In our post-Ziggy Stardust age, when chicks sport racing stripes and dudes don kilts, when even real men know from microdermabrasion and real women from drill bits, cocktails are one of the last clear markers of gender in America. Guys still balk at the coy fruit gals still gravitate toward while the gals recoil, in turn, from anything that might facilitate the growth of chest hair. And bartenders still honor, even celebrate, that divide by creating drinks that may as well be labeled His and Hers. Of course, some, like the mai tai, is so seductive in its dapper smoothness or fruity loveliness that even those of you who style yourselves the ultimate girly-girls or man’s men, respectively, might find yourselves tempted by it.  I discovered a fruity mai tai loaded with Bacardi 151 rum at The Brickyard in Lakewood.  Day bartender Rosie Allen serves up a mean mai tai with Myers’s rum, all the usual fruit suspects and a bunch of 151.  Pow!  Beginning Saturday, Dec. 9, the Brickyard starts its dart tourneys and takes the joint to a 21 and older status.  Nice!



[The Brickyard Bar & Grill, 6008 Mt. Tahoma Dr. S.W., Lakewood, 253.584.1775]