Next Up for Drink Company’s Pop Up Bar in Shaw – “Death Becomes Us”

Photo Credit: Karlin Villondo Photography

From a press release:

“Drink Company’s signature Pop-Up Bar (PUB) experience returns for fall with the Death Becomes Us PUB, hosted in partnership with Brightest Young Things.

Launching Thursday, October 11, the new true crime-inspired bar will feature three chilling vignettes devoted to some of the most heinous — and most famous — cases in history.

Photo Credit: Karlin Villondo Photography

In addition to delivering scares just in time for Halloween, the Death Becomes Us PUB will serve as a precursor to BYT’s DBU True Crime Festival happening November 3 and 4 at Lisner Auditorium.

From the unsolved to the unspeakable, Death Becomes Us PUB is an homage to all manner of murders and misdeeds, with decor and cocktails inspired by these three infamous flashpoints from the past:

• Black Dahlia (1947): The brutal murder of Elizabeth Short in 1947 is regarded as one of the first cases to garner nationwide media attention. Incredibly, the case remains unsolved.
• Salem Witch Trials (1690s): This infamous series of trials resulted in the deaths of 20 people — both men and women — for alleged witchcraft in Salem, Mass.
• Elizabeth Bathory (16th century): Cited by some as the most prolific female serial killer, this Hungarian noblewoman’s claim to fame is torture and mayhem, including allegedly bathing in the blood of virgins to retain her youth.

To bring these disturbing tales of death to life, the Drink Company team will transform its bars (one of which will retain its current identity as the GWAR PUB through Halloween) in typical over-the-top fashion.

The Black Dahlia room will feature walls smeared with newspaper clippings from the case, handmade paper replicas of the haunting flowers and an oversized portrait of Elizabeth Short painted by frequent Drink Company collaborator, artist Andrew Funk.

To honor the Salem Witch Trials, there will be a highly Instagrammable two-headed stockade, a canopy of birch branches and a BYT-powered “witches workshop.”

Elizabeth Bathory will get her due with Drink Company’s version of a Victorian dungeon, complete with a chandelier, opulent fabric canopy, a vintage clawfoot tub — and blood dripping from the walls. If that’s not scary enough, a life-size portrait of the bloodthirsty noblewoman herself will face a large mirror so that she can survey all.

“We placed ourselves inside the minds and times of this theme and painted this delightful menu using autumn as our canvas,” says Drink Company Head of Bar Concepts Paul Taylor about the PUB’s accompanying cocktail menu. “A prime example is our ‘Pearfect Crime’ cocktail, a riff on the Brandy Crusta that includes fresh Bartlett pear juice. The ‘Covered in Honey’ — inspired by one of Lady Bathory’s more sadistic acts — is a combination of gin, fino sherry, fig honey grenadine, bitters and Perrier.”

“Death Becomes Us Festival (and PUB) is a direct extension of BYT team’s love of true crime content. Our long-term friendship with the team at Drink Company made for a natural fit to explore, more interactively, the mythology and excitement surrounding some of the cases that helped create our current fascination with the genre,” says Brightest Young Things co-founder Svetlana Legetic. “Together, we explored three very different eras and the women at the center of them: Elizabeth Bathory, the notorious 16th-century ‘Blood Countess’; The Salem Witch Trials (a gentle reminder that we should believe women); and Elizabeth Short aka The Black Dahlia, whose 1940s Los Angeles murder is still a marker for a case that captured a nation’s attention.”

Death Becomes Us PUB will be open Sunday through Thursday, 5pm to 12:30am and Friday and Saturday, 5pm to 1:30am and will run through November 4.“