patio opening with a shot of vodka

In the past month, I've been invited to two local Cleveland events and I haven't had a chance to catch you all up on those. If you follow me on Twitter (and some other peeps), you may have noticed a group of us helped "open" the Washington Place & Bistro's patio a few weeks back.

Scott invited the group for the grand opening back to the opening of the patio where we had a kick ass pig roast. I was too busy drinking and mingling and didn't snap any photos. However, I heart Cleveland and Suzanne did so check out out some of their photos of the delicious roast. I've been to Washington Place a few times since the opening including New Years Eve as well as Mother's day for my mom. My parents are always up to try new restaurants and she really wanted to stay at the Inn after I threw it out as an option. VERY bad but my dad quickly nixed that and also didn't believe me that they didn't serve all Italian food.

After I told him I made reservations for a restaurant in Little Italy, I believe his text back was something along the lines of "I don't do Italian." I explained it wasn't and he clearly didn't believe me because the next text was something like "looks like a good menu with pork and other fish choices. I'll go."

On a very different weekday night, I was invited with another fab group of bloggers to a CLE vodka tasting. That's right - a Crav vodka tasting. Brand new vodka available  made my Clevelanders. The group headed to Pier W (which I've never been to by the way because I feel I'm too young to go in there) for a private tasting with two stellar drinks.

Craving Ginger Rogers is AMAZING

Founder Tom Rini shared that developing a vodka was an idea he and his friends came up in college. And an idea that he couldn't get out of his head so voila - he created Crav vodka. He explained the high-quality distillery process which to me makes the vodka sip-able. Or easily drinking on the rocks without that burn taste going down your throat. (Remembering all those terrible lemon drop shots back in the day - what were we thinking!) Anyway, the fabulous mixologist mixed up two drinks and I heavily favored the Ginger Rogers because it was absolutely refreshing and both me and Alexa agreed these could get dangerous. So, so good! Drink includes Crav vodka, ginger & orange blossom infused syrup, prosecco and a twist of lime.

Tom explaining the distillery process

Crav is making its way to local Cleveland bars slowly but surely and is available in 50+ restaurants and bars like Bier Markt, Dragon Fly, Fahrenheit, Harry Buffalo, Sushi Rock and Barley House. I think it will be great in my dirty martini! You can also purchase it state liquor stores - just ask them to special order it for you if they don't have it in stock. 

Here's to drinking martinis on patios this summer!