#and then I accidentally got drunk on too much rum and went to a craft show it was a good day dfkljadfkakda

[feroluce]

incredibly sexy of you to be blankshipping on main and in the tags <3 and with incredible takes and ideas on top of that!

Thank you Anon, it's so hard having the biggest dick in the room, but someone has to do it 😔

As a slightly? more serious answer, I think it's good and even important to have people being loud and proud and totally self-accepting on main in the proship circles. Like there needs to be someone showing the people who got bought in on the anti stances and are then beating themselves up for totally normal things that it's ok. You aren't a bad person just for liking something problematic about a play-pretend character in a make-believe scenario and you don't need to sink into self-loathing over such a thing.

Because some of them are in actual agony over this stuff, and some of them have already accepted this about themselves but are too deep in the anti circles now, so they'd lose their entire support system if they were outed. Not to mention how creepily violent and invasive antis get about proshippers- and as someone in actual anti spaces, you'd have a front row seat to all the atrocities people would wish on you, or maybe even go so far as to commit them themselves.

Like you know how people talk about extremely strict religious parents? How they would try to control a lot of the thoughts and actions in their child's life? And then sometimes even get violent when they didn't comply? All while excusing it as trying to keep them from sinning or being a bad person? It's the exact same thing. And it has a lot of the same effects, too. Antis aren't beating the problematic out of each other. They're just plain beating and traumatizing each other and then making each other into better liars who secretly hang out on the proship servers on the downlow.

And it sucks! It sucks so bad! Because I've talked to people in those exact situations and like. Especially the fact that a lot of them are still young. Like barely young adults. Some of them are still technically teenagers. They shouldn't be dealing with this bullshit at what's already such a tender and difficult age. And it makes my heart ache and my blood boil because some of them are outright scared and there's just not a lot that I can do about it. You can't shield or protect someone from all of that and it sucks.

So like yeah I'm gonna be noisy and annoying and yowl right on main because at least with that I can give people somewhere to go where they feel decently safe and accepted, even if they never interact once. That's what got us the blankshipping server, because our creator was in the anti servers while sending me blankshipping asks and decided "you know what this sucks actually" lol. That's what brought in a lot of our members, because I could yell my heart out into the void here and! People heard! And then they joined the server and found a place they could finally breathe! And it's so much fun in there now!! ♡

Anyway tl;dr thank you dear lovely Anon you are entirely correct I am incredibly sexy and everyone desires me carnally and my dick is huge and I haunt the submas servers with how I live in their minds rent free skzjkdksjd

[sharedfete]

An interview with Mike Harmon

N: So the first question we have, or I have, was when did you start bartending and what brought you specifically here to The Wheel Barrel?

M: Oh, uh. I’ve been… my first job in a bar, I wasn’t 21 yet, so I was a bar back. This was 2000, maybe 99, in Lawrence. It was a country bar called Coyotes. Used to be a roller rink and they turned it into a country listening spin around and dance in a circle kind of place. It was fun. It was a club with about a 1,200 capacity so I got thrown in very early so I got to see what it was like three deep at a bar. It was exhilarating.

 What brought me here, I was in Lawrence for about 20 years managing different bars, restaurants, might have got a little burnt out. So this is almost a vacation. Coming here it’s kind of a slower pace. But, when I met Jon in here I actually remember talking to him because I was thinking about opening up a bar either in NOTO or downtown kind of cocktail focused. Something a lot of people said wouldn’t work, but we’re kind of doing it here. Jon’s response was please open up in NOTO. When he said that to me I was like ‘shit man, I might just work here. This guy sounds amazing.’ And he ended up being amazing. Letting us kind of have our freedom to come up with cocktails that we want, he doesn’t put any limits on us. I mean my cocktail last time with the fucking bone marrow shit nowhere else would have, I mean we didn’t sell any, but it was cool that it was on the menu. Just having Jon being in this place made me want to work here.

N: To follow up on that, going from management back to this, does it feel like going back to the root of what brought you into bartending?

M: Yeah. I mean when you’re managing a place you rarely get your hands dirty. You’re only going to jump in if people are in the weeds and only then still if you don’t have other stuff to do. The last place I was managing Liberty Hall and I so much on my plate that even if the bartenders were dying I had things I had to deal with, maybe some issues at the door, we ran out of beer I’d need to grab some more because we had the smallest walk in ever for a place that big. I really enjoy just being behind the bar and just bartending, and not having to deal with any of that crap.

N: What’s your favorite cocktail to make?

M: Old Fashioned. I’ve made so many, I don’t even have to measure anymore. I can do it in my sleep. The reason I like making it so much is sense I’ve made it so many times I know the consistency behind it, it’s going to be the same drink every time I do it, which is super important to me. I love them. My favorite one to make, my favorite one to drink. My least favorite one to drink when it’s made wrong.

N: As kind of a side to that, I also wanted to know, what’s your favorite spirit to use? I guess either neat or also to use in crafting.

M: Well, that’s really tough because every spirits adding something different. Like a Mezcal is going to add this kind of smokiness that you don’t get from anything else. I love using gin because of so many people that have only had dry gin, but you get to bar so they haven’t had a botanical or a Jenever or some other variety of gin. So when someone says ‘make me a drink with anything but gin’ I'm like okay I’m going to make you a gin cocktail. I do that every time someone says that and most of the time they’re like ‘this is really good, maybe I do like that.’ The rums that have come to Kansas in the last year are amazing. Big shout out to John Brown Underground, Dante works there as a rum ambassador, he’s in the Caribbean right now, he’s going down and speaking there. Kansas is getting rums first before other states now and we’re getting a lot of rums that even two years ago we didn’t have in the states at all. So there’s a lot of cool ones that have come in. So yeah it depends on the cocktail. I mean vodka is so neutral that it’s not really adding any flavors so that would be the one that I don’t like working with. But all the rest are adding their own thing, their own twist, so it wouldn’t be a particular spirit. It would be maybe like out of the rums I love to use the agricoles, it’s so funky that it’s unexpected. Gin I like to use the jenever cause it just dries your mouth out. Whiskey I usually gravitate towards rye but I can throw a scotch in if I want something smoky. I can put mezcal accidentally in every drink, I’ve definitely don’t that a little too much at my house. Yeah, outside of vodka, I love them all.

J: Rum is actually one of the oldest spirits.

M: And rums the next thing. Whiskey had its big kind of reemergence. People going nuts over whiskey. Rums the next guy here in the next year. There’s not just going to be a whiskey society here in Topeka, there’s going to be rum societies. Rum is about to take off.

N: What’s your favorite cocktail to drink, signature or otherwise, and favorite food to eat off of The Wheel Barrel menu.

M: Cocktail wise, I wasn’t even working here when they came up with it, it’s a Dana cocktail. “Smoke Before Fire�� I think is the one that kind of, it’s approachable enough that people aren’t going to think it’s too weird to try. It’s complex enough that anybody that wants to venture out is going to like it too. I think it’s for everybody. It’s amazing to have that be a mezcal based cocktail that is approachable to everybody I think is kind of a feat. I think it’s my favorite drink on the menu that stays on the menu.

Food wise I love a little bit of spice. I go with The Hangover. If they're bored in the kitchen they usually put way too much grinders on it just to see my reaction. But yeah, something with heat, The Hangover is usually my go to.

N: What was your first impression of the wheel barrel when you walked in the door for the very first time?

M: Okay so the very first time I walked in was just a couple months into The Wheel Barrel being open and I had just kind of decided to take a break for once. So I was kind of in a state of limbo. I had just got a house out in the country, I was just kind of on a little vacation from everything. Just figuring out what I was doing next. Decompressive stage. I had friends that had been here and they said ‘this place opened up, they’re trying this cocktail stuff, experience isn’t quite there yet.’ They dropped my name to come in here and sit down. So I actually came here for the first time and sat down with Sarah for about an hour, the GM at the time. We talked cocktails and I taught her how to make an Old Fashioned correctly. When I started working here they were still making it the same way so I’m glad that stuck. But yeah, I saw what they were trying to do again in a town, in an area, where cocktails hadn’t really gotten there yet.

N: Specially craft cocktails

M: Yeah! I mean I would guess that maybe one of the most common cocktails is a long island iced tea. Just a trashcan. It’s not good. It’s just a way to get drunk instead of way to enjoy the experience.

Even though it was kind of in its infancy and I feel like that might have had a small part on why they transitioned to more of a beer first than whiskey. Just my hour of talking with Sarah I think she understood how complicated it was and how much… but they kept going, and like I said a lot of the cocktails that were here before I got here that are still on the menu are ones I’m proud of. So they also made it there in a town I was told more times than not there’s not a market for.

N: What would you like first time guests to take away from their visit?

M: Just like with any place that I’ve worked, mostly in the service industry, I just want them to have a good time. If they love the food that’s a bonus. If they love the cocktails that’s a bonus. If we have a really good beer on that they love that’s a bonus. But I just want them to enjoy the atmosphere. I think we do a really good job with our staff and with, again, an owner who is here every day that will bend over backwards to help anybody. I think we do a really good job of people leaving enjoying the experience. I think that’s most important with any service industry job. Sometimes that’s overlooked.

N: What’s a favorite or a funny story from bartending for as long as you have?

M: Oh crap… which one can I say. Okay, here’s one of my favorites just because of how absurd it was. When I was working at Liberty Hall, we had, I forget the band, but it was like a country band. For some reason when we got all the info on the band, cause we’d never heard of them, they weren’t like a huge like Moresy or some kind of group that we obviously knew who they were, we thought they were an indie band. So we got a bunch of PBR, a bunch of stuff the more indie crowd kind of drinks and when I heard the soundcheck I was like ‘oh no! this is a country band.’ We went out and bought as many domestic cans as we could and we ended up having to go to the liquor store to buy as much as a cart would fit three more times during the show. It was our highest grossing show and literally all we were selling was cans and fireball shots. We made over $10,000 during the two and a half hour show on $3 beers. It was crazy! Our fingers hurt. I literally had bruised fingers from opening cans, I didn’t know that was a real thing. But during the show this guy, overalls, cowboy hat, giant old man walks up and asks me if I had any Smirnoff ice. I was like ‘no we don’t have Smirnoff ice’… I kind of thought he was joking cause you know big guy in a cowboy hat. I didn’t expect Smirnoff ice. So I thought he was joking. I was like ‘no man we don’t have Smirnoff Ice’ he’s like ‘you’re telling me I drove three hours to come to this show and you ain’t got no god damn Smirnoff ice.’ And it is my favorite fucking moment. I couldn’t hold it. I laughed, still thinking he might be joking, but I kind of figured out he wasn’t. But I couldn’t help it I still just cracked up.

J: Don’t judge a book my its cover

M: Oh absolutely. When you have regulars you can figure out what they’re drinking but yeah you have no idea what someone is going to drink, how someone’s going to tick, how they’re going to respond… Once you think you’ve figured someone out before you’ve meet ‘em, you’ve probably done yourself a bit of a disservice. But yeah, that still cracks me up.

J: I would just ask, are they anymore things you’d like to say about Jon? The way you’ve been talking about him I feel like… you say he lets you do whatever you guys want. A lot of establishments don’t really see that.

M: Oh yeah!

J: We’d love to hear more about that.

M: Having an owner that is in the weeds with you every day, apart from doing all of the stuff he has to do as an owner too. We’re recording this right now, were talking on a day that were closed. I guarantee he’s been here all day deck washing the patio and cleaning all sorts of stuff. If we have a dish washer not show up, Jon’s washing dishes all night. Server doesn’t show up, Jon is running food all night. He works a double every day we’re open. And for him to trust the staff and hire I think the right people in the kitchen and the front of house, getting people good experience, and kind of know their job. The freedom that he gives us in the kitchen and in the bar to just do what we want. It’s amazing just all around. And that’s just talking about what happens in this building. Jon and Jennifer… I should bring up Jennifer. She’s an owner too, she’s just not in here as much; she has another business to run. What they’re doing for the area, what they’re doing for the NOTO district is amazing. Whether it’s just having two prominent businesses or helping out with every decision from the other business owners, or painting murals all around town. It’s insane. I don’t think we’d have NOTO without those two. 

N: At least the NOTO we know today.

M: Oh yeah for sure. I mean it wouldn’t disappear off the path. But it wouldn’t be what it is and what it’s going to be.

J: That was really nice.

M: I like hearing my own voice. What were we talking about?

J: Since you guys do sell a lot of beer what would be your typical beer?

M: So with the beer, since we do sell so much as soon as we burn through a keg we put something else out. We’re always moving stuff. It’s fun to find the beers, or the breweries more specifically, that you wouldn’t ever taste. I think I’d had a Toppling Goliath beer once or twice before working here, we’ve gotten almost every variety of their seasonals, their normal beer. Their King Sue was amazing, kind of a nice hazy double IPA. Really nice. We have a Dragon’s Milk on right now that’s a marshmallow chocolate scotch barrel aged stout that is amazing. I have some at my house that I got from here on Saturday because it’s so good. Yeah, so it’s cool that when we’re up at full speed, if we ever get back to post COVID operations, that’s another cool thing about this spot. We’ll have 12-ish beers on tap and if you show up every Friday there will be 12 different beers. So you always get to try new things. It’s something that, it’s not just the cocktails, that we’re trying to get people to try new things, open up their mind. It’s the beer too. I mean we don’t have Bud Light on tap, we don’t have Blue Moon on tap. It’s just trying new things. Life Coach out of Washington Kansas. I think it takes a lot of balls to be a brewery and make a light beer, a lager. Cause every brewery wants to do this crazy thing. Have so many hops in this beer. Like Dragons Milk I said with all that, they knocked it out of the park, it’s great, but for them in Washington Kansas, a town that I’m not even sure has a stop light, is making this beer that’s in Kansas could be replacing Bud Light in a lot of small towns which you’d think would never happen. But this local easy drinking lager is taking over every small town. They just came out with a Pineapple Life Coach, it’s amazing for this small town to take the chance to not do the crazy beer. Let’s just do a really good version of the American classic lager. The Budweisers, the Coors, the Millers: let’s just do that one better and sell it super cheap, low ABV, and put it everywhere. Shout out to the Kansas folks that took a chance.

J: I see you’re wearing a 1792 hat, is that like a whiskey you really like?

M: It was the best hat that I found at any distillery that I visited when I went to Kentucky this last February. But yeah, I enjoy it. It was about two weeks before we shut down because of COVID. I went to Kentucky with a buddy who is about pop out his first kid so we did one last hurrah before he’s chained down for a bit. We went up for just a quick two day trip. One day driving two days there one day driving back. In those two days we hit nine distilleries. Tasted a bunch, spent like $3,000 on booze. Just to come back and be like ‘you don’t have a job for a while.’ Bad timing. But no it was great! I tried to buy at least one piece of merchandise from every place we were at. At least two or three bottles of whiskey in every place we were at. It was a fun trip. The hat, I just like an all-black hat.

J: I personally like 1792

M: Oh yeah! It’s really good.

J: Do you want to give any shout outs?

M: John Brown Underground, they’re probably, outside of Chicago, the best cocktail bar in the Midwest. They’re in Lawrence, Kansas. In the grand scheme of things a tiny college town. What they’re doing is amazing. The guys and girls working at the bar, they’re all under 25 years old. It’s insane what they’re doing. I knew two of them. Dante who is running it and Cami who is an amazing bartender. I knew both of them before they were 21 and before they even started thinking about bartending. I didn’t know Dante as well, but I knew Cami really well. She just, once she hit 21 she just hit ground running, learned everything she can. For anybody thinking about getting into the bar industry, these are people that, like I said, easily top five best cocktail bar in the Midwest. Easily. And these are all people under 25.

So I don’t care how old you are… hopefully you’re over 21 but how old you are, in 4 or 5 years, you could be one of the best in the world. Read all the books you can. Get all the knowledge. There’s more knowledge out there right now than there’s ever been. Even though the best things to read are the books from the 1800s, that’s the best way to start. But yeah, you can pick it up. I hate when there’s people that have been bartending for 20 years that don’t know how to make a cocktail drink. Don’t actually know what the definition of a cocktail is. It’s not all mixed drinks, it’s just a drink that has spirits, bitters, sweetener and dilution of water from stirring. That’s what a cocktail is. It has to have all and only those ingredients but cocktail gets intermixed with everything.

Here locally, Burger Stand has upped their cocktail game. Britney and Larry are doing great things over there. I’ve really been enjoying, especially their last couple menus, they’re making drinks that are inspired by local people either in the business or not in the business, just local Topekans, and for a business that a lot of people think that we are competing on their last menu they made a cocktail influenced by Jon, the owner of the Wheel Barrel. So that was really cool. Kind of have people working together. White Linen in the past 6/7 months, the guys they have in there, have really upped the cocktail game. There’s not many seats there so a lot of people don’t get to experience but when you go there the guys that are doing the bar system there are really awesome. I think those are the places to go in Topeka and if you want to drive 20 minutes and hit John Brown. They are open again; I was there last Thursday and it was as great as ever.

J: I don’t know where we’d be if those establishments hadn’t opened…etc.

M: I think Dan has a lot to do with it. Those two guys, they’ve read all the books, but they didn’t have the muscle memory. They didn’t have the execution, and Dan does. So when Dan went there I think he helped them a lot. I was even talking with Dante the other day, the online videos that they’ve been making at White Linen. The first one they did on the Old Fashioned. Dante and I were talking about how it’s great that they’re doing that. The last day that John Brown was open before they shut down, I was up there with Dan and Molly. Erin showed up. We were like we have to get down there, sit down with Dante and just talk. So they’ve gotten to know each other. But that video I mentioned on the Old Fashioned… Dante and I looked at each other and were like… I love that he’s out there, I love that he’s doing it when he’s still so young. When he looks back in a couple years at some of those videos he’s going to be like ‘what was I thinking.’

J: I feel like in this industry that’s how you feel every time. I look back at things that I used to make and I’m like why…

M: Absolutely. That’s why I never want to put anything on video. If I had a video two years ago of a cocktail I made. I would be like ‘what was I doing?!!” I never want to put something on video. Unless I’m making an exact standard. One thing, I can make an old fashioned and I won’t ever make it differently. But yeah I never want to look at a video of myself doing something in the past.

Those guys at White Linen, they remind me of the guys at John Brown. They’re so young. They’ve read all the right books. It’s just a point of them putting in the hours, doing the work. You have all the knowledge in the world but until you do it every day and just keep doing it you’re muscles learn to do it all before your brain does. That’s when it really all comes together. They’re going to get there. Super knowledgeable. But they just need to put in the hours.