• Saint House Rum Bar Facebook

Karl Goranowski, bar manager at Saint House Rum Bar, was highlighted for his drink mixing expertise in Esquire's "7 Honey Cocktails to Start Your Buzz" list. Tucson joins the likes of New York City, Austin, San Francisco, New Orleans and Louisville, Kentucky when it comes to being a "staple for some of the best bartenders around."

The second annual Born & Brewed Tucson Beer Cup is happening this Friday at Hotel Congress, from 7-10 p.m. Part beer festival, part competition, it's a great excuse to get out and try some of the best local brews. The hotel also offers special packages that include a room for the night in case you "sample" too much. Some of the featured breweries are: Dragoon, Barrio, Nimbus, Borderlands, Thunder Canyon, 1702, Ten 55, Sentinel Peak, along with some special guest breweries.

What's beer without food and music you ask? They will have that covered as well. This event sold out last year and a good number of folks were turned down at the door, so get your tickets quick!

You can purchase them here : http://hotelcongress.com/music/2nd-annual-born-brewed-tucsons-beer-cup/

Happy Drinking Tucson!

Congrats to Tap & Bottle, who made the top three in CraftBeer.com's Great American Beer Bars poll for 2013. While T&B couldn't beat out two entrants from Colorado (and to be fair, Falling Rock in Denver is a spectacular bar), the best news is that the still-quite-new establishment beat out Papago Brewing Company in Scottsdale. From that, we can reasonably extrapolate that Tucson is a better place to drink craft beer than the greater Phoenix area. Take that, neighbors to the north!

Beer lovers, here's a cool event at Borderlands (119 E. Toole Ave.) today. Lance Rice, a beer expert with autism, is traveling across the country with his cousin Lance (a director) filming a documentary and gathering information for a book about his life and experiences with the American craft beer movement in every state. Brewers from Barrio, 1055, and Sentinel Peak will be there as well, and 10% of Borderlands sales will go to help fund the film project.

The event should start around 5:30 tonight and run until 9.

• From Unplugged's Facebook page

Earlier this month, the retail store Wine Depot on Grant closed down, but the owners are heading downtown to bring their expertise to a wine bar, Unplugged Tucson at 118 E. Congress, next to whatever the heck is happening with that Voodoo Jack's space. They're still in the midst of getting everything together according to their Facebook page, but they're planning to open this weekend to catch the Second Saturday crowd. Wine is certainly available (on tap, even) up and down Congress currently, but generally as a bit of an afterthought to beer or cocktails, so seems like there might be a niche to fill. Good luck, Unplugged.

They're billing it as a "preview week," but Good Oak Bar, the Arizona beer-and-wine bar from Derrick Widmark of Diablo Burger opens its doors tonight at 7 p.m. I don't know much about wine, but knowing that Blake Collins, formerly of Borderlands Brewing Company and (full disclosure) a friend, is running the beer show there makes me believe that I'm going to end up spending a lot of time over there.

Good Oak's Facebook page has been cryptic about what's on the drinking and dining menus, but Ten Fifty-Five mentioned online today that Good Oak will be the only place to get their limited release Belgian Saison, so there's that, at very least.

If you're a craft cocktail fan that wonders what your favorite bartenders and mixologists do in their spare time, then have we got the video for you!

Tanqueray Ginstitute, the professional education arm of Tanqueray that keeps your bartenders abreast with the latest in cocktail thought, came down to film some of Tucson's best bartenders, past and present, as they got together for a homecoming blast that featured hand-chiseled ice, great cocktails and Settlers of Catan.

Among the names and faces usually seen behind the bar that you may recognize from this video: Former Tucsonan and current Portlandian Ciaran Wiese; Saint House's Karl Goranowski; Scott & Co.'s Niklas Morris and David Kwan; Hotel Congress bartender (and former Tucson Weekly intern!) El Arvizu; and a whole, whole lot more.


Among my favorite parts of the video: a national brand recognizing the quality of Tucson's cocktail scene; the consideration that Tucson is the kind of city that respects the quality of the work that someone puts into it; and, of course, Sonoran hot dogs.

[Tanqueray Ginstitute - Facebook]

Tucson Weekly readers, so far you've done your part in defending Tucson's craft beer-loving honor by voting the new-but-excellent establishment Tap & Bottle as a finalist in CraftBeer.com's Best American Beer Bar competition — what say we keep it going?

Today's the last day for you to vote for Tucson's beer bar representative to win the title of Best Beer Bar in the Mountain West Region (a mouthful, but still an honor), so why not help the rest of the country realize that we've got a damn good thing going here?

Sure, T&B will have to beat out the likes of that place in Scottsdale, along with a Nevada bar and a bunch of places in Colorado, but I've got a feeling that our combined beer-loving (and spite-generating) powers will be able to carry Tap & Bottle and Tucson over the hump and into the arms of victory.

So go, vote: it'll only take a few seconds, and you'll help Tucson get a well-deserved win. Everybody's happy!

New episodes of the beer-focused webseries Hopped Up tend to appear somewhat sporadically, but when they do arrive, the show, focusing on an establishment that either makes beer or serves a bunch of it, is a delightful watch. This time, the crew stops by Fourth Avenue establishment Mr. Heads. Enjoy.

Arizona might have claimed the Territorial Cup for sports-related supremacy this past school year, but our fine collegiate student body has nothing on what Arizona State has accomplished already for the 2013-2014 campaign.

Classes began Thursday at Girls Gone Wild University and Casino, which obviously meant the days leading up to the start of the fall semester needed to be spent risking one's place at the school. At least that's how it seems based on the statistics released by ASU's police department from its 'Safe and Sober' special enforcement detail.

The Phoenix New Times has all the boozy details, but here's just a few. Consider them cautionary tales, young Wildcats. Or, maybe, inspiration:

* 1,421 stops (made on campus by ASUPD and seven nearby police departments)
* 371 arrests (91 for DUI, 17 for extreme DUI, 2 for aggravated DUI)
* An average blood-alcohol level of .131 for DUI suspects

It's hard to imagine the UA's fine contingent of degenerates future leaders could put up such lofty numbers, considering how little driving can be done on campus now thanks to the multitude of parking garages and the I-still-think-they'll-never-get-used modern streetcar tracks.

Add in the likely, ahem, activity that's sure to come out of existing student housing complexes like The District, Stone Avenue Standard and The Seasons as well as new compounds like The Retreat, Level and The Cadence (all of which, I envision, have parties similar to how Gary and Wyatt had in Weird Science) and we might have ourselves another way to compare the UA-ASU rivalry.