Ya know, when Archie and Betty and Veronica and Jughead would get together at the malt shop for burgers and shakes, it was a different time, a more innocent time, as people like to say.
Few people realize, however, that the gang from Riverdale High was actually getting high, drinking hard milkshakes with enough kick to make their struggles with trigonometry seem to float away into the boozy ether.
Perhaps the rumors of Archie’s debauchery have been exaggerated (although Jughead was certainly “on” something), but diners at Grand Center’s new Kota Wood Fire Grill have been relishing a curiously extensive menu of hard milkshakes.
The warmer weather has been accompanied by an uptick in the thirst for such exotics as the Grand Flamingo (a strawberry shake with Stoli Vanil, Bacardi Dragon Berry and a strawberry flower); the Seattle Delight (a mocha caramel cappuccino shake with Frangelico, Baileys Irish Cream and espresso beans); the Caramel Apple Pie (a caramel shake with Stoli Vanil, apple liqueur and a slice of apple); the Root Beer Float (a traditional root-beer float with root-beer liqueur, root-beer vodka and a vanilla-cookie straw); the Blue Bubbles (a blueberry shake with Stoli Blueberi, Three Olives bubble-gum vodka and blueberries dusted in powdered sugar); the Thin Mint (a chocolate shake with Baileys Irish Cream Mint Chocolate, Godiva Milk Chocolate Liqueur, a hard-shell chocolate rim and a Girl Scout Thin Mint cookie); the Dreamsicle (a vanilla shake with Licor 43, Grand Marnier and candied-orange pills); and the Caribbean (a piña colada shake with coconut rum, crème de banana liqueur and toasted coconut on the rim).
Kota bartender Danica Babb reported that the grill’s barkeeps are encouraged to invent their own custom milkshakes, too. Her fruity concoction, the Plum Nutty Shake, sounds like a hard smoothie – it’s a cherry shake with Pearl plum vodka and crushed walnuts.
– Byron Kerman
This article appears in Mar 1-31, 2010.