August 1, 2015

  • How I became the most popular girl in the bar

    In my last post I talked about my visit to Washington Island and the time I spent with two of my cousins. I told you about "taking the cure" at Nelsen's by slamming down a shot of bitters and earning my membership card to the Bitters Club.

    Nelsen's 2

    The bartender was duly impressed with Ginny and me. She told us, "You made that look BAD!" (meaning badass, so I didn't tell her I'd been chewing on ice from my glass of water to numb my tongue before she brought the bitters to us). This post isn't about Nelsen's or bitters, though; this post is about another bar we stopped at the day before.

    I can't remember the name of the bar... Karly's maybe? I know there's a Karly's Bar on the island, I'm just not sure that's the one we stopped at. It was what I think of as a tiki bar or a cabana bar; a small building, open on three sides, located on a lot next to the restaurant that owns it. We had just walked about a mile in the heat to find a geocache and my cousin Ginny was hot, tired and her feet were hurting. It was true of all of us, but she's the one who was vocal about it, so Debbi led us to this bar so Ginny could rest her feet and cool off with a drink before we continued on to our next activity. We perched on tall wooden stools next to the tall wooden bar and the others knew exactly what they wanted to drink. Ginny had been wanting to try the local Death's Door Vodka, so she ordered a shot of that on the rocks. Debbi loves red wine, so she ordered a glass of that. I'm not really that much of a drinker. I'm a lightweight when it comes to alcohol, so I rarely have more than one drink at a sitting. I like wine okay with certain meals, but I don't drink it much by itself. I looked at what they had behind the bar and what they had advertised around the bar. I don't like beer, so that was out. Then I spotted the  dry erase board with the specials listed. I pointed to the top listing, something called Lake Michigan Water, and said, "I'll take one of those."

    It took the bartender a while to mix it. There was blue curacao in it, and vodka, and a lot of other alcohol, and a little 7-Up at the end. She stuck a straw in it and put it in front of me and I took a sip. Whew! That was some strong drink! I was about to take another sip when the bartender popped a hot pink flower lei over my head and said, "You get one of these!" I smiled, my cousins laughed, and I started to take a sip when the bartender said, "No, wait! You also get a fish!" And she dropped a blue plastic fish into my glass. Well, of course hilarity ensued as I tried to get the fish to suck up enough of the drink to shoot out of its mouth when I squeezed it, but I never was successful.

    DSC00653

    As we were sitting there cooling off in Ginny's case, trying not to be rude about the quality of the wine in Debbi's case, and enjoying a fun blue drink in my case, four men walked in. They were visitors to the island who arrived by their own boat, there for the fishing. They were loud and friendly and arguing among themselves about what to drink. I think two of them ordered rum and Coke and one ordered a beer. The fourth guy asked what we were having and the bartender answered, "Vodka, wine, and Lake Michigan Water."

    "What's Lake Michigan Water?" he asked.

    The bartender started reeling off the ingredients.

    "Is it any good?" he queried.

    I turned around with a big smile and replied, "You get a fish AND a lei!"

    DSC00654

    And that's how I became the most popular girl in the bar.

     

Comments (8)

  • Oh, my -- that lei will get you in trouble every time!

  • hehe. Fun story. Did you have a headache after that drink since you say you are a lightweight and there were several alcohols in it?

  • For someone who "doesn't drink" you sure knew how to handle the friendly men in one! We were at the Grainery - the outside bar associated with K.K. Fiske on the island. Glad there is more nature to come - sounds like I took you on a drinking tour!:-)

    • Yeah, my Schaefer mouth is going to get me in hot water one of these days! Don't worry, I'll post about all the non-drinking stuff, too. I realized after I got home that we never even got around to opening the mead, after waiting a whole year! You and Bob can try it out, just don't expect it to be like wine.

  • Haha! How is it that you end up with the most interesting and fun vacations? Must have been all that lake water!!

  • @murisopsis: You were with me on a couple of my interesting and fun vacations. I recall that we had several adventures together, some of them even on an island in the lake!

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