Cocktails and Glitter: July 2013

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Wine not?

Hurray! By the skin of our chinny chin chins we will manage to get in at least one Happy Hour this July! Tomorrow we will be checking out the new hip spot Viceroy! Viceroy is located on the corner of Devil's Triangle that was once home to Café Diem. Oh, Café Diem how we miss you... but not your bathrooms! We may get wild and crazy with a few live posts to our Facebook! Be sure to catch our review next week.

We had hoped Happy Hour would take place at the pop up tiki bar being held at Ipanema Café, but our tiki dreams of mai tai cocktails with fabulous garnishes and paper umbrellas were crushed when we realized it isn't happening during our traditional happy hour time, but from 10pm to 2am. Oh well. We do hope it is a success and the brilliant brains behind this brilliant idea will do it again...like between 4pm-7pm. We had even started planning our outfits, so sad, they were going to be tropics in the city chic.

This Sunday we had a double whammy of awesome- Book Club and a winery visit! Our friend who was hosting lives conveniently down the street from New Kent Winery. This is a beautiful gem of a winery in picturesque country setting. The tasting is typically $8 for a lovely sampling of 8 wines and a tour of the building. Our tasting fee was only $6, perhaps because we arrived after the last tour had begun. The staff are exceptionally knowledgeable, helpful and friendly. Although we didn't make the tour, we've both taken it before and we recommend it. Much of the wood used on the building is reclaimed lumber- be sure to check out the old railroad trusses that originally were in Shockoe Bottom. Many of the bricks are reclaimed and date back before the Civil War! The trip out there is worth it just for the building, but if you are there you should enjoy the wine as well. After the tasting, we shared a bottle of the wine to share and sat on the
beautiful wrap around porch and watched an afternoon summer rain shower. How southern can you get!?!

Cheers!

2 of the book club gals

joined us Sunday

Cheers!
K&H

P.S. Last week we blogged about the Purple Martin Festival which will be held at the 17th Street Farmers Market, please note the date has been changed to August 24, 2013.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

July and (maybe) August

Is there anything going on in July and August?

Summer is here and Cocktails and Glitter is busy as ever, doing non-C&G stuff so we seem to be a bit stumped for good blogging material.

Is it going to be this difficult in August, too?

Why have our creative juices stopped flowing in these hot summer months? (Yes, we are complaining that it is hot, since it finally got hot).

We haven't been to a festival in weeks! Hopefully our festival withdraw will be rectified this weekend by wandering some Richmond streets for the Richmond Mural Project Street Party, Saturday, July 27. Hopefully, seeing such cool art will give us a charge of energy to get crafty and artsy. The plus of this event is if you don't get out this weekend you can check it out any weekend because the art is forever!

Not to mention, it is almost August and we haven't even had ONE Happy Hour in July! Which will, clearly, be rectified before July ends! With new places opening almost daily and so many others re-opening with new inspired concepts we have some Happy Hour-ing to catch up on!

The festival circuit seems to slow a bit in the months of July and August. That being said the month of August may have a few goodies to offer.

August is the official month to celebrate Virginia Craft Beers and RVA offers several opportunities to celebrate VA Beers in cold, frosty style.

August 2, the Richmond Coliseum hosts the Virginia Beer Live! an indoor beer festival showcasing over 20 Virginia-based breweries!

August 3, get a little nerdy about nature and head to the 17th Street Farmers Market for the Purple Martin Festival.

August 8-11, Jazz music will fill the air at Maymont.

August 9-10, is the 8th Annual Filipino Festival at Our Lady of Lourdes Church on Woodman Rd.

August 10, the Jonny Z Festival will be taking place from noon to 5pm on Shields Avenue between Grove Avenue and Hanover Avenue. Another great chance to be creatively inspired at an event to celebrate art!

August 10, the Dragon Boats will be racing along the James River.

August 10-11, Tredegar American Civil War Center is the stage for Sound City RVA Bands & Brews, another new festival celebrating beer and music!

August 11, Carytown will be celebrating the quintessential summer fruit of watermelon at the 30th Annual Watermelon Festival. Be sure to sample all the watermelon inspired drinks and food offered by the Carytown restaurants!

August 17, the 22nd Down Home Family Reunion will be taking place at Abner Clay Park.

August 18, Beer and BBQ what more do you really need? The BBQ & Craft Beer Fest will be held at the 17th Street Farmers Market.

August 24, brings the bull, the Running of the Bulls that is! Intriguing but this event is outside of the city in Dinwiddie and the tickets are a bit pricey, but it is different so it may need to be witnessed.

So to answer the question "Is there anything going on in July and August?" the answer is a resounding YES and Cocktails and Glitter will be getting in on the fun and blogging all about it!

Cheers!
K&H

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Happy Hour, we love you!

What are the happiest hours of the day?

Sure there are plenty of different thoughts on this but for Cocktails and Glitter, 4:00pm to 7pm have a special little place in our heart! We built our friendship over Happy Hour and love the chance to Happy Hour with friends and family we don't see as often as we wish.

Whatever the reason or location, we always seem to have a fantastic time. On occasion we are blown away by a HH location and want to rave all about it and then there are times it isn't worth mentioning. Way back in January, while Happy Hour-ing at Xtras Café, we had the clever idea to rate each location. Our rating system is brilliantly called...

"Cocktails and Glitter's Extremely Sophisticated HH Rating System"

Each Happy Hour location has been given a rating of 0 out 5 martinis. 0-1-don't even bother, over 3-worth it and 5-LOVE IT we will be back and probably have already. Kate and Heather have each given a 0-5 rating which are then averaged together, for the final rating. Should there be a .75 we are rounding up and should there be a .25 we are rounding down.

Check out our Happy Hour tab for the criteria we use to rate each location, "Cocktails and Glitter's Extremely Sophisticated HH Rating System." Be sure to check out the Happy Hour tab every once in a while for future ratings and Happy Hour suggestions.

Here are the Happy Hour locations we've rated so far...

LOCATION	# of Martinis
Mint	3
Selba	4
Xtras	5
Brio Tuscan Grill	3
Mosic	2.5
The Hill Café	2
Sushi O	3.5
Blue Goat	2
Northside Grill	2
Savory Grain	3
Fat Dragon	4
Galley	2
Jorge’s Cantina	2
Nacho Mama’s	3
The Mill	4
Pearl Oyster Bar	4
Caliente	1
Deco Ristorante	4
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Hit us up on Facebook for suggestions for our next Happy Hour location and any feedback you have on the above.

Cheers!

K&H

P.S. We are working on a graphic to actually have a martini or maybe a martini glass with 0 to 5 olives! We are going to make this list a bit more sexy as soon as we learn graphics!!!!!!!

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

On Holiday

On Holiday!

Cocktails and Glitter is on holiday this week so no awesome post raving about all the things we love to rave about, but we will be back next Tuesday in full effect!