DC Cocktail Week kicks off with new drinks at local bars, restaurants
Your Thanksgiving leftovers are put away, and you still have a few weeks to get your Christmas shopping done. It might be the perfect time to pour yourself a drink and relax. Better yet, have someone do it for you.
DC Cocktail Week is now on, and organizers said dozens of restaurants and bars across the D.C. region are offering specials and drinking events.
In Alexandria, specialty food market and restaurant Cheesetique has a spin on an American classic, apple pie and cheese, only with more booze. Cheesetique’s Appletini is served with a piece of 20-year-old cheddar. For DC Cocktail Week they are throwing in even more cheese, a side of Manchego cheese and warm olives.
“Beautiful salty olive mix, beautiful marinated flavors there, with what we call a young Manchego, which is the world’s most famous sheep milk cheese from Spain,” Cheesetique’s founder and “cheese lady” Jill Erber told WTOP.
Erber said this year marks Cheesetique’s 20th anniversary, and the first time the shop has participated in DC Cocktail Week. Before this year, Erber said she never considered Cheesetique part of the District’s cocktail scene.
“This is a very family focused neighborhood, and it’s a very sort of friends and visitors kind of neighborhood,” she said. “We get a lot less of that government focus here and much more of catering to our residents.”
Cheesetique isn’t the only establishment participating this year. Sister restaurant Corso Italian in Arlington, also run by Jill and her husband Jeff, is in the mix, too. Its DC Cocktail Week special is a choice of two autumnal spritz cocktails served with chanterelle arancini.
You can imbibe during DC Cocktail Week through Dec. 5 at any participating location.