Cocktail Weeks are getting more and more popular around the country as the craft cocktail revival barrels full steam ahead. Portland Cocktail Week is in its second year, and since it’s in my own back yard, I had to partake in as much of it as I possibly could, which is a lot.

The opening party was at Portland’s Union Station, which doesn’t sound particularly classy or fun, but it was both. Portland’s Amtrak train station is home to a fantastic jazz bar called Wilf’s, and the event featured some fantastic cocktails poured by some of the country’s top bartenders. My favorite of the night was a beautifully stirred cocktail called The Statesman from San Francisco bartender and Beefeater Gin Brand Ambassador Erick Castro. The drink combined Beefeater 24 (which I love), Green Chartreuse, Pear Brandy, and bitters, and was simply divine.

One of the stranger parties of Portland Cocktail Week was “Robots vs. Bartenders,” where drink-making robots were pitted against human bartenders in a competition to see who could make the best drinks. I quickly discovered just how serious the people who make cocktail-bots are … deadly serious. Ironically, most of the drinks at the party were unremarkable, except for one fantastic cocktail made by Misty Kalkofen, who mixed mezcal, Benedictine, Averna, dark syrup, and bitters with ground coffee beans on top—yum!

Portland has more strip clubs per capita than any other city in America, and so they fill the spaces that many cities’ dive bars fill.  As a result, it’s not uncommon for couples and groups to meet at strip clubs to have drinks and hang out.  Portland Cocktail Week embraced this fact with two parties at strip clubs. The first was a small bash with “The King of The Barrel Aged Cocktail”, Jeffrey Morgenthaler, behind the stick at Mary’s Club, one of Portland’s oldest strip clubs.  The second party was the closing party at Devil’s Point with Stripperoke, a uniquely Portland phenomenon where people get on stage to sing karaoke while strippers dance around them.

Portland Cocktail Week wasn’t all parties—there were some great seminars on all things cocktail. My favorite was one focused on taste and smell called Absolut Sensory Experience with Don Lee and Chris Patino. This seminar dove into exactly how much of what we think we are tasting actually comes from the aroma of what we are consuming.  Another great seminar was “Half Way to Bar Smarts,” a preview of the Bar Smarts program which tours around the country and educates bartenders. The Bar Smarts seminar featured Dale DeGroff, considered by many to be the guy who helped start the classic cocktail revival.

Portland Cocktail Week may not be the biggest of the regional cocktail weeks, but it was one of the most fun. I will definitely be back covering it next year.