First Call: Barrio

Bar: Barrio, 1420 12th Ave., 588.8105, barriorestaurant.com

Barrio is a Mexican restaurant in the Trace condos building. It's been open for only a month and features a beautiful wall of open squares--like latticework--each containing a lit candle.  Lighting them must be quite a process, though sadly I neglect to ask about it.

Bartender: Aleko. His given name is Alexis, but in second grade there was a girl named Alexis in the class. After being teased for having "a girl's name", he switched to Aleko.

This is his first winter in Seattle in a while; he spent the last several teaching snowboarding to US military personnel at the Edelweiss Lodge and Resort in the German Alps. The resort is one of five run by the Department of Defense around the world exclusively for military members and their families. .

Booze: Sangra de Agave ($9). Dark Bermuda rum, repesado tequila, cassis, and lime juice. When I ask him for his favorite drink, I'm given a choice between a fruity or a whiskey-based drink. Generally, I avoid the too-sweet, but after too many bad experiences with whiskey, I avoid that even more.

No worries, though, as the drink isn't too sweet. Aleko describes it as the bar's most versatile drink--appealing to both the sweet and not-sweet sets.  I know next to nothing about drinks, so Aleko explains that he likes the Sangra de Agave because of its rare combination of dark rum with its "brown sugar" flavor and repesado tequila with its "earthy" flavor. He adds that the cassis is "so far from anything you'd find" in the places where people drink tequila and rum.

Something--maybe the lime juice--prevents excessive sweetness, so I don't get that sickly aftertaste that I recall from when I was a little kid who liked Tidal Wave gum. And I don't get sick from whiskey either.