Joe Downtown: Drinks all around — Velveteen Rabbit earns accolades, Atomic hosts speakeasy party

By Joe Schoenmann

Friday, Sept. 13, 2013 | 10:50 a.m.

Beers, new fall drinks and a temporary speakeasy top this week’s Downtown Drinking News.

First up is a fall drink menu at the Velveteen Rabbit, which in just three short months has earned praise for one of its drinks on the CNN.com blog, Eatocracy.

The new drinks were served for the first time Thursday night. They include the divinely named God’s Gift; an apparent homage to David Bowie, Spaceship; and Cabin In Derry, a maybe reference to Stephen King’s fictional town featured in that frightening movie/book, “It.”

Then, Tuesday night another Eatocracy honoree, the Atomic lounge, 917 Fremont St., is holding its first speakeasy party, accessible only if you know the password to be whispered at the side door. (See end of this story for the password.)

They’re calling the party the Trinity Test, with Trinity referring to the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear device.

Lights and signage at the bar will be turned off and the windows will be boarded up; the ancient jukebox inside will be playing music from the '20s to the '60s. Two guest mixologists, George Sproule and Bryant Jane, have put together a menu for the night reminiscent of the Prohibition era. You might remember Sproule as one of the first bartenders at the Downtown Cocktail Room, or for the his dead-on impressions of “The Simpsons” Mayor Quimby.

Attendees are encouraged to dress in Prohibition-era garb.

If that’s not enough, on Sept. 21, some 170 craft beers from more than 50 local and regional breweries will be featured at the Downtown Brew Festival in the outdoor Clark County Amphitheater. Food and live music will be part of the brew-haha that spans four hours, 6 p.m. (5 p.m. for VIP ticketholders) to 10 p.m. Tickets range from $20 (designated driver) to $65 (VIP pavilion).

The festival is billed as a preview of entries into the Great American Beer Festival.

After the festival ends, the party will move to Fremont East, where those with wristbands will get drinks at half-price at Insert Coins, 512 Fremont St.

(The speakeasy password is: Operation Sunbeam, named after the last series of nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site in 1962.)

Joe Schoenmann doesn’t just cover downtown; he lives and works there. Schoenmann is Greenspun Media Group’s embedded downtown journalist, working from an office in the Emergency Arts building.