Day 1 continued: The Patterson House.

Nothing like feeling very, very welcomed on my first day of a four-day visit to a Southern city! This was an uber-lovely place which I will illustrate with some photos, but honestly the dim lighting inside made it somewhat challenging to photograph. For better pics than I could get, see eGullet's summary (scroll down for pics).

It has been open for just under a year, and is the first craft cocktail bar in Nashville. Our bartender was one of the owners, and as both Carolyn and I are conversant in the area of craft cocktails we got to see and discuss some fabulous cocktailcrafting elements and had a lovely conversation with him over the course of the evening.

The bar/restaurant is in an up-and-coming neighborhood north of the Vanderbilt campus, not far from a cupcake shop and other such indicators of contemporary food trendiness. The entryway is a library with multiple bookshelves and a blue velvet curtain, and instructions on the rules of the house:

Second, this is one of the bars that owns one of the, say, two dozen Japanese spherical ice makers currently in the U.S. Our bartender was kind enough to show us a Youtube video, on his iPhone, on how the ice maker produces a spherical cube, which you can also see if you're curious at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6a77jsF9eQ (Hint: it's a copper mold and it presses the surrounding water away from the sphere.)

The two cocktails I tried were The Fox and the Forest (Lunazul Reposado tequila, with a float of Peychaud's bitters, a sprig of spearmint, and a few other ingredients I need to hunt down...) and Vincent's Ruin (Bulleit Bourbon, Lemon, St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur, La Muse Verte Absinthe, Lemon Bitters). Carolyn tried a Cooper's Bright (Plymouth Gin, lemon, St. Germain elderflower liqueur, grapefruit liqueur, and sparkling wine from New Mexico) and a Terra Rica (Inca Gold Pisco, pineapple, egg white, Aperol, and "spring bitters" which were homemade strawberry-rhubarb). Because we were there for a considerable amount of time and ate dinner as well, we also got tiny samples of a third cocktail on the house, the El Diablo (El Diablo Lunazul Reposado, Lemon, House Made Ginger Syrup, Briottet Cassis).

The food hardly took second place; there were lovely warm olives followed by Cuban paninis and then s'mores with local fresh strawberries that were, um, amazing. It was a very, very pleasant evening, and if any of our other conference plans fall through we just may visit again. If you're ever in Nashville, I encourage you to look the place up. It's an evening well-spent.