Philadelphia Weekly – 07.22.2009
Root Cocktail Competition
The artists behind Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, the Old City store/gallery/collective space, are probably best known for a highbrow inquiry into the relationship between art and commerce, served up alongside cool T-shirts and homemade soaps. But their new entry into the world of fine spirits, ROOT, offers the expected amount of rigor. The makers emphatically assert that the spirit, modeled off a colonial-era recipe and distilled from organic cane sugar, is “not Root Beer-flavored vodka or a sickly sweet liqueur.” Instead, this is the kind of quaff that shoots for the descriptors “brooding” or “complex.” Figure out whether it’s to your liking at the ROOT Cocktail Competition in the newish beer garden at Silk City. Local bartenders will face a panel of cocktail experts while competing for a $400 prize for the best preparation; everyone else can sample the stuff in cocktail form on the cheap. Dan Packel
Tues., July 28, 7-9pm. Pay as you go. Silk City, 435 Spring Garden St. 215.922.2600. artintheage.com
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