Happy Hours can be really inconvenient unless your job has a serious drinking culture and 40 hours a week just isn’t enough time to hang out with your co-workers. Most of us would rather take a breather, change clothes and arrange a ride before going out. Luckily, late night Happy Hours have become a trend. Edwin Mills goes one step further by offering a $3 Happy Hour from 4pm til closing on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The Happy Hour is also offered on Fridays from 4pm-7pm.
So what do you get for $3? Bottled domestic beers, well drinks, specialty martinis and a small selection of appetizers. There are ten different fruit-based martini cocktails. Our favorites were those mixed with real fruit juice – Strawberry, Lychee, Lemon-Berry Bliss, and Pomegranate. A few of the flavors, like Sour Apple and Juicy Watermelon use Puckers, so what you lose in fresh juice you gain in higher alcohol content.
The service at Edwin Mills is fantastic. Granted, I was there for a special press event, so we surely got some special attention. Nonetheless, you can’t fake friendliness, competence and charm. When I started joking around and photographing Jason, a bartender, he performed a special trick for us. He mixed up a cocktail and from the same shaker he poured a row of drinks, each a different bright color. One person suspected he put food coloring in the glasses, but I believe it had to do with varying weights and gravities of the liquers, kind of like a pousse-cafe, the multilayered drink you only order if you hate your bartender. The rainbow cocktails kind of tasted like popsicles.
Edwin Mills, the rebranded artist formerly known as Equator, is the quintessential old town Pasadena haunt with the ally entrance and traditional brick walls. The paintings that hang on those walls are astounding. They are portraits of beautiful women, but there is something vaguely demented about them. Bare bulbs hang from the high ceiling adding to the cozy atmosphere. It’s the perfect place to meet a friend for fruity cocktails.
Disclaimer: All food and drinks were comped.
