Gin Gimlets at the ToST
By Erinn Unger in First Call
Thursday, Nov. 27 2008 @ 4:00AM
Photo by Erinn Unger
Every week, Voracious walks into a bar and asks the bartender to make us his or her favorite drink.
Locale: ToST (pronounced 'toast', 513 N. 36th St., Fremont)
Barkeep: Susy. Susy worked at Twilight Martini Lounge on Western, hopped off to France for study abroad (she's a French Literature major at the UW), and came back to the King Cat Theater. Then she got called into service at ToST. She hasn't been at ToST for very long. "So far, so good," she said. ToST itself has been open for three years, come January, said the owner, Chris, who sat at the end of the bar chatting with the regulars. There was one seat open at the bar when I came in; it was right next to a prominently placed Seattle Weekly. Did they know I was coming?
The mood was mellow for the place's swanky atmosphere, and the happy hour was very affordable. Five bucks for a cocktail and $2.50 for a draft beer, and it goes from 5 p.m. to eight. Non-happy hour beverages range from $7-$10. There is music some nights, funk, jam bands and jazz.
At one point Susy fiddled around on a computer hooked up to the stereo
before settling on something reminiscent of bumping down a dirt road
through the French countryside in a gypsy caravan. She swung a hip to
it, and a couple of the patrons nodded approvingly, one of them
mumbling that she'll do fine here.
Beverage: Gin Gimlet. Classic and clean. Susy dressed it up with
a little spiral of lime. "It reminds me of summer," she said.
Considering it was cold and dark outside at 6:30 p.m., that was a nice
thing to say. It was true, though, the drink was refreshing — like
drinking cold water out of a hose on a hot summer day.
Comment
