This year things were shaken up a little bit with a bit of a Choose Your Own Adventure for the start of the evening. I loved those books as a kid. Mertz chose Winberies and then turned to the directed page to discover that he’d be sitting alone drinking Anchor Christmas Ale for hours.
I chose the Mediterra start, and was joined by Celeste. We get talked into a bottle of wine by the server. It was probably not the best strategy for a pub crawl, but hey, we picked our action and couldn’t turn back and choose again, that would be cheating. We order some food and Lisa, Eman, Rita, Tamp, and Benny arrive and join our community table. Mediterra has really good food. Cheese plates, falafel, veggies in a tagine, and fall off the bone lamb shank all arrive and are enjoyed by the Mediterra crew.
Mertz receives a text message, and chooses to open it, revealing a photo of the food the Mediterra crew is eating. He storms over to Mediterra and finds the large masses of our crew, but only two beers on tap. It later turns out that Sophia, Russ, and some others actually were at Winberries, but couldn’t fight their way through the friendly Westminster Choir men to get to Mertz at the bar, and retreated to the dining room for Stop 1.
Stop number two was the Yankee Doodle Tap room. The only night of the year that this place is ever crowded is the night of the TDDoC Pub Crawl. Regardless of date, the stars and planets align in a way only the Astro people can explain, the Princeton Ski Club appears in the Tap Room at the exact moment the TDDoC crew arrives. This causes the normally slow service at the bar to come to a standstill, as the bartenders stand agape at the crowds demanding drinks.
I wrestle my way to the bar and while waiting for my next drink I talk to Benny. We discover that we’ve been walking by each other every day for years in Princeton but didn’t recognize each other without the Twelve Drinking Days of Christmas Goggles (TDDoCG, not to be confused with Google Glass, Apple Antennae, or Samsung Sombreos). Our crew continues to fight for the attention of the bartenders, and once we’ve pushed the Ski Club out and taken over 51% of the bar, it’s announced that it is time to move on.
After much lamentation and gnashing of teeth over the controversial closure of the Annex/Sotto/PrincetonSportsBar, we descend upon Triumph Brewing Company as Stop 3. They have magnanimously forgone the cover charge that has prevented the TDDoC from visiting in years, which we all toasted with a Winter Warmer beer. Some of us hang out in the lower bar, where the Espresso Martinis are better than those made upstairs, and others stay in the in-between, greeting all who pass on the stairs.
In 2012, the Alchemist & Barrister sent a sentry ahead to discover the time of our arrival and then closed the kitchen just minutes before our drunken souls arrived demanding all the pretzels and nachos in the land. This year we thwarted the spy sent by the A&B and arrived promptly at 11. There are people everywhere – on both sides of the alley, filling the garden terrace, and smothering the bar. Yo and Adrian have secured a table in the middle of the inner bar. Hot pretzels with horseradish mustard arrive in a steady stream, a generous gift from Dionysus, approving our twelve nights of merriment and spirits. Such a feast only tastes this good after a night of much drinking.
We are all enjoying our bounty of pretzels when I feel a tap on my shoulder. It is a boy insisting that I’m in his seat. I blink at him confused, and when he offers that I could keep the seat if I sat on his lap, I quickly vacated and retreated to the bar. Celeste is glaring at the boy as he boasts of his rudeness and before we know what has happened, she has bumped into him, dumping ice cold water on him and “accidentally” clocking him with her fist in her attempt to regain her balance. A huge cheer erupts!
And thus, the time to leave A&B has arrived. They are definitely going to send better scouts next year. I part company with Pods, Ska, Goettle, and Billy Bob, who are on a mission to the Ivy and Hoagie Haven, determined to make it into a 5 stop crawl. I watch them fade into the distance, their shouts echoing through the darkness.
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