Called to the bar

File under: drink, nightlife, Wellington

Regular readers of The Wellingtonista may have noticed that it's been fairly quiet over there for a while, and wondered what may have been keeping them away from blogging. It's possible that they were just enjoying the sunshine, but it's clear now that at least one of their number has been kept very busy putting a lot of diligent research into the subject of cheap drunks drinks in Wellington. Jo has risked life and liver to seek out options for bargain-basement boozers, including the well-known (at least to readers of Kate's Thirsty Thursdays) free bubbles for "ladies" at Blend on Thursdays, free wine-tastings at Concrete on Wednesdays, two-for-one specials at Chow, and ladies' night at Mermaids. Kate has been conducting her own intrepid research into parsimonious plonk, a dangerous quest that has led her into the wilderness of Sports Cafe and the depths of Syn.

For the less impecunious imbiber, The Sifter recounts some Fernet- and herradura- fueled exploits at Motel, Chow and Boulot. It must have been a good night, because he needs his drinking buddy Stephen of Drinks-After-Work to complete the picture. Stephen takes time out to muse about the increasingly bridge and tunnel character of Courtenay Place, and we discuss the options for civilised drinking away from the white boots and boy racers of the main drag.

Drinks-After-Work has also been promising local bar reviews, but without much progress so far. Perhaps it could finally replace the looked-promising-but-laughably-out-of-date World's Best Bars site, which not only thinks that Q still exists, but believes that Jet is the "bar of the moment"! Maybe the problem with bar reviews is that the more thorough the research, the lower the productivity.

But the more I think of it, the more this sounds like a worthwhile and civic-minded project. Perhaps I could start by converting my mystery bar posts (numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 - you're getting warm, Stephen!) into reviews, but I think the task is too onerous for one man and his already overworked liver. So here's a challenge to all the bibulous bloggers of Wellington: post bar reviews on your blog for our information, delectation and intoxication. On the other hand, this work may be of such importance that it deserves a brand new collaborative blog of its own. What do you think?