New Brisbane

So with Thursday night infamous in its role as student night in the city, the goal of tonight was to have a big midweek bender, and in the process to find where all the drinks discounts are downtown, with The Embassy, The Port Office, Union Jack’s and Fridays all on the roster to explore.

The Embassy
188 Edward St, Brisbane
+61 7 3221 7616

The Port Office
40 Edward St, Brisbane
+61 7 3221 0072

Union Jack’s Ale House
127 Charlotte Street, Brisbane
+61 7 3210 1172

Friday’s Riverside
123 Eagle Street, Brisbane
+61 7 3832 2122

My buddy Joel shows up at my place around 9 and we polish off the two bottles of vodka in my freezer for predrinks… since they were both almost empty, this is no big feat and we’re keen to wet our whistles a little more.

Wandering down the hill along Edward Street, the first stop is the Embassy Hotel, where there’s reported to be $10 cocktail jugs. As we make our entrance, we quickly realise that this is NOT going to be a place to linger. There’s four random guys grinding each other on the dancefloor, a DJ who’s working the deck like he was the latest thing from Deutschland and a lonely spider spinning a web in a quiet ceiling corner.

After shouting ineffectually at the bar girl for several minutes, she finally grabs us a cocktail list and points out the ones that are available. Thank you. This would have been handy before I made a dick of myself by getting you to repeat yourself FOUR times. We grab our jug, opting for the fruit tingle, which I belatedly realise is basically just Parfait Amour and Blue Curacao. Since it was tasty, we smashed it down as quickly as possible and got the hell outta there.

As we leave the Embassy, we bump into a couple friends of ours, fresh from a work Christmas party, who are keen to tag along with us. At this point we decide to check out the Port Office, which used to be known for its Thursday night shenanigans, but since my arrival in Brisbane in February ‘o8, has been nothing but a disappointment. I decided to give it one more chance, but it failed miserably… upstairs was closed to a private function, downstairs was dead quiet aside from a few guys in their officewear, and the only drinks ’special’ they had on was $6 for a single shot.

Ducking back out in front of the bouncers we’d just walked in past, we make our way to Union Jack’s - the purported home of Thursday’s student night fun. The drinks cards offloaded between 8-9, 10-11 and 12-1 are redeemable throughout the night and nab you 4 drinks for $12. At $3 a drink, that’s a lot of bang for your buck - and with the horny Thursday night student crowd in there, you might even get more bang than you bargained for.

$12 for 4 drinks Thursdays @ Union Jack’s. Drink cards sold 8-9, 10-11 & 12-1

But I digress.

The night we were there, the venue was busy but not packed, which is a definite win for me - I like to be able to move around and I also like to be able to grab a seat if I feel like it. Overall I liked the ambiance - the music choice & volume, temperature and minutes-spent-waiting-for-a-drink were right where I wanted them and the people were laid back and friendly, if not classy. It WAS a bit dark there, but this didn’t bother me much.

Unfortunately, our stay could not last forever, as we had one more bar to hit up before the end of the night. So, with promises of soon returning, we departed for Fridays. Normally known for “Friday is at Fridays”, a backpacker on the street recently informed me that “Thursdays is also at Fridays”, but hastened to clarify that only between the hours of 5-7 for $3 spirits, and 9-10 & 11-12 for $3.50 spirits.

$3.50 basic spirits Thursdays @ Fridays, sold 9-10 & 11-12

Being a favourite venue of mine, I much enjoyed the ability to drink cheaply there and my 3 bachelor friends and I soon found ourselves ingratiated in the company of a hen’s night, where we were ‘forced’ to sexily eat coloured Jelly beans from necklaces, and assist in other hen’s night dares. As fun as that was, 12 o’clock came and we found ourselves without cheap drinks, so back to Union Jack’s we went to use up the rest of the drinks vouchers we’d saved from earlier in the night.

All up, fun was had by all, and I found myself crawling out of bed the next morning with less than 3 hours sleep to tackle a full day of work. But it was totally worth it. Besides, if you’re going to be hung over, it’s a commonly-known fact that it’s better to be hungover on someone else’s time.