Whet Your Whistle {at Whisler’s}

Cocktails for Every Season

Words Tanya White | Photos Baptiste Despois

Whisler’s has been delivering unique cocktail creations since tire shops dotted the corners of East Austin. The entire team at Whisler’s is consistently referred to as trendsetters, not followers, offering a unique beverage experience for every visitor time and time again.

Collaborative creativity leads the day at this Eastside staple. The focus is wholly on cocktails, where the team creates a seasonal menu four times a year and where no drinks are repeated or kept on due to popular demand. “From the beginning,” founder and owner Scranton Twohey says, “I wanted to rip all pretentiousness out of craft cocktails and curate an experience for customers.” The development of the drink menu is, and always has been, a collaboration across the entire team during a month-long process. Bartenders bring forward recipe ideas based on a theme; as a group, the recipes are refined and enhanced.

This season’s drink menu is a nod to the classics, as interpreted by each recipe contributor. Bed Head is a mustard seed mezcal cocktail with a wasabi shrub, honey lime, and soda. Its intense flavor profile that goes down smoothly leaves taste buds vibrating. How is the Bed Head a classic? It’s based on a 19th century painting by Toulouse-Lautrec called Le Lit (The Bed). The Fall of the Shape cocktail, a nod to the original Halloween movie, brings a surprising combination of mezcal and scotch together, adorned with a swoosh of edible coconut-flavored paint on the tall glass. Unique mezcal combinations can be found throughout the seasonal menu, taking drinkers far beyond the typical citrus-pairing that comes with agave-based spirits.

Tucked upstairs in Scranton’s former office space is a cozy room stocked with hundreds of mezcals that guests can select from a lineup. Laying claim as the first mezcal bar in Austin, maybe even the first in the State, Mezcalería Tobalá is a treasure of hundreds of mezcals, including items not available for retail, and even a few special bottles distilled just for Whisler’s. “This guy is a genius at mezcal,” Scranton touts Sean, who among many roles, manages the mezcalería.

“Our bar is populous; it is our duty behind the bar to give you the experience you want,” proclaims Will Schweigert, beverage director. “Our menu has items for ‘cocktail heads’ with things you can’t get anywhere else, and we can also make a tequila and soda, which every bartender will make without leaving anyone [feeling] embarrassed.”

“There’s a thing that makes a bar feel like a world class bar,” says Matt Wenger, GM. “It’s the vibe that transports visitors out of their day-to-day life. Everything we do is sincere. We want to play you the coolest music with the coolest drinks with incredible ingredients, and we just want you to enjoy your visit. This is our profession and our passion.”

Contact:
1816 E 6th St.
whislersatx.com