yet ye may recognize what lies within. Enjoy and sing praises to the great Umomius, for ye have been blessed by a thousand and can rejoice in the hall of heroes.”
Paul, you must post quickly before it steals my soul and forces me to do so!
Aren’t they superb? I await for Paul’s post as well.
Diana, the drink is similar to the Aviation, but it’s even a smoother balance, where all the flavors combine to some greater whole.
Mind you, at the bar we kept calling it the L Word.
Happy belated birthday! Hope you had a blast!