Where does a pirate drink artisanal cocktails? R Bar. Really.

Aaron Barnhart learned the hard way that the artisanal cocktails on offer at R Bar on Monday nights are meant for sipping, not for pounding. Barnhart is the Koreatown bar's new piano man, and during a break between sets, bartender Naomi Schimek offered him one of her specialties: a mix of habanero-infused vodka and muddled fresh pineapple and mango that she calls the Prop. 8. Maybe Barnhart just really needed a drink, or maybe he was misled by the sweeter fragrances coming off the glass, but he downed the whole thing in one gulp and spent the next 10 minutes panting from the heat, with a look suggesting that Satan himself was back there jostling the cocktail shaker.

As surprised as Barnhart must have been by the not-kidding spiciness of the drink, it's even more of a surprise to find seriously adept and inventive cocktail craftsmanship along this stretch of 8th Street, where the most creative drink decisions usually involve choosing what style of paper bag to wrap your 40 oz. of Miller High Life in.  But Schimek, a bartending vet of 14 years (she also works at Bar 107), is the Svengali of a cocktail gourmand’s mecca on Monday nights at R Bar.

Her concoctions bring a new intensity to the term “locavore” -- the hibiscus syrup is steeped in-house, kumquats are gathered from an office park’s grove close to her home, and a forthcoming batch of mulberry brandy is made from the bounty of a tree in her backyard.

“My mom was an herbalist, and when I make people drinks I really like the sense that the ingredients came from your own seeds,” she said. “I’ve always rented, and I’ve just been lucky that I’ve found houses with these amazing trees.”

The Enabler: King Eddy Saloon and liver regicide

On a recent Wednesday, as the noontime sun slanted through the dusty wooden doors of King Eddy Saloon in Skid Row, the Enabler sat nursing a cold whiskey and soda. Frank Sinatra crooned “My Way” on the jukebox, and it did indeed seem that most of the bar’s sodden midday drinkers were doing it their way.

The dive on the ground floor of the King Edward Hotel, which both John Fante and Charles Bukowski favored, is the last of the original skid row bars (outliving even Craby Joe’s, which shut its doors two Christmas Eves ago).  The place appears to be held together with wood glue and paper sports flags. The bar is a large square in the middle of the room, and just behind it a genially beleaguered woman in an apron makes ham and cheese sandwiches and chicken nuggets for a few bucks.

The back corner of the bar houses a glass enclosure for smokers, which looks like the most carcinogenic sportscaster’s booth in history. If Fante’s Arturo Bandini had brought one of his oranges there, it would have been the most organic object in the place (and that includes the bodies of the well-seasoned regulars). 

On the Enabler’s latest visit, a lone suitcase stood by the door. Was someone enjoying a cocktail before his inaugural trip up the King Edward Hotel’s stairs? After a long spell, a bearded man grabbed it and began to walk away. “You comin’ back, Jose?” asked a tiny Asian man with giant glasses. 

“I ain’t comin’ back no more,” replied Jose, disappearing into the swell of traffic and wind outside. The little man saluted him before returning to his tumbler of warm Jaeger. The King Eddy had come to Jose the way he came to it, his feet over its sticky floorboards, and Jose had seen enough of this sad flower in the sand.

-- Jessica Gelt and August Brown

Photo of John Fante by the Los Angeles Times