Snow in Seattle and My Old Kentucky Home {Pope House Bourbon Lounge}

It's snowing in Seattle. This means a lot of things, but mostly it means pandamonium on the roads. Really, it's not very much snow... a couple of inches. Seattle can't handle the snow. In the four years I've lived here, I haven't figured out if it's the reaction people have, the actual way the area is laid out or the city's reaction that causes all the problems. Regardless of the reason, though, any snow in Seattle is an event.

Tomorrow will be a work from home day. We've learned that even if we can handle the drive in, chances are someone on the road can't. Why put yourself at risk? We came home a little early today. This proved to be a brilliant decision as we sat watching the parade of traffic routed off the viaduct into the city from the comfort of our sofa. About 8:30, B decided we should go to the roof and look at the snow. "It's 7 degrees outside" (with wind chill) was my reply. He asked if I wanted to walk to Black Bottle for a glass of wine. "It's 7 degrees outside" was my reply. He asked if I just wanted to take a walk. "It's 7 degrees outside!" was my reply. He asked again if I wanted to take a walk. I relented, dressed for a day of snowboarding on the North Pole and off we went. We were hardly out the door when he came up with another brilliant idea. "Let's go to the top of the Space Needle." Fingers numb, cheeks stinging, we fought our way down the street through the flurries of falling snow mixed with the snow from nearby rooftops being whipped in circles by the wind.

I honestly didn't think there was any way they would be open, but they were, so up we went. The poor elevator operator was bitter, but I don't blame him. I probably would have been too. Beautiful view, but it was freezing!

By the time we arrived home, we were ready for a drink to warm us up. Earlier in the evening, I noticed one word trending in my Twitter feed: bourbon. One tweet in particular from @jojolocal caught my attention about bourbon and hot apple cider. Done. I thought I had everything I needed to make it, but once I started digging around in my cabinets, I realized bourbon was pretty much the only ingredient I had. So, B and I did not have hot bourbon apple cider as planned, but we did have hot bourbon Turkish apple tea. It was pretty good! I'm still hoping the weather is such that we can journey out for the ingredients to make it properly tomorrow, but this wasn't a bad substitute.

The hot bourbon cider suggestion also sounded good because it reminded me of a highlight of last weekend's trip to Portland. Saturday night, we had plans to eat at H50. One of B's coworkers mentioned another place in Portland that we might want to try. Once I heard the name, I knew we'd be cancelling the H50 reservation and heading for Pope House Bourbon Lounge. Kentucky was clearly the theme of the weekend and Pope House fit perfectly.

Unfortunately, their website isn't updated, so I can't recall the exact drinks we ordered, but all were bourbon based and all were delicious.

The Mapple (the only drink name I remember)- Hot Apple Cider, bourbon,

Maple whipped cream and an apple

that bakes in the drink

For dinner we had their Country Fritters (fried puffs of cornbread, ham, and cheese served with grainy mustard), a basket of fries and we shared a Louisville Hot Brown (open faced Texas toast with herb-roasted turkey, parmesan mornay sauce, topped with tomato and sliced bacon). It was all fantastic! The only other Hot Brown I've ever eaten was prepared by B's mom, so they had a high bar to live up to. I like the way she does her tomatoes better, but this one was certainly delicious as well.

 We enjoyed the food, our wonderful craft cocktails and particularly enjoyed chatting with the bartender, Jenn. In addition to living up to our now high standards for nice people in Portland, she knows her drinks and had some great suggestions for bars and restaurants for us to try here in Seattle as well.

We spent longer than we intended to sitting at their beautiful bar chatting and eating. If we make another trip to Portland, Pope House is sure to be on our list for a return visit. It was the perfect end to our very Kentucky weekend. There is something very odd about B visiting Portland to get his Kentucky fix, but it was certainly successful.