BOTTOMS UP! Alex Neth DRINKING WITH THE DEAD @ CHURCHILL BAR 321 17th Street, Denver 303-297-3111

I don't belong here. I mean, look at this place-- overstuffed red leather chairs, marble bar tables, servers in natty uniforms. Old men smoking cigars and talking about large sums of money. A shot of scotch that costs $13.50. Yoiks! The Churchill Bar in the Brown Palace is where important people drink, seems like. They won't even let me wear a hat.

But there's a lot here for a young wastrel like me to enjoy-- for instance, the bartender brought me a complimentary bowl of mixed nuts. And he was so on top of my drink order that I actually couldn't keep up, which doesn't happen very often. I enjoyed the variety of small ceramic dogs on display. And I got a kick out of reading the wine list, which offered a variety of selections worth more than my life-- one, a Chateau Lafite Rothchild '81 (an impudent little wine, with a touch of depression and repressed memory) will lighten your wallet by $2,200. What a bargain.

(Jeez. With $2,200, I could buy myself enough Pabst Blue Ribbon to fill my own reservoir. I'd put it outside of Longmont, and go boating on it in a little hide coracle with a straw and a bucket. Ahhhhh...)

Anyway. A $13.50 shot. Sure, it was Laphroaig, and sure, it was the 15 year, but that's some serious coin to drop on a highball, my friends and relatives. This isn't exactly the kind of place you drop in for a quick one. This is the kind of place you ease into, settle down at. That might be why the average age of the clientele here is approximately 81.

My fellow bar patrons were probably here when this place was built in 1892. They look like they couldn't be moved with a chainfall and a tall glass of Metamucil. Cigar smoke-- possibly from one of the $60 Macanudo XX's they sell here-- hangs around them in a lazy raft. Their conversation is muted, almost inaudible. Almost nonexistent. Frankly, I'm not even sure that they're alive.

That's okay. If they aren't, I can't smell 'em yet. I can still enjoy my $13.50 shot. Slowly, of course. A drink like that should last me a freakin' month. $13.50!

But what could I have expected? This is as elegant as Denver gets, and as authoritatively Western. There's just something about the Churchill that whispers saloon. At any moment, I expect to see a well-heeled cowhand ride his horse into the damn lobby (which actually happened once). I suspect these old men at the couches behind me might, in fact, be Tabor and Evans. The bartender, relatively young but old enough for my purposes, is only missing a handlebar mustache and shotgun.

I, on the other hand, am as Old West as I am eight feet tall. I appreciate the atmosphere-- as long as my fellow drinkers aren't decomposing (which reminds me of a joke about Mozart)-- but my particular predilections demand a filthier establishment.

There's no filth here. In fact, this place looks like it gets scrubbed nightly by a special team of space-suited midgets. The Jetsons didn't live in such a clean environment. Is that why the scotch is so damn high? What are they doing, contracting out with the Center for Disease Control? If that's the case, I should have gotten a free petri dish full of Beri-Beri or something. Anything. $13.50!

Still, I can understand why the ruling class likes it. They run little risk of meeting anyone poor, for one thing, so they don't need to bring their cattle prods and whips. And they can feel like all of that money they spent their lives accumulating is finally going to a good cause, i.e. cocktails; they can sit and slouch and breathe heavily and look perturbed and eventually order someone to bring them dinner. Sounds like a good deal to me.

So maybe someday I'll go back, when I'm very old. I'll have my bearers carry me in on a sedan chair. In a wheezy rattle, I'll order two bottles of the Rothchild '81.

I will sample them with great care, using the last of my fading olfactory powers to distinguish the variety of flavor. I will gently squeeze the cork to determine its firmness. When I am finally satisfied that yes, this is the Rothchild, I will magnanimously share the decanted ambrosia with any and all. Huzzah!

And then I'll skip on the check when no one's looking. $13.50! B