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Aside from prying open Houston's margarita-obsessed cocktail preferences, anvil bar & refuge has delved into educating the eager about what they drink. Saturday's Spirit & Cocktails 101 focused on that island nectar, scotch. (And we strayed into gin's storied past too.)

Of all that has gone digital these days, the scotch class cannot: no digital classroom, this. Nearly of 50 us assemble in the bar. Each student sits before an anthology of scotches that shimmer gold and amber in the afternoon sun.

A roadmap to the various subtle and sledgehammer tastes of scotch

Each stubby glass wears a concave glass lid: all the better to prevent that honey, peaty, caramel, or briny fragrance from wafting away. The left side of our roadmap offers a blended, two Islas, and an Orkney. On the right, a Lowlands, a Speyside, and two Highlands.

Island geography

Equally important, we all have water, bread, olive oil, and roasted hazelnuts within easy reach. The cumulative power of tasted scotches should not be underestimated! (And the roasted hazelnuts, which seem too salty and oily before the tasting, turn out to be tireless palate-cleansers.)

Next up: actual tastes and a few cocktails, too.

Whilst admiring (and photographing) a Saturday night feast, the golden gleam of the chardonnay distracted me mightily. Maybe it was the drops suspended or the nubbly terrain of the place mat.

A glass of chardonnay gleams golden.

And a glass of white wine 'tis a rare sight at the homestead. (I prefer my vino with its skin intact.) So I might as well be distracted by and admiring of it—while I can.

A portrait of tasty beerage, Saint Arnold's Divine Reserve 8:

And like any good portrait these days, the Divine Reserve received a little creative processing to hide the wrinkles and show off its shapely glass figure.

With an abundance of fresh basil and punishing heat outside, I set out to create a cooling cocktail. (The heat precluded an obvious solution: a trip to the store for the missing members of the caprese trio.)

The intended outcome was a sweet basil cocktail (simple syrup, basil, lillet blanc, and gin). But who keeps Lillet Blanc in their inventory—besides the swank bartenders at the beck and call of James Bond? (Ref: Kina Lillet and Lillet Blanc)

The attempted substitutions (dry vermouth, bitters, white wine) produced a vile brew: an initial tsunami of sweet, followed by a whiff of vermouth that one normally associates with a manhattan. But the addition of more gin and a hint of lemon rescued this experiment from the brink of mixological disaster. The resulting cocktail starts with the piquant aroma of muddled basil, continues with a smooth herbal dance between vermouth and gin, and then ends with the hint of fresh lemon.