It’s probably fair to say that no other craft-cocktail bar in America has marked Arbor Day in the way that Parliament did last night in Dallas.
That’s because the Uptown bar’s celebration started on Arbor Day Eve, which you might not know was a thing, because it really wasn’t until Parliament somehow made it one. With Eddie “Lucky” Campbell’s able cocktail crew managing a typical cacophony of drink orders, you could barely see the chorus for the trees towering over the bartenders like a rowdy Rainforest Café.
Leaf it — ahem — to Campbell, whose flair for showmanship has made him one of the most familiar bartenders in the city. The vest and fedora might be gone, but as he showed Thursday night, he’s still willing to clamber atop the bar top to lead a New-Year’s-Eve-like countdown through the branches as the seconds ticked toward midnight.
“Happy Arbor Day!” everyone shouted in unison, a little unsure whether to take it all seriously or not. (A few found it hard to believe the trees were even real.) And admittedly, Arbor Day, a day on which Americans are encouraged to plant trees, might be the nation’s most unsung holiday.
Bartender Jesse Powell had been a little uncertain himself a couple of days earlier when Campbell informed him that he had bought a pair of 13-foot-tall red oaks to mark the day. “It’s such an underappreciated holiday,” Campbell observed.
“Then Lucky was, like, ‘Can you go buy 200 coconuts?’ ” Powell said, and the next thing he knew he was marching out of H Mart with two shopping carts full of them.
A lineup of tree-themed drink specials featuring the aptly chosen Greenhouse Gin was designed for the occasion, including the Cocos Nucifara, a mix of gin, fruit and coconut water served in a coconut. That joined a pair of other delicious cocktails including the lychee-pearl-topped Weeping Willow and There’s A Tree In Your Bar?, enhanced with turmeric.
And on the fly, Powell even renamed the bar’s popular smoke-infused Old Fashioned variation the “Forest Fire” for the night.
The trees, adorned with glowing green rings, were positioned behind the bar so that the crew could maneuver beneath the canopy, though Powell finally tired of bumping his fedora and ultimately hung it on a branch.
When the night was over, there naturally remained one challenge: What to do with the trees.
With that, Campbell and Powell got to the roots of the holiday: On Friday, they procured a trailer and one of the trees was taken to and planted in a location undisclosed “for his safety and well-being,” Powell said. “We look forward to taking care of him and watching him grow…. We really hope he gets along with the other trees.”
(Photos by Jesse Powell)
