Southern Arizona

Spirits Are The New Craft

The Classy Alcoholic Cocktails, Distillery, Greater Phoenix Area, Liquor, Southern Arizona, Spirits, Tempe, Tucson

A review of:
Adventurous Stills – Tempe, AZ
Located at 2125 E 5th St, #102, Tempe, AZ 85281
Open Fri 5p-8p; Sat 2p-7p
http://www.adventstills.com

And:
Three Wells Distilling Company – Tucson, AZ
Located at 3780 E 44th St, #120, Tucson, AZ 85713
Open Sat 5p-8p
http://www.threewellsdistilling.com

I’ve been writing about Arizona craft beer and wine for just under three years now and found enormous success in a very short time. Most people would be happy with my level of fame and coast on that early success without innovating until they die, Kurt Cobain style. But I decided to instead explore a completely different realm of the Arizona booze scene: local spirits.

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Beercentennial Man – The Final Chapter

The Classy Alcoholic Beer, Beercentennial Man, Marana, Microbrewery, Southern Arizona

Button Brewhouse – Marana, AZ
Located at 6800 N Camino Martin, Suite 160, Marana, AZ 85741
Opening date TBD
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The 4th and final chapter of my story, “Beercentennial Man.” Read Part 1 here, Part 2 here and Part 3 here.

I arrived in Marana, a town just northwest of Tucson to find the Button Brewhouse building. Construction on the place was well underway when I arrived. The patio was fully built and the sign was hanging on the front, ready for the brewery’s opening sometime in 2017.

I knew my pal Mr. Button was inside, held hostage in his own brewery by ClassyBot, a liquid metal cyborg who looked exactly like me and wanted me dead so he could take my place. I walked into the unfinished brewery, ready for anything.

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The brewing equipment in the back was all fully installed but the taproom still needed some work. I walked past a large pile of old appliances that were ready to be thrown out. There was a stove, some cracked microwaves, toasters, broken laptops, a couple of busted up kegerators on wheels and a bunch of other crap. I figured it must’ve been stuff from the previous tenant in the building.

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Beercentennial Man – Part 3

The Classy Alcoholic Beer, Beercentennial Man, Microbrewery, Southern Arizona, Tucson

Dillinger Brewing Company – Tucson, AZ
Located at 3895 N Oracle Rd, Tucson, AZ 85705
Open Mon-Thurs 2p-9p; Fri 2p-11p; Sat 11a-11p; Sun 2p-9p
http://dillingerbrewing.com

Part 3 of a 4-Part story. Read Part 1 here. Read Part 2 here.

This chapter is dedicated to my friend Bryan Raney who passed away on 7/22/2017. He was a homebrewer from California and was a big supporter of my blog. He was known as Fighting Robot Brewing on Instagram. His family’s GoFundMe page is here: https://www.gofundme.com/bryan-sid-raney-memorial-fund

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I ran into Dillinger Brewing Company’s taproom practically carrying my pal, Mr. Button. He was in bad shape after he saved my life by diving in front of a bolt of lightning shot out of the hand of a cyborg named ClassyBot that was engineered to look like me and had my memories and personality installed in his CPU. Seriously, if you didn’t get on board with the story when it first started you probably shouldn’t even be reading this shit right now.

The brewery was a little hard to find. It was tucked away off the main road down a row of storage facilities behind a pawnshop in the methy side of Tucson. I knew that one of Dillinger’s owners, Eric Sipe, would be able to help Button. The two of them were friends and they even collaborated on a coffee Pale Ale beer called “Early Brew Special.” Before he opened the brewery Sipe spent some time roaming through the U.S. and I’ve heard stories about his ability to survive in rugged conditions. I just hoped that at least some of them were true.

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Beercentennial Man – Part 2

The Classy Alcoholic Beer, Beercentennial Man, Food, Southern Arizona, Tucson, Wine

Serial Grillers Restaurant & Taproom – Tucson, AZ
Located at 5737 E Speedway Blvd, Tucson, AZ 85715
Second location at 1970 W River Rd, Tucson, AZ 85704
Open Sun-Thurs 11a-9p; Fri & Sat 11a-10p
http://www.serialgrillersaz.com

Part 2 of a 4-Part story. Read Part 1 here.

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Serial Grillers is a Tucson-based restaurant that began as a food truck in 2012 serving cheesesteaks and burgers named after horror movie serial killers. A brick and mortar location opened in 2013 in midtown Tucson. The business was successful enough that in January of 2017 a second location opened on the Northwest side of town. The place was a regular haunt of mine, not just because they make excellent food but also because they serve exclusively craft beer at both locations. You won’t find any Bud Light on tap and their selection changes every time I go in there.

I walked in to the restaurant expecting to meet my pal, Mr. Button. Or rather: “Mr. Button.” I came straight from AZ Beer House where I defeated a robot that was engineered to look like him. It’s been that kinda day.

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Beercentennial Man – Part 1

The Classy Alcoholic Beer, Beercentennial Man, Bottle Shop, Southern Arizona, Tucson, Wine

Part 1 of a 4-Part story.

Arizona Beer House – Tucson, AZ
Located at 150 S Kolb Rd, Tucson, AZ 85710
Open Mon-Weds 2p-10p; Thurs-Sat 12p-12a; Sun 11a-10p
http://www.arizonabeerhouse.com

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AZ Beer House is a taproom on the east side of Tucson that’s been open just under two years. With 34 taps and hundreds of bottles that you can drink on site or take home it was a place I tried to visit as often as I could.

The guy behind the bar was my buddy Derrick, a fellow beer blogger who started his own beer review site recently because he was inspired by the amazing success I’ve had. He was very excited to tell me that his new pseudonym was “Arizona Brew-Ru.”

“Wait,” I said, “is that a play on ‘Boo-Hoo’? Like, you’re Arizona Boo-Hoo but for beer?”

“No. What? That doesn’t even make sense. It’s like ‘guru.’ You know…Brew Guru?”

“Oh. I would’ve gone with Arizona Gurew.”

“Shit. That’s actually way better.”

I sipped my beer as I waited for my pal Mr. Button. The last time I saw him he and I saved the majority of Arizona’s craft beer from destruction by a beer terrorist. It was documented in my story called The Drunk Knight, in case you’re curious how we did that.

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Flux – Chapter 1

The Classy Alcoholic Beer, Flux, Mead, Microbrewery, Southern Arizona, Tucson, Wine

The Classy Alcoholic ain’t dead yet! This time I’m writing an ode to the lovely town of Tucson with a 5-part story called “Flux.” When the Tucson beer scene is under attack by a mysterious new organization The Classy Alcoholic has to drunkenly distinguish friend from foe.

Click on the “Short Stories” tab in the menu above or just click the “Continue Reading” link below to start Chapter 1.

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Dillinger Brewing Company – Tucson, AZ [Coming Soon]

The Classy Alcoholic Beer, Microbrewery, Southern Arizona, Tucson

Located at 3895 N Oracle Rd, Tucson, AZ 85705
Opening Fall 2016
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dillingerbrewery/
Instagram: http://tinyurl.com/jjhsjbq
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dillinger_brew

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Eric Rubio Sipe may be a bearded white guy in Tucson who loves craft beer and has plans to open up his own microbrewery but, believe it or not, there are also interesting things about him. For starters, the man already had a space for his taproom rented out and he was deep into construction when I met him. You should know that The Classy Alcoholic is pretty wired into the beer scene in this state. I’m usually the first to hear about new breweries that are about to open in Arizona because the owners desperately want me to come by ever since they realized that having a guy in a suit, tie and pocket square on the premises will significantly increase their property values as long as I don’t tell anyone that I’m Mexican.

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Driftwood Pub & Kitchen – Tucson, AZ

The Classy Alcoholic Beer, Craft Beer Bar, Dive Bar, Liquor, Southern Arizona, Tucson

Driftwood Pub & Kitchen has closed as of February 2017. This post will remain on my website as a reminder of the good times we had together.

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Dive bars tend to get a lot of love from people. Sometimes for reasons I don’t understand. Scroll through some Yelp reviews and you’ll find people who describe a dive bar as “disgusting” and consider that a compliment. Also they think being served by bitter, disaffected bartenders is somehow more authentic than someone who’s, like, nice to you?

While I definitely appreciate that many dive bars have cool regulars and strong drinks for cheap I never want to drink somewhere so divey that I have to worry about walking out with a staph infection. And I’m not the kind of guy who thinks a bar is great because the bartender with the hook for a hand pours your shitty light beers aggressively and visibly hates you for making him do his job. If I wanted to be openly resented for my heavy drinking by someone with anger issues I’d go back and ruin my ex-girlfriend’s mom’s funeral again.
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Nimbus Brewing Co. – Tucson, AZ

The Classy Alcoholic Beer, Microbrewery, Southern Arizona, Tucson, Wine

Located at 3850 E 44th St, Tucson, AZ 85713
Open Mon-Thurs 11a-11p; Fri-Sat 11a-1a; Sun 11a-9p
http://www.nimbusbeer.com

Your favorite The Classy Alcoholic is going through a tough time, y’all. February of 2016 is the month I turn 30 years old. The panic of growing older is starting to set in and I feel like I’m not ready to leave my 20s behind. The sight of a few gray hairs is my only consolation because the one thing that would make my amazing hair even better is a Clooney-esque, salt-and-pepper look to it. But so far my gorgeous mane stays dark, thick and smooth…while my youth rapidly slips away through my fingers.

I decided that if I wanted to recapture my youth I would have to literally travel back in time. So I found a junkyard in Tucson where I could buy an old flux capacitor and installed it in my car. I retrofitted the thing so it could be powered by Arizona-brewed craft beer because my flux capacitor was sure as hell gonna #chooseAZbrews, dammit! I hit the road and drove as fast as I could until a portal of light appeared, engulfing my ‘89 Honda Accord with the bumper that was a different color from the rest of the car and also held on only by a chain. When the portal of light disappeared I looked around me and I realized I had successfully arrived in the year 2006.

I still had to write a microbrewery review for today though and unfortunately there weren’t many breweries in Tucson ten years ago. But then I recalled that Nimbus Brewing Company had been around since 1996 and would be celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. So I headed to the east side of Tucson wading through industrial parks in search of the warehouse where Nimbus had its brewery and restaurant. In order to fit in I put on a necktie that was only slightly different in color from my dress shirt. It was the kind of monochromatic outfit I remembered people in suits wearing all the time a decade ago, back when Regis Philbin was the classiest motherfucker on TV because Mad Men wouldn’t introduce Jon Hamm to the world until a year later.

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