Well Fed Network

Posted by Donavan on The Spirit World.

Out of Penn you can catch the Local 1 (sound familiar? actually the Express train works just as well, but it lacks the beer reference, for now) down to Christopher Street and Sheridan Square. From there its only a couple of blocks to The Blind Tiger (281 Bleecker, New York, NY, 212-462-4682). Just walk down 7th Ave and hang a left at Bleeker.

My beer and whiskey writing colleague Rich had already been to The Blind Tiger and written about it for Catch & Release. He described the place wonderfully, but I had pictured a drinking space that was just a little bit bigger. It was just the one room with the bar occupying the northeast quarter of the floorplan.

Right when I walked in I thought I smelled varnish or fresh paint. Then I remembered Rich had said something about this being the new location. Just how new? I wondered. The place has a history and you can read their version on their web site.

The history that’s in my head is the one recorded in Kinky Friedman’s novel Kill Two Birds and Get Stoned. In Friedman’s book the protagonist, a blocked writer named Walter Snow hooks up with the sexy and whacky Clyde Potts (and a cast of other quirky characters) to do battle with a St*rbucks that has displaced Walter’s neighborhood bar. In my world Walter Snow’s local was the original Blind Tiger on Tenth and Hudson. Writing this novel was Kinky’s way to get back at the landlord who kicked the Blind Tiger out and to exact some revenge on St*rbucks for displacing institutions which define the “soul of New York.”

All this is running through my head when I walk into the Blind Tiger and stare at the chalk board menu of beers then double checking with my list then double taking, then realizing that my printed list is woefully inaccurate. I decide to quench my thirst with a glass of Slyfox Saison and Ray goes for the cask conditioned Defiant Porter. The porter is in a gravity cask and we get a good show when the bartender starts whacking at the bung on top of the cask with a rubber mallet.

We start out at one of the tall tables near the door because the bar is packed. It’s only five o’clock, but then again, the place isn’t that large. My Slyfox Saison disappears quickly while I study the chalk board menu for what is going to be my next beer.