The Last Swim of the Saltwater Pralines

A few years ago, lisekatevans, worldbshiny, meowtima, and I were out at a restaurant--Margie's Candies, I think--and over conversation I mentioned that I was always confused by the name praline for food since it sounded to me like it was referring to some kind of fish. lisekatevans thought it was hilarious and talked about "saltwater pralines" and "freshwater pralines," and when we said we should do this dinner thing again, we named our group chat "Saltwater Pralines" and met up at least once every month-to-month-and-a-half for dinner until the Plague Years began and ruined all meetups.

I looked through my archives to try to find if I'd written about it, but surprisingly I can't find anything.

Anyway, sometime in late 2019 we went to a tiki bar called Three Dots and a Dash and had a lovely time, and it was suggested that we get back together there on Talk Like a Pirate Day, in September 2020, to buy the $350 Port Royale, a giant pirate ship filled with rum, and drink it all. Well, you know what happened in 2020, and in 2021 (plus Laila), but now that meowtima has accepted a new job and is moving away from our fair city, we didn't have any more time to wait until September 2019, so yesterday we assembled once again.

After walking down the pedestrianized Clark Street, filled with pop-out tables set up on the street, and turned two corners to enter the alleyway leading down to to the bar. When I got to the table, it was dominated by a giant bowl in the middle with five straws poked into it, so I took a few sips and ordered an Old Fashioned, the signature drink of Chicago. But at a tiki bar, well:

Those are peanut-dusted banana chips in the background. I had a papaya salad and spring rolls to go with them.

The giant drink ran out shortly after I arrived, so we decided to order another one. We briefly discussed getting the pirate ship, but it was instead decided to unleash the kraken--the "Shotstapus," with five shots of 151 demerara rum mixed with fijian rum and fruit juice. Shot is a misnomer since each glass was maybe 2.5 shot's worth of drink and we all sipped them because we didn't want to die, but honestly they were better for sipping anyway. The point of a shot is to get drunk faster and at this point it was only 8:30 p.m., so we sipped our drinks, sipped our shots, talked about Pittsburgh, I talked about Laila, worldbshiny talked about her job, and we had a lovely time. At the end of the night, the discussion turned to dessert, and meowtima cast the (weighted) deciding vote for Portillo's so that was our next destination. Most people got milkshakes but I just got fries, since I didn't really want to overload my stomach. At this point it was only 9 p.m., and lisekatevans suggested we go to a place she knew called the Drifter. We walked a few blocks, leaving the heavily-populated Clark Street area and walking through a couple empty streets, before we found a place called the Green Door Tavern. lisekatevans led us through the bar, down the back stairs to the restrooms, and opened a hidden panel in the wall to lead us into the Drifter, a genuine speakeasy still in operation today.

The menu is printed on Tarot cards:

That was the drink I got, and I sat and drank it in the dim light while the bar slowly filled up, the waitress snuck behind me to open the curtains, and a burlesque performer came out and began her act. I have no comment on it, since my back was to her, other than that the music drowned out her singing, which was a shame since it was "Ain't That a Kick in the Head" which sticks in my memory thanks to playing Fallout: New Vegas.

When she was done, the waitress closed the curtain--manually--and at that point it was about 10:30 p.m., so we closed our tab, walked up to the L, and went home. I don't know if this will happen again, since even though I know meowtima will come back to visit we'll all have to have free schedules during that time, but I'm glad we can end the Saltwater Pralines on a bang.