Logo courtesy of Uniontown Bar & Grill

Vienna Inn: releasing thousands of dogs a month.

As if reading a blog for local information weren't enough, here's more evidence that we live in a new media world: Old news never dies and gets turned into fish wrap. It just gets picked up by some "discovery" bot and becomes "news" all over again. Case in point: Two previously published nuggets sneaked into the Top 5 last week.

I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that Y&H broke virtually no news last week on the blog.

1. GQ Drinks in D.C. (*)
2. R.J. Cooper to Open an Alleyway, All Tasting Menu Restaurant in Mount Vernon Square
3. Lobster Truck Has 'Em Hooked Already
4. The Vienna Inn: Defining the Bar Food Genre
5. 'Top Chef' All Stars: Washing the Bad Taste of D.C. Out of Its Mouth?

* A certain light-drinking Budweiser beer was, once again, a popular item among readers, but we’ve stopped counting it.

Bon Appétit's August issue includes a breakdown of the "Top 10 Best New Cocktail Bars" in America, and right there at the bottom of the page is the Brown brothers' punk-like exercise in personalized drinking, The Passenger, as well as its nerdy, science-obsessed sibling, the Columbia Room.

Author Andrew Knowlton wrote this about Tom and Derek Brown's operation next to the Convention Center:

One could happily spend an evening ensconced in the up-front booths, sipping a Moscow Mule at brothers Derek and Tom Brown's Chinatown-area bar. But in terms of speakeasy appeal, you can't beat the reservation-only Columbia Room in the back.

Y&H sends out congratulations to the Brown brothers for the well-deserved honor. You can read the full list of honorees here.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

POV is the only D.C. lounge/bar/pub/mega-club/watering hole named as a finalist this year for the Nightclub & Bar Awards. The uber-posh rooftop lounge at the W Hotel earned a nomination in the — who'd a guessed it? — Hotel Bar category.

Now perhaps all this means something in your world. To be honest, until yesterday I had never heard of Nightclub & Bar, the trade magazine behind the awards. My lack of familiarity with publication, of course, says absolutely nothing.

The magazine does host the massive Nightclub & Bar Convention and Trade Show, which attracts thousands to Las Vegas and must be, I'd guess, the largest gathering of professional drink-slingers on Earth. (Hmm, does the show reduce its chosen trade to a series of snooze-inducing panels like most conventions do, thereby rendering drinking as boring as, say, computer chip technology?) The mag, in other words, seems to have some cred.

I have to admit, though, that its credibility took a hit when the magazine didn't include Birch & Barley/ChurchKey among the finalists for Beer Bar of the Year. Seriously, how on earth could you overlook the place with 500-plus beers available (and 50-plus on draft), courtesy of the single-biggest beer geek I know?And that doesn't even take into consideration that B&B/CK goes one step further and pairs beer with food.

Maybe the place is too young? Well, B&B/CK opened in October; POV opened in July. Is anyone going to argue that three months makes all the difference?

Y&H Nation, what's your thought on Birch & Barley/ChurchKey and the Nightclub & Bar Awards? Slight or oversight? Any other slights you see on the list (which is published after the jump)?

By the way, Frederick's Champion Billiards Sports Café earned a nod in the Sports Bar of the Year category. All winners will be announced next month.

NIGHTCLUB CATEGORY FINALISTS

Mega-Club of the Year

* Pacha NYC, New York

* Rain, Las Vegas

* Stingaree, San Diego

* XS, Las Vegas

New Club of the Year

* Infusion Lounge, San Francisco

* Playhouse Hollywood, Los Angeles

* Voyeur, West Hollywood

* XS, Las Vegas

Nightclub of the Year

* The Avalon Hollywood, Los Angeles

* Lavo, Las Vegas

* Opera, Atlanta

* Tao, Las Vegas

* Tryst, Las Vegas

Ongoing Promotion of the Year

* Pacha NYC, New York – Toolroom Knights

* Rain, Las Vegas — Paul Oakenfold's Perfecto Vegas

* Hard Rock, Las Vegas – Rehab

* Tao, Las Vegas – Worship Thursdays

Resident DJ

* Danny Tenaglia – Pacha NYC, New York

* Paul Oakenfold – Rain, Las Vegas

* Roonie G – Opera, Atlanta

* Z-Trip – Rain, Las Vegas

Single Promotion of the Year

* Four Year Anniversary – Tao, Las Vegas

* Love Festival – Palms, Las Vegas

* Midsummer Night’s Dream – Palms, Las Vegas

* The Young & The Restless – Opera, Atlanta

Ultra-Lounge of the Year

* 32° Degrees Lux Lounge, Philadelphia

* Blush Boutique Lounge, Las Vegas

* Halo, Atlanta

* Pink Monkey, Chicago

BAR CATEGORY FINALISTS

Bartender of the Year (category sponsored by Absolut Vodka)

* Charles Joly – The Drawing Room, Chicago

* Columbine Quillen — The Blacksmith Restaurant, Bar, and Lounge, Bend, Ore.

* H. Joseph Ehrmann – Elixir, San Francisco

* Russell Davis – Peche, Austin

Beer Bar of the Year

* Eulogy Belgian Tavern, Philadelphia

* Gritty McDuff’s, Portland, Maine

* Tapwerks Ale House & Café, Oklahoma City

* Willimantic Brewing Company, Willimantic, Conn.

Cocktail Lounge of the Year (category sponsored by Absolut Vodka)

* 675 Bar, New York

* The Drawing Room, Chicago

* Frankie’s Tiki Room, Las Vegas

* The Naga Cocktail Lounge, Bellevue, Wash.

Hotel Bar

* 207, Hard Rock Hotel, San Diego

* BOND Restaurant & Lounge, The Langham, Boston

* Hudson Bar, Hudson Hotel, New York

* POV, W Hotel, Washington, DC

Small Wonder Bar of the Year

* The Empty Glass, Charleston, West Virginia

* In Between, Honolulu

* Manifesto, Kansas City

* Qua Bottle Lounge, Austin

Sports Bar of the Year

* Blondie’s Sports Bar & Grill, Las Vegas

* Champion Billiards Sports Café, Frederick, Md.

* Connolly’s Sports Bar & Grill, Royal Palm Beach, Fla.

* Jerome Bettis Grill 36, Pittsburgh

Wine Bar of the Year

* Ivy Ultra Lounge and Wine Bar, San Diego

* Flute Midtown, New York

* Mercy Wine Bar, Dallas

* Zebra’s Bistro & Wine Bar, Medfield, Mass.

Photo courtesy of the W Hotel

As if you needed any more proof that we're mired in a recession, just check out the top posts from this week: They're focused on good, old-fashioned drinkin'. Here's to better times, y'all...

In the meantime, the most-read posts from the week:

1. Women of Craft Beer: A Quick List (*)
2. Paste Names Best 25 American Breweries
3. The Passenger Set to Open Tomorrow
4. D.C. Dish Hall of Fame Leaderboard: Same As It Ever Was
5. Yaku to Close and Turn into a Rock 'n' Roll/Sushi Concept

* A certain light-drinking Budweiser beer was, once again, the most-read item, but we've stopped counting it.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Unlike what was reported over at Brand X, the Passenger plans to open to the public tomorrow in the former bar/cafe space at the Warehouse Theater on Seventh Street NW, even though some of the bar will not be complete.

Co-owner Derek Brown says that most of the space will be ready and that 90 percent of the wines will be available by 5 p.m. tomorrow, when the Passenger officially opens its doors.  The most prominent opening-day omission will be the "dining-car," a sort of replica antique train car that will occupy the back part of the space. The dining car should be available by this weekend, says Brown, who's opening the bar with his older brother, Tom Brown, and business partner Paul Ruppert.

The Columbia Room, the exclusive "cocktail club and laboratory" where Derek Brown will offer an omakase-like selection of drinks, will not be finished, either. It, in fact, will not be available until next year.

All in all, Derek Brown says the Passenger is about 70 percent complete, give or take a few percentage points.

"We're just in the mood to swing the doors open and see how people like it," Derek Brown tells Y&H. "I've made it happen with less."

You can read through the opening-day beer and wine menus here.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Tom and Derek Brown have pour, mixed, and stirred drinks at some of the best spots in the District: Komi, Citronelle, Palena, the Gibson, Corduroy, and Cork. But when the brothers decided to open their own joint, The Passenger, they didn't want anything as formal as their former places of employment.

"I wanted a place where I could drink wine and play Motörhead," says Derek Brown, the younger of the two siblings who grew up in Olney. "I've grown in my tastes. I haven't grown in my want for a laid-back environment."

True to their word, the brothers Brown are building a watering hole high on quirkiness — and low on pretension. It begins with the very building in which the Passenger is housed: the former bar/cafe space at the Warehouse at 1021 7th St. NW.  The space, co-owned by Paul Ruppert (who's also a partner in the Passenger), dates back to 1890 and once was home to Ruppert Hardware, a fixture in D.C. for nearly 100 years.

The partners plan to let the building speak on its own terms. The old hardwood floor, much of which dates back to the late 19th century, will remain as is. The distressed concrete and exposed brick walls will go untouched, too. Even the old hunter-green booths, which date back to God knows when, will stay in place.

The main additions are few, but significant. The partners have built booths in the front window nooks, which will be perfect for larger parties. They have also redesigned the bar. But the biggest change will occur in the least-trafficked area of the place — at the back, near the entrance to the Warehouse theater itself. In that space, the guys have hired architect Brie Husted to design a room to look like an antique dining-car, complete with arched ceilings, hardwood floors, and old mirrors to look like windows.

So why a dining car?

Patrons "don't hang out here," says Tom Brown about the back of the bar. "We wanted to create something interesting..."

"More alluring," Derek Brown chimes in.

"...to entice people back here," Tom Brown finishes his sentence.

As far as the beverages, the brothers are striving for the personal on all fronts. By that, I mean that the brothers are, for example, stocking their wine list with a few offbeat labels, from a few off-the-beaten-track places, such as the L. Mawby Blanc de Blanc sparkling wine from Michigan or the Chateau Musar Cinsault rosé from Lebanon.  In all, there will be 25 wines available by the glass, ranging in price from $5 to $15.

In terms of cocktails, for which the brothers have earned a reputation for mixing the most inventive in town, the siblings plan to just wing it. They will not offer a cocktail menu, says Tom Brown, which, to him, can create the wrong impression with drinkers. He tells me about a cocktail he once designed for Corduroy; the menu listed its ingredients as tequila, green chartreuse, and sparkling wine.  Few, as you might suspect, ordered it.

When Tom Brown changed the language to read, "a blend of rare liqueurs," the drink was "flying off the shelves," he says.

He offers this anecdote as evidence that it's better to try to understand his customers' palates then to merely shove a prescribed list of cocktails at them. He plans to learn his patrons' preferences — sweet or bitter, vodka or rye, for example — and then mix a cocktail based on them. It will require more work, yes, but "it helps cut down on disappointments," Tom Brown says.

The last bit of personalization will be the most exclusive: the Columbia Room, located in a space near the dining car in the back of the bar. This is where Derek Brown will host his intimate "cocktail club and laboratory." Though still in the formative stages, the Columbia Room will likely be a reservation-only space in which Derek Brown offers an omakase-like selection of cocktails, along with some background and history on each drink.

"Ninety-nine percent of the people will not enjoy it," Derek Brown argues. I suspect he's joking.

But will the Passenger really play hardcore music? Well, consider this: The name of the place is derived from the Iggy Pop song, "The Passenger." "I've always loved this song," Derek Brown says. "It always had great energy."

There's no real explanation for why the brothers chose to name their place after a Pop song — though, in retrospect, Derek Brown acknowledges that it could be read as a commentary on how "everybody is always passing through" the District. But the tune does reflect the siblings' punk spirit, which will filter down to the music they plan to pump throughout the Passenger.

The music is "going to go all over the place," Tom Brown says. "You might hear Bad Brains and hear Simple Minds right behind it."  If you don't like the song, just wait a minute, he adds. Something completely different will follow it.

The Passenger's opening date is still up in the air. Derek Brown tells a reporter this afternoon that the bar should be finished in a "few weeks," a remark to which his older brother immediately takes umbrage. It's sibling rivalry right there at the construction site!

"Why did you say a 'few weeks'?" Tom Brown carps. "I think we'll be open much sooner than that."

Now there's a blog dedicated to exploring food at the ballpark:

• Scoreboard Gourmet is eating her way through spring training. SG only has one fault that I can find: She's a Yankees fan.
• Food Allergy Buzz reports on two local games this year that will cater to fans with peanut and other allergies.
• The Washington Nationals have formed a partnership with Levy Restaurants, a James Beard-award-winning company, to provide fare this year at the park. Levy is promising "regional dishes and innovative versions of D.C.'s favorites." (OK, this isn't a blog link. Sue me.)

On the non-baseball front:

• Both Metrocurean and Penn Quarter Living have their own takes on the recent opening of Zola Wine & Kitchen.
• Prince of Petworth has an early tease about another new watering hole on 14th Street NW.
• The Express maps the locations of D.C.'s latest speakeasies.

• The Virginian-Pilot on Virginia's Prohibition history.
• USA Today on states relaxing restrictions on Sunday alcohol sales.
• Maureen Ogle in U.S. News on how governments have just "institutionalized the demonization of alcohol." (If you don't believe her, just read our cover story, "Pain in the Glass.")
• The Examiner on how one law-enforcement group would like to repeal the war on drugs.
• DCist on where to get your drink on for the big anniversary.

Image by Flickr user antoinedemorris.