A night of good drinking

Under the guise of doing research for an upcoming story, I went out drinking last night with Ciaran and Cior. We started off at Hotel Rex, because I'd never been there. They have no drink menu for now (the bartender estimated they will in another month or two they will) so we just ordered a negroni, a lemon drop, and a gin and tonic. Then we skipped over to Cortez. Ciaran had The Journalist, which I believe was made with gin, lemon juice, sweet and dry vermouth, and bitters. Though it was a fine drink, it wasn't all the way there. It needed more of a bitter anchor to keep it from being an entirely fruity cocktail. Cior had the cucumber gimlet, made with cucumber-infused vodka. It was pretty darn tasty, but both of us prefer gin. I had the Pimm's Cup, as I'm writing about that cocktail soon. It was fine. Then we skipped over to Bourbon & Branch. Cior had the cucumber gimlet there that she really wanted. I tried it for the first time and I've got to say: Believe The Hype. Ciaran had the Rouge No. 10, which was magnificent as always. I tried The Communist, which has gin, orange juice, Cherry Heering, and lemon. It was excellent, and made even better after I tried a sip of the Rouge No. 10 and the taste of pepper was still in my mouth. For our next round, we asked Todd to make us something else with the pepper-infused gin base. He came up with a frothy pineapple pepper gin drink (dubbed the Rouge No. 11 by us) that was oh-so-right. A fine night of drinking was had by all.