How loyal are you to your friends?

Guess what?

We don’t care because whatever the answer is, we’re way better to our friends than you.

Why?

It all started on a dark and stormy night… Matty and I were having some fun listening to old punk songs, and inspired by recent adventures, getting anesthetized by Martinis. Having drank our way across my bar from Aviation to Hendrick’s and almost making it to Zuidam, we were pre-gaming for a night out at D‘or. If I was going to spend the night in Amalia’s basement being fed things like Tahitian Vanilla Rose Petal Eau De Vie I was going in there well-fortified for the experience. Hey, it was our friend Troy’s 30th Birthday.

As we trudge out in the rain with Tecate’s in hand, Matty gets a text from our host, saying the party’s moved to THE HILL. I’ll admit it, with little deliberation, we were ready to abandon ship with Troy’s bottle of Rhum Clement VSOP and do something reasonable on a rare Friday night off. Then he gets the text. “Dude, I NEED you to get over here.” Matty’s got that Irish loyalty- like that crazy guy in Braveheart. He wasn’t abandoning our friend on his birthday, and against better judgment, I wasn’t bailing on the team, either.

First and foremost, I give credit to whatever faith healers and clergy men it took to exorcize the puke & stale chocolate stench that was Dip, The Hill’s previous occupant. All I smelled when we broke through the huddle of smokers desperately trying the share the 4 ½ feet of awning space that wasn’t taken by drunk people necking like its junior prom at the end of the world was fresh paint- and the desperation of 200 people trying to figure out if they were cool for being there.

We were there to party with a salty crew of seasoned bartenders and nightlife pros who’ve all seen worse, so we didn’t care and neither did they. The tequila was flying, booze was flowing, and friends were behind the bar. It coulda been a Klan rally and we’d have been comfortable at the end of the bar.

The joint itself looks like a dentist’s office and Best Buy fucked to produce a baby that inexplicably had a bar in it. Soothing earthtones abound in the soaring space from floor to 24 ft ceiling. A battery of flatscreens stretches the length of the bar and then scatter about the rest of the space. They were mercifully off. It actually made the place look fairly classy for an upscale sports lounge that I feel guilty calling the brainchild of MTV’s own blonde on blonde. Can an idea that bad be called a brainchild? A bottle of Hendrick’s to the first person to tackle that thesis in their comments.

I can’t slam the place for existing when it’s location is taken into account. Two blocks south undoubtably there are two women trying very desperately to convince themselves they’re still girls by dancing on the bar and rubbing their breasts together in Vertigo while the nine people in the lounge are doing their very best to pretend like this is awesome- just in case somebody sees them. Forever 21 is only a store, ladies. There is no magic in those frisky cotton blends. They’re sewed by kids in Bangladesh like everything else. Yup, welcome to Murray Hill: The Mecca of stunted growth for the post-college, pre-marriage middle managers of NYC.

The Hill is kinda like Tonic with a fresh coat of reality TV celeb buzz and furniture whose Scotchgarding hasn’t been thoroughly tested yet. I wasn’t gonna call it Long-Island-Classy until I got handed a giant plastic old fashioned glass full of whiskey. At that point, I had no choice.

I wish there were more to say about the place. I can’t say the owners were present for this semi-soft open. The few natural blondes (both genders) that were there all looked like one half or the other of “Spiedy.” To their credit, the décor’s neutrality actually gives the place a look that says, “We know this’ll be something else within the year, so why waste time and money on something that’ll be difficult to paint over?” It’s great that somebody involved in the project gets to seem savvy, but I don’t get a whole lot to write about. They’ve got Compass Box Scotch. Nice surprise, there. The upstairs lounge area fooled the crowd into thinking it was VIP as they all crammed the ground floor. That was funny.

For the record, Troy is the greatest drunk since Dudley Moore.

Soaking in the MMM-tsss, MMM-tsss of generic lounge music from 1999, I got to thinking about the night started: With enough gin to make this experience oddly pleasurable and a call from a friend in need of comrades to party with- regardless of where the party was. So to commemorate the occasion I offer you, our friends, a cocktail recipe fit for the king of The Hill. And Friday night, standing out amongst the sea of distressed Tees, that guy was wearing a shirt and tie that whose color could only be described as Jerry Garcia Salmon.

The Battle of Troy Martini

2 oz. Hendrick’s Gin
¼ oz. French Vermouth
2 dashes Lemon Bitters
Creole Shrubb Liqueur

^{Thoroughly stir all ingredients with ice in a glass rinsed with Shrubb.
Strain into a plastic glass, garnish with a Bud Light cap filled with glitter from an Ed Hardy shirt.
Chase each sip with a tequila shot.
Repeat until turning thirty is a distant and hazy memory.}