Bars and Nightlife

There are other restaurants in town with longer wine lists. But they don’t have what makes Cowboy Ciao so special to us — wine flights.

What a wonderful concept — giving us three different wines, at three-ounce pours each, for one fixed price. It allows us to sample and savor fine new wines we might never have tried otherwise.

The presentation is clever — a heavy wooden board carved with three nooks for the wineglasses, and three nooks for the mini carafes. A long strip of paper attached to the board with a clip identifies our drinks, describing what we’re drinking.

Six choices on white wine trios are offered, and seven choices on red trios. These aren’t your everyday wines, either, but cutting-edge tempters like a ’98 Ken Wright Chardonnay Dijon 76 clone from Oregon and a ’98 Penfolds shiraz/cabernet blend from Koonunga Vineyard in Australia.

We love to lift a glass — or three — at Cowboy Ciao.

Yeah, yeah — we know what you’re thinking. Rum, lime juice, a spoonful of sugar (powdered, of course) and strawberries — a daiquiri is a daiquiri is a daiquiri. So what’s so special about the Improv version?

Rim shot — the consistency! The Improv has mastered the perfectly blended daiquiri — not too fruity, not too bland, and, most important, not too slushy. And while it’s not traditional, and it’s certainly not necessary, we also relish the whipped cream topping, itself topped with a maraschino cherry, skewered by a tiny sword.

The Improv? Take its daiquiri, please.

Call us purists, but a CD jukebox is about as sterile as the jewel case the CDs come in. Who wants the same sound you can get in your car stereo or home entertainment center when you’re in a bar? No, you want a layer of grime and filth on your music to go with the beer and cigarette surroundings.

And that’s just what the Emerald Lounge’s old war-horse provides: old, battered 45s teeming with distortion and surface noise. Even rappers factor in vinyl pops and clicks — crackles spell comfort. While a 45 jukebox has fewer selections than a CD, you still can’t beat a machine that has Aretha, George Jones and Tommy James and the Shondells all jamming its gears.

Say, isn’t that Enrique Iglesias? No, but if you manage to squeeze through the crowded, man-packed dance floor for a closer look, he’ll probably be flattered to know that you thought so. Looking for the gay Mexican cowboy of your dreams? No? Well, Paco Paco dance club is probably the best place to start looking, anyway.

The cramped, strobe-lighted dance floor is always well-stocked with buff, sweaty bodies pulsating to Latin techno music. A full-length mirror runs the length of one wall for those narcissistic dancers who like to watch. It’s a cozy, dark venue, mostly Latino, with a smattering of white boys for you closet Anglo lovers.

The music is popular dance remix, plenty of Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin, with some salsa and merengue thrown in for tradition. Paco Paco is the best the Valley has to offer in gay Latino culture, and also a great place for women who like to dance and be left alone.

Once one of Phoenix’s better kept secrets (there’s still no exterior signage), Amsterdam is not only the city’s swankiest gay boîte, but one of its most elegant, to boot.

Filled with marble, gilt statuary and a massive carved wooden bar over which pass some truly serious martinis, its charms now play host to such an ever-widening spectrum of scenesters that on some nights, the uninitiated may well wonder who’s gay and who’s not. Which, as it turns out, just adds to the fun.

Tequila’s not just for killing brain cells and sorrows anymore — premium tequilas today are good enough for respectable sipping and have many of the nuances and personalities of fine wine. There are three grades — fresh-from-the-still blanco, reposado aged in oak two months to a year, and añejo aged more than a year — and Via DeLosantos offers them all. It has almost 200 labels, including several rated best by Bon Appétit. A sign attached to the massive tequila bottle display — housed behind chicken-wire fencing, presumably for the sipper’s safety — boasts that the restaurant has 193 types, including Baja rose strawberry, tarantula citrus and twisted Sheila. Tequila shots are served in clever, fluted glasses that make slamming seem almost sophisticated. At $3 to $25 a shot, getting buzzed can be a bargain, or a bust.

What makes a superlative bartender? Good conversation? Nah, anything that delays putting a drink in your gullet is about as welcome as a speed bump. But in dealing with teeming masses of demanding patrons and egotistical musicians, it does help to have a seasoned grasp of the English language and a penchant for caustic rejoinders. One person blessed with both is Nita’s Hideaway barman Ridgely Fitzsimmons, or Ridgely, as he’s known to all who love and fear his acerbic tongue.

Ridgely’s garnered something close to legend status among East Valley barflies for serving searing barbs in equal proportion to booze. One infamous tale even has him shooting down the free-drink requests of a couple local “rock star” girlfriends with the admonition that performing oral favors on the talent didn’t entitle them to complimentary libations.

Ah, yes, Oscar Wilde couldn’t have said it any better himself!

Pool tables, beer bottles and mullets.

Individually, not much. But toss them together in a storefront cocktail lounge and you’ve got sapphic synergy that just won’t quit.

Taking its name from a Billie Holiday lyric, Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness has been the Valley’s premier women’s bar since long before anyone heard of lesbian-come-lately Anne Heche. And if history is any indication, Biz will be popular long after that dizzy fence-straddler has publicly exploited yet another alternative lifestyle.

Readers’ Choice: Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness