noplasticshowers

The Grant Street Inn is my go to hotel in Bloomington, and a good thing too, since my company is opening an office in Bloomington!

This trip coincided with a launch party for our new office, with a guest list of 150 business leaders, academics, and local politicians. And we somehow picked the Thursday before graduation to do this?! Thankfully, Paul Wagoner saw to it that our people were all properly accommodated during the busiest weekend of the year for hotels. Thanks Paul! We’ll all be back.

Since there are plenty of previous pictures of room 30 (my fave), I opted for an outside looking in picture this time.

Room 30 from the outside. You can tell why it is a reasonably quiet room (even on graduation weekend).

In other news, the breakfast room (which I never seem to have time to eat in) has been remodeled and expanded. The new addition across the street should come on line very soon.

The new breakfast room look.

Bloomington is a great little town, and Grant Street Inn is the best place to stay. Four showerheads (plus some).

In mixology news, The Rail (as rumor had it in Indy) is a very good bar indeed. I was fortunate to meet both of the owners. Andy Butler is a Bloomington native wine guy who lives in Napa. His partner’s name escapes me.

After concocting a Liberal (incorrectly using Averna instead of Amer Picon or Torani Amer), we attempted to recreate the Cynar Stinger from Indy and were bummed to discover that there was no white creme de menthe around. So we moved to the bar and Matt McDaniel mixed us up a (still buggy) drink called

Montenegro’s Revenge
2 oz Zaya rum
1 oz Carpano sweet vermouth
.5 oz Montenegro bitters (good stuff)
.25 oz Cynar
2 dashes of Angustora bitters

So what are the bugs? Well, the simulator says we should adjust this drink as follows:
2 oz Mt Gay Eclipse (lose the varnish flavor and sweetness of Zaya)
1 oz Carpano (same, but could use Dolin’s Rouge)
.5 oz Montenegro bitters

Cynar plus angustora plus Montenegro is just too much going on. We’ll try it out at home later this month and let you know how the adjusted version comes out.

In any case, the experimenting was a blast. I can’t wait to return.