It’s All in the Name

It’s Saturday night, a little after 7 p.m. We’re leaning on Little Miss Whiskey’s purple sparkling counter-top, chatting up the bartender we have to ourselves. Save for that couple to our left, we’re the only ones in here. But likely not for long. Apparently this place gets packed “late night.” Katie asks for their special drink, a mason jar filled with a stiff mix of frozen iced tea vodka and peach schnapps. Patten opts for something Belgian. And I order a Duckrabbit Milk Stout: the only beer on the list who’s name fits in a place like this. After all, we’re here at Little Miss Whiskey’s Golden Dollar for one reason: its name…and I’m not going to order something generic.

I have only just learned of this bar, minutes earlier, from a friend of a friend. We had no intentions of visiting tonight, but the hour wait at Granville Moore’s encourages us otherwise. We’ll kill the hour drinking. Brilliant.

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There’s no sign on the exterior of Little Miss Whiskey’s—”Just look for the purple lights,” the host tells us, and sure enough, we see the white rowhouse on 11th and H Street NE, with purple flood lights illuminating its facade. Inside, I’m taken with the decorations: velvet wallpaper, golden chandeliers, Louis XVI-like mirrors, and black lights that flood the room in purple. We tour the second floor, the garden, the bathrooms. Our bartender tells us it’s been open since August, and we start thinking about all the nights we haven’t spent here. And then we take a more proactive approach: planning birthday parties, after-work happy hours, summer nights on the patio, where we’ll feast on burgers off their grill.

Thinking of, I’d like a snack. But the only food available tonight is a Jimmy Dean sausage sandwich. I ask the bartender if he’s kidding. “No, but you can’t have one now anyway. I only bring those out after 1 a.m., when you’re drunk.” I guess I’ll have to wait for mussels. In the meantime, we fill up on our bartender’s stories and dream about our next visit.

Photos by Patten Wood