Your Thursday Evening: The Palace & the Bacchanalian Society

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There is sort of a perfect coalescence of events happening tomorrow night. So here's my recommendation on how to spend your evening.

Once you've gotten off work, head straight to The Cincinnatian. Once there, you've got two options:

You can enjoy their new Happy Hour at the classy Cricket Lounge. Every night from 4-7 pm you can choose from 1/2 price items on the rather impressive bar menu. Drink specials include $2.50 Draft Beers (including Bass and Christian Moerlein), 1/2 Price House Wines, $5 Specialty Cocktails, and daily food and drink specials.
Not up for Happy Hour? It's the third Thursday, so that means you can enjoy the Two for $60 option in the restaurant. (Make reservations first though.) You've heard me talk about these enough – you can get a multi-course meal for two plus a bottle of wine for $60 at the Palace. If you haven't gone yet, you should. It's a real bargain and the food is elegant and approachable.

So now that you've eaten, you're ready to drink a little. That's good, because the Bacchanalian Society is hosting their Summer Gathering at the lovely Union Terminal. Haven't been to a Bacchanalian Society event? Well, don't expect high-end wine, but do expect a lot of fun and the chance to meet a lot of new people. This time around, your team (up to 3 people) needs to bring 3 bottles of a French Red. Think Bordeaux, Burgundy, or just walk into Party Source's French aisle and grab the closest Red.

Now, don't get your hopes up that there will be a lot of expensive wine there, even though it's French. A lot of folks will buy the cheapest wine possible and then drink to get drunk. The kind hosts and hostesses (of which I'm usually one) bill this as a wine tasting, though, so please take that into consideration. (Kevin and I are not hosting this time around, as we've been out of town so often that we've missed all the emails and such. Next time!)

There are, of course, rules to the game, which you can read after the jump.

Rules (from the Bacchanalian Society web site):

The
Bacchanalian Society helps charities to conduct competitive wine
tastings where even the loser gets to take something home. The
competition is based on what we call the "Rule of Three." Huh? Keep reading …

3 BOTTLES FOR EACH TEAM OF UP TO 3

A
different wine varietal (such as chardonnay, merlot, pinot noir, etc.)
is featured at each event. Teams, consisting of 1 to 3 participants,
are admitted by bringing 3 bottles of the same featured varietal to the
event. For example, if the featured varietal is merlot, your team could
bring 3 bottles of the 2005 Hess Select Merlot. The wine varietal for
the upcoming event is a French Red.
At
the event, 2 of each team's 3 bottles are bagged, tagged and ranked by
each participant. The 3rd bottle is set aside and left unopened. The
teams that brought the 5 highest ranked wines divvy up each team's 3rd
unopened bottle, except for the lowest ranked wine which will be
returned to the team that brought it. If 2 or more teams bring the same
wine, rankings can still differ depending upon the temperature of the
wine, how long it has been open, etc.
Please
remember, teams can consist of 1 to 3 participants. Thus, a group of 4
participants, for example, will be considered 2 teams and must bring 6
bottles of the featured varietal to enter the event. Still don't get
it? Just remember, the "Rule of Three," which is visually depicted above.