After the fuzzy navel, we noticed it was 11:30, and we were getting hungry for more than just Staple

And by excited I mean chatty. Very chatty. In the two weeks leading up to it s opening, I don t think I ordered a cocktail without bringing up  POT  to anyone executive inn in owensboro who would listen. And two weeks is a lot of cocktails.
Choi is a genius. One of my favorite chefs in the city. The mastermind behind restaurants like Venice s Sunny Spot and Culver City s  A-Frame (one my very first  DWA reviews ), he also gave us LA s famed Korean taco truck  Kogi BBQ . As if that wasn t enough star power, Choi decided to partner with another genius executive inn in owensboro for  POT  - a cocktail genius, Matthew Biancaniello.
The man behind Plan Check and Library executive inn in owensboro Bar , Biancaniello is actually considered a cocktail chef (you can t make this stuff up). He s known for his multi-ingredient cocktails that mash up fruits and veggies and beyond. Matt specializies in, um, exotic drinks. The ones you can usually chew. For example, page one of his POT menu (note the ingredients for the Original Cocktails executive inn in owensboro )
POT , the lobby bar inside Koreatown s new boutique  The Line Hotel , sits right outside of the hotel s soon-to-be-revealed Pot Restaurant . The hotel itself has been open for guests since early January while the food components are still being worked on: the produce garden canteen Commissary  (also by Choi), a bakery, and Pot the aforementioned Korean executive inn in owensboro hot pot-style restaurant.
POT  hard-opened last Wednesday night, executive inn in owensboro so I gave it a couple days to smooth out and went right after the Clippers game on Friday night around executive inn in owensboro 10-ish. The bar seating was ample, and guests executive inn in owensboro had started to sit in the circular booths built out for the upcoming restaurant.
I had read in a couple of Choi s interviews that he wanted the bar space to be just like a high end bar in Seoul, and even though I ve never been remotely close to South Korea, I got it. The bar itself is wide and hexagonal, surrounded by Asian-style stools, and host to everything from Mexican candelas and squirt guns to an array of street vendor snacks. Drinks are created and served next to bins of plastic mini-army men. Gold mylar balloons executive inn in owensboro that spell out pot bar sit inside the top of the bar.
My first cocktail: the Hops -  one of Biancaniello s original cocktails executive inn in owensboro is made with Anchor Distilling Hop Head vodka and either carrot juice or sweet potato juice. I consider myself executive inn in owensboro trendy, so I went with the sweet potato. And man does it pay to be trendy.
One of my favorite bar activities is challenging the bartender. Especially if he/she acts 1) confident or 2) bored. Our guy seemed more than up for a skills test, so I told him that I like dirty martinis and to surprise me. What I ended up with I could ve never guessed
His  Dirty Capstone Martini was made of candy cap mushroom-infused vodka, durian fruit bitters, fortified wine, and an orange peel. It was interesting, strong, and (since the durian executive inn in owensboro bitters executive inn in owensboro are custom made for Pot) exclusive .
Right around that time Ryan pointed out that Choi was walking around the bar, talking with guests. Several drinks in by this point, executive inn in owensboro I didn t feel weird at all chatting him up and congratulating executive inn in owensboro him on the new place. executive inn in owensboro And bless his heart he was so kind. Once he heard we were fans of A-Frame, he went behind the bar and grabbed us some of those Seoul-inspired snacks: that bag of Flaming Hot Lay s and a mangos tabasqueno  chile pop  - aka, a caramel sucker executive inn in owensboro with a chili coating. Aka, fire-on-a-stick.
Speaking of sweet drinks drink #4. The fuzzy navel. By far the drink I was most excited about trying. Muddled kumquats, passion fruit, peach and apricot liqueurs, and topped executive inn in owensboro with dried peaches are you kidding me? It was light years away from the schnapps and Minute Maid concoction that I (vaguely) remember drinking in college.
After the fuzzy navel, we noticed it was 11:30, and we were getting hungry for more than just Staples popcorn and mouth-melting snacks. We decided to call it a night and agreed we d go back soon for a Long Island Iced Tea (before you mock, POT s version is made with mezcal and blood orange gin) and the buzzed-about  White Russian (candy cap mushroom vodka, cream, and Kahlua foam).
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