[Metromode] The Rise of Metro Detroit's Mixologists

Shane McGrath at The Oakland. Photo by David Lewinski Photography for Metromode. 

Maybe it's because of metro Detroit's automotive history, but whenever a new trend hits we have a tendency to take it from zero to 60 with ear-splitting speed. We did it with food trucks. We did it with pop-ups. We did it with coffee and craft beer and artisan spirits. And we did it with craft cocktails.

Read more.

The Week We Ate (The EID Week in Review)

OVER IT. *snap snap* 

ICYMI:
~IT'S MOTHERFUCKING BEER WEEK, YO. [DBW / EID]
~Several Detroit businesses, including Hacienda Mexican Foods, foodjunky, and Detroit Mini Donut, are in the running for a $250,000 Chase Mission Main Street grant. They have to reach 250 public votes by November 15 to be considered for one of 12 available grants by the panel of top business professionals, so help them out with a quick vote. [EID]
-You could save your life a lot of time by checking in with my weekly events round-up to see what cool stuff is coming up. [EID]
-With the chilly weather, the fall foliage, and Halloween fast approaching, it's time to hit your favorite cider mill while it's the peak season! And these are the best ones out there. Also, it is now officially official: Blake's Hard Cider Co. cider house and winery is now open for business! [EID]
-And let's not forget The Dexter Cider Mill, the oldest continuously-operating cider mill in the state of Michigan. [EID]

THIS JUST IN: You are all officially over Slows. So 2010 called and wants its listicle back. Travel + Leisure names SLOWS BAR BQ one of the best mac + cheeses in America, begging the question: IS it though? Is it REALLY? Is it even the best in Detroit at this point? Or metro Detroit if you have to be snippy about the arbitrary 8 Mile border? And what did you say? In a word, no. [T+L / EID FB]

Everyone's trying to Make Detroit Happen. [WXYZ]

Bourdain promises to show people a Detroit they've never seen before. So, POP-UPS! [MLive]

Our very own Joe Robinson of Bailout Productions won first in the nation on Thrillist's search for the best Bloody Mary! Next he will be going to New York to do a Food Network Chopped brunch and compete for the title of America's Best Bloody. Congrats, Joe! I think this calls for a Bailout Bloody Brunch pop-up somewheres! (Green Dot Stables mayhaps?) [Thrillist]

The 5-month-long process has finally come to an end: Detroit City Distillery has been approved by the city of Detroit! They expect to open sometime in 2014 in Eastern Market. Read more about them here. [DCD FB / Metromode]

Great Lakes Coffee in Midtown now has a beer and wine to go license. [GLC FB]

The government shutdown affected not just Batch Brewery but every single brewery (both those trying to get licensing as well as ANY new product for distribution) in the country. [MLive]

Oh hey, Rock City Eatery gets some love from Thrillist, including their selection of Michigan craft beers from breweries like Dark Horse Brewing Co. and New Holland Brewing Co. AND that soon-to-be-be-famous mac and cheese in a parmesan bowl. [Thrillist]

B. Nektar Meadery is having one HELL of a Devil's Night release party. [B. Nektar]

The Woodward Hall beer hall popped up during the Tigers home ALCS serving beer from Michigan breweries. The Tigers are done but is the beer hall? Or will they come back for other special events in the future? (Indoor beer halls sure are better than outdoor ones what with their indoor plumbing and freedom from the tyranny of Michigan weather.) [Woodward Hall FB]

Marcus Market in Midtown got one hell of an exterior overhaul from the same folks behind the La Feria facade. Marcus Market, you are now officially a part of the Detroit Design District at Cass and Canfield! [EID FB]

THIS guy. (Tunde, that is.) Detroit News gives some love to Revolver and chats with co-owner Tunde Wey, a Detroit personality, if you will. (And you will.) [Detroit News]

Progress is progressing at downtown's Bagger Dave's. [Det Reg News Hub]

Here's a nice feetch on MotorCity Wine. [Metro Times]

The pastry chef's name is actually Kevin, not Eric (as originally printed), but otherwise a fitting review for the stellar The Stand Gastro Bistro. [Detroit News]

Hiller's Markets are taking some cues from Papa Joe's Gourmet Market and Whole Foods Market Ann Arbor getting all fancified. [Crain's]

According to the Metro Times, these are the best bars in greater metro Detroit. [MT]

The new 7-Eleven is looking quite a bit a lot Whole Foods-y. [Design Taxi]

National Pizza Month

Gizmodo has publishing this *AMAZING* pizza map showing where the closest pizza chains within a 10-mile radius are anywhere in the United States. Take a look at the full map on top - Michigan bleeds orange for Little Caesars. [Gizmodo]

The pizza cocktail now exists. (To be fair, despite the name that promises something wacky and potentially disgusting, it's basically a riff on a Bloody Mary with better marketing. But that doesn't make for a good Buzzfeed story.) [Buzzfeed]

[NEWS BITES] Eastern Market After Dark is tonight and features 48 venues plus previews of new restaurants

If you've been on the scene for awhile, it should come as no surprise to you to hear that Eastern Market can be just as lively at night as it is during the day. (And sometimes much more so, if the day we're talking about is any other one but Saturday.) This has meant different things over the years. Now it means dozens of art and design studios, galleries, restaurants, and various other kinds of creative spaces.

The third-annual Detroit Design Festival is now in full swing and tonight is one of the DDF's signature events, Eastern Market After Dark.

EMAD started with last year's DDF after Nina Marcus-Kurlonko, Project Manager for the Red Bull House of Art, was driving through the market district at night. "I saw a bunch of lights on that you don't normally see on; people were all in their studios working," she says. "People have this association with Eastern Market and the food. I thought, there has to be a way for people to see this culture here. People are always creating and building things in the neighborhood."

Eastern Market is home to dozens of designers and artists who have studio spaces in the market district and also call it their home. There are also galleries like the Red Bull House of Art, the more recently-opened Inner State Gallery (home of 1xRUN), the gallery-café-performance space and soon to be museum Trinosophes, the hacker/makerspace OmniCorp, Division Street Boutique and Aptemal Clothing (of "Detroit Hustles Harder" fame), not one but two vintage letterpress studios, Signal-Return and Salt + Cedar, the hard to define but necessary to explore Detroit Mercantile Co., and so many other independently-owned businesses that blend artspace and design studio with retail commerce. (And food. There's always food.)

Nina sent out an email to some folks, who sent an email out to more folks, and by the time the first Eastern Market After Dark was held last year during the 2012 Detroit Design Festival, she had 25 places signed up to open up their spaces for behind-the-scenes tours and artist walkthroughs to the 2,000 people who showed up.

This year there's 48.

In addition to walking through all the studios and artists' workshops the public might not otherwise have access to, there is also a ton of programming to go along with Eastern Market After Dark. An artist will be making an installation piece at Inner State Gallery from their 1xRUN paper scraps. Detroit Collision Works' First Container will have storytelling boxes at several venues. OmniCorp's makers will be showing off their skills. (This might involve some sort of fire; one never knows.) Odu, the 14-piece Afrobeat orchestra led by composer, musician and artist Adeboye Adegbenro and consisting of some of Detroit's finest musicians including Baba Akunda, Jennie Knaggs, and Joel Peterson, will be playing at Trinosophes at 9 p.m. for $5. Aptemal will have screenprinting demos at the Division Street Boutique. Detroit artist and musician Ron Zakrin, whose studio space is in Eastern Market, will play a show at the Red Bull House of Art.

And, as for the food: the American Institute of Architects Detroit chapter is hosting an awards celebration in Shed 3 from 7:00 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. From 7-9 p.m., ticket-holders will have food from Detroit restaurants including Rubbed and cocktails from Bailout Productions. (Tickets are only $35 and are available at the door, and yes, they accept credit.) Salt + Cedar is releasing a new Detroit-themed poster and also serving "Bunny Chow," the savory street food of Cape Town. Eastern Market is also launching their third Thursday night market in Shed 4, which includes a temporary installation project, a "chandelier" made from found objects from all over the city. Third Thursday night markets will have more of an artisan and craft focus, though given the nature of tonight's event, this one will also have food. Need more food? Preview two new restaurants that aren't even open yet: Frontera and Guns + Butter (GASP, you mean Guns + Butter is opening a permanent space in Eastern Market? Yes Marge, they are), plus others like Trinosophes, Cutter's, Roma Café, Supino Pizzeria, and more.

For the full list of venues and events, check the events page here. And here's more info on the AIA celebration too. There will also be plenty of music, which kind of goes without saying. "Everyone in this neighborhood has this really fun energy," Nina says. If you've never experienced the energy of Eastern Market after dark for yourself, tonight's the night to go.

Twitter/Instagram/Facebook the shit out of this event with these hashtags: #EMafterdark #DDF2013

[HOT LIST] Cocktails

Dave Kwiatkowski of the Sugar House. All photos by Nicole Rupersburg.

It goes without saying that the BEST best places in metro Detroit to get a craft cocktail are Roast, the Oakland, and the Sugar House (which was just named one of the best bars in America by Playboy). But as the trend has grown over the last couple of years - so much so that Michigan Radio recently took notice and ran a state-wide poll looking for Michigan's best craft cocktail bar, and Michigan State University has their own Artisan Distilling Program (the Master Distiller of Death's Door is a graduate of this program) - an ever-increasing number of bars and restaurants are getting with the craft cocktail program. And not in the half-assed way they did before (changing the name of their martini menu to "craft cocktails," yet keeping all the same candy-flavored vodka drinks) - this time it's in earnest. Top-shelf spirits (think bourbons, gins, and boutique liqueurs), fresh-squeezed juices, and house-made bitters and infusions separate the men from the martinis. What a difference two years make, eh? These are some of the best places to get some (aside from Roast, the Oakland, and the Sugar House, of course).

#1 Pizzeria Biga Royal Oak, Southfield, Ann Arbor (opening soon)
Pizza and craft cocktails? Absolutely, when the pizza in question is made by James Beard award-nominated chef Luciano del Signore (along with house-made charcuterie) and the cocktails by some of the best local bartenders in the business. Biga's beverage program in general is a thing of excellence, with proper dues given to its Italian inspiration in its selection of Italian beers, wines, and liqueurs. They also have a great selection of craft beers and have recently started hosting beer dinners. As for cocktails, they have a full selection of classic craft cocktails as well as some of their own creations.

Red Crown. 

#2 Red Crown Grosse Pointe Park
Turns out, Grosse Pointers are a bunch of booze-hounds. (This probably surprises no one who is familiar with Grosse Pointers and their lifestyles.) Mixologist Thomas Phillips, a self-described liquor nerd, leads the bar's cocktail program, which includes a mix of classic cocktails and his own creations, which he changes seasonally. The renovated historic gas station in Grosse Pointe Park opened earlier this year and was an instant hit with the community that has been woefully underserved in their demand for drink. This summer, enjoy their expansive, beautifully-landscaped patio with a cold cocktail and some smoked meat and Southern-style comfort food.

#3 The Last Word Ann Arbor
The Last Word takes its name from the classic cocktail of the same name, which is fitting for this Prohibition-era craft cocktail bar. This place is all about the booze, and be sure to shop in for Whiskey Wednesdays when they serve Scotch (SCOTCH SCOTCH SCOTCHY SCOTCH), bourbon and rye half-off. It's a classy joint in a college town, and their cocktails are on point.

#4 Bailout Productions Detroit
We all know that Roast is one of the best places to go for a craft cocktail, and that's because of the talent behind the bar. Bailout Productions has its roots in Roast, where founders Travis Fourmont (who now works at Great Lakes Wine and Spirits) and Joe Robinson (still holding down the happy hour fort) both worked. They now team up for pop-up bar events at places like Green Dot Stables and the currently-uninhabited Rhino Club in Harmonie Park, and bring their full cocktailing skills along with some friends – like chef Andy Hollyday, who recently left his post at Roast to work on opening his own restaurant in Midtown. They've got more events planned for this summer, so be sure to follow them on Facebook for updates on their upcoming pop-ups.

#5 Sardine Room Plymouth
The much-buzzed-about Sardine Room in Plymouth just celebrated its one-year anniversary earlier this month. Known for their selection of fresh seafood (oysters, the oysters, especially the oysters) and elevated small plates, the Sardine Room also has an excellent selection of craft beer and craft cocktails. What with all of the oysters and the hot sauce and the lobster rolls (basically a lobster po'boy) and the shrimp and grits, the Sardine Room has a vaguely New Orleansean vibe, so it seems only fitting to sip on a Sazerac (the drink that originated in the Big Easy over 150 years ago) while you're here.

Bubbling under Valentine Distillery (Ferndale), Gastronomy (Southfield), Zingerman's Roadhouse (Ann Arbor), St. Cece's Pub (Corktown), Vellum (Ann Arbor), Great Lakes Coffee (Midtown), Union Woodshop (Clarkston), the Raven's Club (Ann Arbor), Imperial (Ferndale), the Bar at 327 Braun Court (Ann Arbor), the Laundry (Fenton), the Root (White Lake), Torino (Ferndale), Lena (Ann Arbor)