#43 – SOL WITH A SHOT OF JALAPEÑO TEQUILA at THE NARROWS

Once again Time Out New York released their Top 100 Dishes of the year and once again, I’m going to eat my way through every one. And no price point or subway delay will stop me. In no particular order, here’s my take on their Top 100.

Last year the dish I dreaded the most on Time Out’s list were the Everything Fries at Scores. It ended up being a fun adventure, but I was a little intimidated because Scores is a strip club. Who goes to a strip club to get french fries?

Well this year, the dish I was most perplexed by was what sounded like a fraternity initiation: Sol with a Shot of Jalapeño Tequila. Even in college, I wasn’t really a fan of doing shots. I definitely put back my fair share in the interest of being social, but generally if I was going to drink I wanted to taste the alcohol (except for those awful kegs of Bud Light at most college parties).

And now that I’m a grown adult living in New York, I never do shots. If one comes my way, I tend to sip it rather than shoot it because I like the nuances of flavor on my taste buds. Based on a statement like that, you can guess why I got picked on in high school.

Only in New York (or Brooklyn more specifically) could you find a romantic unmarked bar where frat boys, hipsters, yuppies, and biker guys could drink in harmony. There was a very unexpected mix of customers in The Narrows, which I can only imagine is a nod to the lack of space between the bar and the wall. It’s in a newly gentrified section of Bushwick (Roberta’s Pizza is up the street) and was jamming on a Saturday night. We scored a corner booth in the back and drank our selections by candlelight.

The specialty cocktail list is short but the ingredients and prices (only $8 for a fancy cocktail!) are impressive. We were seduced by the Caulfield’s Dream, which I imagine is a reference to Catcher in the Rye. It’s a balanced and surprisingly delicious elixir of rye whiskey, lemon, spearmint, bitters, and a float of cava. Drinks like this and the Babushka (vodka, ginger, soda, lime) appeal to the hipster foodie masses and then specials like the Time Out item appeal to the party-ers looking to get drunk as cheaply as possible. So they keep the crowd eclectic.

I tend to lean more toward the latter group because getting drunk quickly is not generally my motivation. But I paid the $6 (cheap price!) for the combination of Sol (which is a Mexican beer meaning “sun”) and a shot of their house infused jalapeño tequila. I wasn’t exactly sure how to do this. Do I shoot the tequila first and then chase it with the beer? Do I mix them together in the shot glass? Do I sip them together? You see why I never ended up in any fraternities.

I tasted the liquor first and really liked the rich buttery flavors of the tequila (they use Sauza) and the heat-drenched finish from the jalapeño. I would have been happy just sipping this or tasting it mixed into a cocktail (they do that as well). The Sol, which really is Mexico’s answer to Bud Light, is the kind of beer you’d drink in college. It has that thin, watery, skunky experience. These kinds of beers were never my thing and aside from the cheap price tag (and low calories), I never understood why anybody would want to drink them.

But the combination of the two does make sense and it harkens back to a crazier time (college) when alcohol was consumed for the purposes of getting drunk, feeling good, and showing off to your college buddies. And as it turns out, that’s what many people in New York are still after. I’m just relieved we can still find a corner booth in the back and sip smartly made cocktails.

Would The Narrows’ Sol and a Shot of Jalapeño Tequila make my Top 100 of the year? Perhaps if I was a frat boy in my junior year, but since I’ve never been that into shots of tequila and cheap beer they get a 7 out of 10 but I do appreciate the flavor componenets. Just wish it was more sippable.