The night before we were heading to a Scottish castle for a wedding, Jen and I meandered through the relatively empty streets of Glasgow to a nondescript bar with no one inside. Outside the bar is a sign that simply says, "Bar." To the uninitiated, this bar would be no different from any of the other pubs scattered throughout the district, but it's the peculiar staircase heading downstairs to the basement that's a different story. At the bottom of the stairway is a rather average portrait print of Van Gogh.

Except for the button where his right ear would have been (or cut off).

"The password is?" says a deep voice from behind the door.

I recited the password that was emailed to me earlier, and we were soon invited into the dimly lit bar. Note: Whatever light in the bar is red (can someone who knows Van Gogh's history let me know if this is important?), so all the photos from this bar also have an eerie red glow.

In proper hipster speakeasy fashion, the drinks pay homage to this establishment's patron saint: Mr. Vincent van Gogh. Each pour is 1 or 2 ounces too many, and I don't think that's bad. There are, however, ten drinks on the menu, and you would have to be insane to try them all.

Jen and I try them all.

Now, I'm not going to list all our drinks, but I will list some of the more interesting ones. The first is this prescription-based drink ("Aye, Brufen"—get it? like aye-bru-*pro*-fen? ibuprofen?). To get this drink, I had to get a prescription from the server for whatever ailment I had—insanity being the key here—and the bartender would provide a suitable panacea to cure it. It conveniently comes with two capsules (in a weekly pill box, no less) to take PRN with the drink. Who am I to refuse?

The second drink ("Wish you were Ear"—poor Van Gogh) wants us to appreciate the memories of those not with us, so the drink fittingly comes with a postcard. Jen takes the drink and writes a postcard to her husband back home. In true Canadian fashion, we put the stamp with proper postage on the card. Seemingly, the restaurant would have put the proper postage themselves despite it being an international post.

The third drink harkens back to the prescription from earlier. What goes well with medication, you ask? How about some soup in cocktail form? This particular concoction is not only served in a soup mug but proudly reports containing carrot, coriander, and "about 50 other things."

I could go with all the other drinks we tried (i.e. the other drink library). Still, the gimmicks with some of the different cocktails would be a lovely surprise. Going on a weekday was nice and chill, but it definitely got busy around the 9-10pm mark. Shout out to my dear friend's blog, where she talks about this experience from her perspective. I'll tell you a secret: I'm the friend in that blog who she only saw drunk twice - and this speakeasy was the first place it happened!