Is Houston the New "It" City? A Toast to Anvil ( Poison Girl doesn’t have food, but Houstonians love the occasional crawfish boil at the rough-edged West Alabama Ice House, a five-minute cab ride away.) Since opening the place in 2004, Walcott’s gathered a trove of more than 400 bottles, including rare Pappy Van Winkle and vintage George T. As James Brown roars through a speaker and co-owner Scott Walcott throws back a shot with a regular, we scan the labels of what’s arguably the South’s most impressive whiskey selection. Poison GirlĪ two-minute walk west, it’s everything Hugo’s isn’t: a dive with red walls, velvet paintings, and pinball machines. Today, it’s the backbone of the Burnt by the Sun-a cocktail cooled by an ancho and jalapeño ice cube, and what everyone’s drinking out on Hugo’s shaded patio. They were also the first in Texas to serve small-batch Del Maguey mezcal, a spirit that wouldn’t catch on in the U.S. Chef Hugo Ortega opened his spot in 2002, when he and beverage director Sean Beck were “making good margaritas with fresh juice before anyone cared,” Weber says. And the best place for those is genteel Hugo’s, three miles from downtown. Hugo’sĭay-drinking here means margaritas. Their mission? To map out the quintessential Houston bar crawl. We were there when Weber invited friends, including Underbelly chef Chris Shepherd and Coltivare’s Julie Rogers, to his latest joint, Eight Row Flint, a converted gas station opened with chef Ryan Pera and named for a strain of corn that was likely the first variety distilled into whiskey. ![]() Since then, the Anvil guys have launched another ten bars, cafés, and restaurants between them, spots like Coltivare, The Hay Merchant, and Revival Market. It started with the 2009 opening of Anvil Bar & Refuge, where Weber teamed up with bartender Bobby Heugel and restaurant manager Kevin Floyd, whom Heugel knew from high school. In the process, he and some buddies helped turn what many considered a beer-and-shot city into one of the country’s most exciting craft-cocktail hubs. ![]() After graduating from Baylor University and moving here in 2005, the Yoakum, Texas, native set out to solve that admittedly First-World problem. “Ten years ago, you’d have been hard-pressed to get a consistently well-made Old Fashioned anywhere in Houston,” says Morgan Weber, one of this city’s best-known barmen.
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