Best Cocktail Event 2014 | Arizona Cocktail Week | People & Places | Phoenix
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Best Cocktail Event

Arizona Cocktail Week

Culinary events tend to fall into one of two categories. There are fun events that center on enjoying great food and drink and educational events from which you walk away with a new understanding about a food-related topic. Arizona Cocktail Week is the first event we've been to that does a flawless job of accomplishing both. This relatively new festival offers a week of cocktail-centric events ranging from booze-filled parties to seminars with some of the nation's top drink experts. The lineup this year was better than ever, and we're only expecting things to continue improving as the event continues to grow. In the span of just a few days, we managed to triple our knowledge of spirits and got a good grasp of what's going on in the national cocktail scene. The only thing we'd change for our plans for next year is to book a room at the host hotel; spirit tasting is no joke.

Best Mural Event

Paint PHX

We're all for adding color to Phoenix's largely beige landscape. Turns out, so is street artist Thomas "Breeze" Marcus. Breeze gathered similarly minded muralists to spend a weekend adding art to walls around Phoenix. In March, local and out-of-state creatives teamed up with businesses along Grand Avenue, Roosevelt Row, and Calle 16 to paint original pieces — with support in both paint and wall space from Calle 16's Barrio Cafe and The Hive, as well as artist JB Snyder's Fifth Street Paint Supply. Thanks to their combined efforts, new works went up all over the city. A couple of our favorites are La Muñeca's piece about families torn apart by deportations, at Dulcería Pico Rico, and a collaborative piece by Breeze, Dwayno Insano, and Vyal at Por Vida Gallery.

Best Gaming Event

ZapCon

For pinball and vintage arcade fiends, ZapCon is a little like Christmas. Except better. Why? Well, for starters, it's a weekend-long convention dedicated to throwback gaming. For the second year in a row, ZapCon rounded up long-lost titles and covetable consoles for a weekend of button-mashing and joystick-wielding. With a lounge dedicated to the Atari console, super-rare games such as Turkey Shoot, and classics like Zaxxon, there were plenty of reasons to geek out over the event. The many tournaments, movie screenings, and prevailing sense of giddiness? That was the bow on top.

Best Casino

Talking Stick Resort

Talk is cheap. But Talking Stick? Well that all depends on your relationship with lady luck. Located on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Reservation, this high-end hotel and casino is always humming with the sounds of slot machines, spilling poker chips and shouts suggest how each gambler's night is going. While many casino experiences can be defined with the words denial and depressing, Talking Stick manages to stay fresh, young, and surprisingly fun for a place that can make or break your personal piggy bank. With 24/7 access to more than 800 themed slot machines, over 50 tables for games like blackjack and Casino War, and the largest poker room in the state, getting your game on has never been so easy.

Best Place to Geek Out

Phoenix Comicon

It was another banner year for Phoenix's premier comics convention. Phoenix Comicon hit a new record number of attendees. The grand total? That'd be 77,818. Yup, nearly 80,000 people turned up at the 'con's 2014 edition. We'd say a large part of that is thanks to the event's superb people-watching, a boatload of celebrity appearances, and the chance to connect with fellow geeks. A few of our favorite costumes spotted were a Benedict Cumberbatch-style Sherlock Holmes, Strongbad, and Dark Helmet. But just as entertaining were the many nerd-centric celebs in attendance — including John Barrowman of Doctor Who and Arrow fame, the cast of the 1960s Batman TV show (Julie Newmar!), and Chris Claremont, who's responsible for some of the most iconic X-Men storylines of all time. We'll stop geeking out now.

Best Paranormal Convention

UFO Congress Radisson Fort McDowell Resort & Casino

Presented by local ufology think tank Open Minds, the UFO Congress at Fort McDowell is a massive five-day event, incorporating movie screenings, lectures, and entertainment, all centered on the idea that we are not alone. Though the congress is primarily concerned with extraterrestrials, its guests are treated to information on all sorts of paranormal concerns, including bigfoots, ghosts, interdimensional portals — you name it — and someone at the UFO Congress probably wants to talk to you about it. Bringing in big names like Coast to Coast AM's George Noory and Travel Channel host Aaron Sagers, the conference appeals to the speculative nature of ufology, but hard science about microbial extraterrestrial life from former NASA astrobiologist Richard Hoover demonstrates that not everyone there is concerned with "little green men." You won't encounter more interesting people — anywhere in the Valley.

Best Home Tour

Modern Phoenix

Every year, Modern Phoenix's home tour makes us see our Valley with new eyes. Organized by Alison King, the event opens buildings and homes that reveal elements of Phoenix's Midcentury Modern architecture that we wouldn't otherwise see. This year, for instance, the self-guided event took us through the consistently top-ranked Arcadia neighborhood, which stretches from Phoenix and into Scottsdale. Of particular note were residences designed by Al Beadle, one of which was undergoing massive renovation (that looked really promising), and one of the two homes ever designed by Paolo Soleri. Also eye-catching was a gem of a complex called Mockingbird Condominiums, located in Arcadia's garden apartment district.

Best Neighborhood

Arcadia Lite

No longer a neighborhood nicknamed with light derision, Arcadia Lite is owning it. Really — with signs, a neighborhood association and everything. Everything, that is, except the markedly higher home prices of the more established Arcadia proper, which lies to the west. In Arcadia Lite, you'll find homes built between the 1920s and 1950s with prices ranging from the mid-$200,000s on the low end and $500,000 on the higher side. Reasonable prices (compared to Arcadia's multimillion-dollar estates) along with restaurants, great shopping, large grassy lawns, and sprawling ranch homes all add up to home sweet home. Here we come.

Best Up-and-Coming Neighborhood

Garfield Historic District

Go back 20 years and you'd find only two reasons to visit downtown Phoenix: courtside seats and courthouse appearances. But now, thanks to an influx of academic organizations, arts and culture events, and local business, this urban forget-me-not is in full bloom. Hence the gentrification of historic Central Phoenix neighborhoods like Woodland, Roosevelt, and Coronado.

For homeowners who want to stay ahead of the real estate curve, there's no better buy than a house in the Garfield Historic District. This collection of early-20th-century cottages, bungalows, and period revival homes features houses being sold for as little as $60,000. Will it need a little TLC? Sure. But within walking distance to downtown hubs like Welcome Diner, Space 55 Theatre, Alwun House, and Roosevelt Row, these modest manors make for good investments.

Best Art at a Library

Camp Dreamtree at Scottsdale Public Library

Don't be fooled by the child-friendly nature of this fun-filled art installation at Scottsdale Public Library: Camp Dreamtree was not just for kids. Created by husband-and-wife artists Roy Wasson Valle and Koryn Woodward Wassoon, Camp Dreamtree was an interactive piece that allowed visitors to earn achievements by completing special tasks in each of the exhibition's four dreamhouses. The dreamhouses themselves were impressive, life-size wooden tent structures surrounded by plush trees that looked like they came straight from the pages of a Dr. Seuss book. With a colorful mural encompassing the space, Valle and Wasson created a universe apart. This fantastical world offered all of the excitement of summer camp without the mosquito bites.

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