Thirsty Thursday: Hilltop Fizz (Missouri Spirits)

Ho-HO!  You thought I'd forgotten about Thirsty Thursday, hadn't you?  HADN'T YOU???  No, believe me...I've been thinking about Thirsty Thursdays for the last YEAR.  But since I'm still nursing and we have a tiny human at home, we haven't really been getting out much.  Which is a big bummer when your have hobbies like "beer" and "blogging about booze".

However, the other night we had a sitter for Baby J so we went out on the town!  First we hit up Springfield Brewing Company with some co-workers and had a couple seasonal beers (Wee Howler, Quencher in the Rye, and Tsarry Night) and some appetizers.
Then we walked around the corner to Missouri Spirits, which opened while I was preggo and I've had on my radar ever since.  They're Springfield's "first and only spirit house", with homegrown & distilled bourbon whiskey, vodka, and corn whiskey, which get served up in a wide variety of delicious-sounding craft cocktails.  After much deliberation, I settled on the Hilltop Fizz, made with their corn whiskey, housemade basil limoncello, and rosemary soda.

Lemon, basil, rosemary. I was in heaven.  The only way it could be better is if it was twice as big.

They also have rotating taps of Missouri craft brews, so we sampled Urban Chestnut's Erlkonig and Bushelhead, along with 2nd Shift Brewing's El Gato Grande.

Missouri Spirits has a small food menu as well, so we nommed on some pulled pork sliders, which were cute but decidedly a little "meh"--the sauce was excellent but the bread was hard on the bottom, which made them tough to eat without crumbling.

After that we still had a little time left, so we headed over to 417 Tap House, another spot that opened while I still had a bun in the oven.  They've got a huge selection of taps, but their schtick is the self-serve taps.  I was most interested in the table-mounted taps.  Seems like these would be super-convenient if you're the ones sitting at the table...but if you want to try one of those beers and the table is already occupied, seems like it would be a bit awkward.

For the record, I wasn't drinking either of these, and instead opted for a pint of "Not Your Father's Root Beer", which seemed an appropriate dessert.