National Tequila Day 2022

16TH ANNIVERSARY

Presented by

Saturday, July 23

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NATIONAL TEQUILA DAY 2022

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Family Fun Stockyards Style!

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N at i o n a l T e q u i l a D ay July 24

5.) For its second-anniversary party, Mexican Sugar Las Colinas (3215 Regent Blvd, Irving, 469-313-1300) invites you to “go on a blind date with tequila.” At 4pm Sun, participate in blind tastings with agave flights ($18-100) that you can customize by aroma, taste, and finish at the Agave Library Pop-Up. Enjoy tropical fruit popsicles from a traditional Mexican

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4.) From 11am to closing time Sun, Lucky Lou’s (1207 W Hickory St, Denton, 940484-5550) is celebrating National Tequila Day with some all-day drink specials, including $6 palomas, $5 Tequila Sunrises, $3.50 tequila shots, and $3 margaritas (frozen or on the rocks).

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Celebrate National Tequila Day with Mexican Sugar Sunday.

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6.) Free live music and tequila specials are on the menu 11am-11:30pm Sat at The Post at River East (2925 Race St, 817945-8890). Along with mezcal and tequila flights available for purchase, there will be a special $5 margarita menu. Other specials include $6 pozole and $3 Bloody Marys and micheladas. For updates on the musical guests, keep an eye on Facebook. com/ThePostFW. Cour tesy Etsy

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paleta cart as a sweet treat or as a stirrer for your margarita. There will also be complimentary tequila tastings. Reserve a table at MexicanSugarCocina.com.

Purchase tequila flight boards from Sand Rayz Studios of Arlington on Etsy.

7.) If you are celebrating National Tequila Day at your place, local artisans Sand Rayz Studios of Arlington has just the thing you need. For $45, you can pur-

chase a tequila flight board with a removable slate coaster like the acacia-wood one pictured. “One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor” indeed! New products are added daily, plus you can do custom orders. With promo code FBFOLLOW, you’ll receive 25% off thru Sun, Jul 31, at Etsy.com/Shop/SandRayzStudio.

8.) With 71 varieties of tequila on the drink menu, The Yucatan Tequila Bar & Grill (909 W Magnolia Av, 682-385-9395) is a sure bet for celebrating this Sunday.

Yucatan offers $5 house and flavored margaritas, giveaways, and samplings all day, plus happy hour food and drinks 3pm7pm Sun. DJ Tom Loris will provide the tunes from 3pm-8pm.

By Jennifer Bovee

NATIONAL TEQUILA DAY 2022

2.) On Sunday, Chuy’s is serving up Dollar Tequila Floaters and $5 top-shelf tequila shots. You can also order a Super Grande ’Rita, a 22-oz fresh-squeezed margarita in a color-changing cup that you can keep.

If you prefer to party at home, Chuy’s has Tex-Mex meal kits at OrderChuys.com.

With locations in Fort Worth (2401 W 7th St, Ste 110, 817-332-2489 and 9700 N

3.) In honor of this special drinking holiday, Lottie’s (2800 Bledsoe St, Ste 300, @LottiesFW) hosts a National Tequila Day Fiesta at 1pm Sun, featuring chips and queso, games, a pinata, photo ops, and specialty frozen margaritas. Fiesta attire is encouraged.

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1.) All tequilas have (at least) one thing in common. It is a product of Mexica exclusively, or it is not tequila. Even so, American distillers often make great spirits using the agave plant. Mainly known for bourbons, local outfit BENDT Distilling Co. (225 S Charles St, Lewisville, 214-8140545) has an Old Town Spirits line that includes an agave spirit, along with an aged rum, silver rum, and premium vodka. Stop by for a single, neat pour of Old Town Spirits’ Craft Agave 2pm-9pm MonThu or noon-10pm Fri-Sat for $7.

Fwy, 817-741-6090), Arlington (4001 Bagpiper Way, Ste 199, 817-557-2489), Denton (3300 Wind River Ln, 940-228-0555), and Southlake (1221 E Hwy 114, Ste 100, 817-421-2489), you can visit your nearest Chuy’s 11am-9pm Sun.

Cour tesy Facebook

Sunday is National Tequila Day. How can you celebrate? Let us count the ways.

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NATIONAL TEQUILA DAY 2022

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MUSIC

Mississippi Calling

With help from the folks at Niles City Sound, Jon Ruhl’s first album speaks to his childhood in the Deep South and the restlessness that defined his years after.

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Ellis and Ruhl storyboarded the album, picking songs from dozens of tunes Ruhl had written over the past decade.

Around that time, Ruhl visited Fort Worth to record songs for a group he is no longer working with. Ellis hired Ruhl to help around the studio as a handyman. Ruhl said he immediately fell in love with Fort Worth and its community of creatives and decided to stay. In early 2021, Ellis and Ruhl began recording at Niles City.

“The recording process was great,” Ruhl recalled. “We had fun with the songs. It was amazing to watch them grow past how far I was able to go.”

Producer Ellis said part of his goal was to showcase the wide range of styles and sounds that Ruhl’s musicianship is capable of.

“At the core, the goal was to put on a performance,” Ellis said. “What we are trying to do at Niles is performance-oriented music, not building something and sequencing it all and building a perfect vocal. All the stuff we love from the ’60s and ’70s was performed.”

To achieve that sound, he continued, the recording musicians have to be confident enough to not want to retake or edit every little blemish.

“With the technology that exists today, it’s easy to record 100 vocal takes and take one word from each take that is perfect,” Ellis said. “Then, you can tune and time-correct it.

I think music suffers because of that. We want to make stuff that we would listen to, stuff that we would like. During a recording session, we might say ‘Man, that vocal line was good. We could fix it. But why? It sounds great.’ ” The results of the studio time are an odyssey that touches on universal themes of love, loss, and restlessness that tie to Ruhl’s life journey. continued on page 21

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For a singer-songwriter who is still relatively new to the local music scene, Jon Ruhl’s career is off to an auspicious start. The Mississippi native recently released a self-titled 11-track album with the help of musician/producer Robert Ellis that was recorded at Niles City Sound, the famed

Fort Worth studio of choice for Leon Bridges, Quaker City Nighthawks, and Vincent Neil Emerson, among others.

Ruhl’s first major release at age 33 belies the fact that he has been an active songwriter since his teen years in Mississippi. As a child, he said he was endlessly conflicted about the small rural town where he grew up.

“My parents split up when I was really young,” Ruhl said. “Growing up in Mississippi wasn’t a great experience. I didn’t identify with any of the people.”

While locals were content to marry their high school sweethearts and work at their father or father-in-law’s business, Ruhl enlisted in the Navy at 17. As a medic, Ruhl said he served alongside Marines in Afghanistan in 2010 before being deployed off the coast of Libya the following year. After fulfilling his three-year commitment, he left the military and spent the past decade working as a commercial diver on the East and West coasts.

“I was playing music the entire time,” Ruhl said.

While crisscrossing the country — and busking where he could while living out of his van — Ruhl became an avid fan of Ellis, a.k.a. the Texas Piano Man, whose influences pull from country, pop, and jazz.

“I’ve been a fan of Robert for years,” Ruhl recalled. “The first time we shook hands was in Nashville. I think it was right around Christmastime, and he was offering lessons.”

A few months later, in May 2020, Ruhl asked Ellis over a Zoom songwriting lesson if Ellis would help him write an album. Ellis, who had just been brought on to the Niles City Sound team by studio co-founder Josh Block, said he was impressed by the first demos he heard.

“I think the songwriting is cool,” Ellis said. “Jon has lived a very different life than most people. You hear that in his attention to detail. That’s how the whole process started.”

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Cour tesy Brooks Burris

“Highway 51” is an up-tempo country song set to drumbeats that churn like a train that has no final destination. Ruhl’s baritone is effortlessly penetrating, and it’s his story that fuels the music.

“Highway 51,” he croons during the chorus. “I swear that I’ll come back again / You can get me home / Highway 51, get me home.”

The heavy opener is followed by the highly danceable, beach-country “Cosmic Trick,” which puts a positive spin on heartbreak and breakups. “Burlap Jacket” is a folksy tune that packs plainspoken lyrics in a song in which assorted instruments build layer upon layer into a crescendo while Ruhl continually returns to the central theme of an old burlap jacket, a metaphor for Mississippi, Ruhl told me. “Thorn,” recorded in one take, opens with fingerpicked guitars and deep, sporadic piano baselines.

“Sometimes the thing you love the most is a thorn in your side,” Ruhl mournfully

sings. “It will go in the coffin with you, no matter how big it grew.”

Ruhl’s first album can be divided into songs that are deep and light. Equally, they can be divided into literal and metaphorical songs. The songwriter is equally at home in both worlds, providing entertaining radio-friendly tunes and more poetic works that may be best enjoyed in the comfort of one’s home, where waves of nostalgia and tearful reminiscences can be felt without distraction.

The album, which is available on all major streaming platforms, will soon be followed by live performances by a band Ruhl is putting together with the help of his girlfriend, Claire Hinkle, herself an accomplished singer-songwriter and the daughter of famed bluesman James Hinkle.

The yet-to-be-named ensemble will perform originals by Claire and Ruhl plus the occasional cover, Ruhl said.

“My take on music is that it is entertainment, but it can be more profound than that,” he said. l

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continued from page 20

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Music

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With his first album now available on all major streaming platforms, Jon Ruhl is focusing on putting together a band to play out more frequently.

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Fort Worth singer-songwriter Van Darien brings her moody brand of mod-rock to The Post at River East (2925 Race St, 817-945-8890) 8pm-10pm Thu. No cover. All ages welcome. $5 classic cocktails will be featured.

SOLUTIONS PRESENTS: FRI 7/29 INSTRUMUSIC WONDERLAND, BEYOND DESTINY & MORE! FRI 8/5 TORCHFEST DAY 1 SAT 8/6 TORCHFEST DAY 2 ROCK NIGHT FT. FLASH MOB,

SAT 8/13 BEYOND DESTINY, MATT AND THE DIRTY SOULS & MORE! EMOTIONAL XAN RELEASE PARTY

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Contact HearSay at Anthony@FWWeekly.com.

NATIONAL TEQUILA DAY 2022

Admission: I’ve never really been quite sure what’s post-rock and what’s just “rock created recently.” It still won’t stop me from plugging what sounds like a pretty good rock-created-recently show at Tulips FTW (112 St. Louis Av, 817367-9798) 7pm-midnight Sat. For Texas Post Rock & Friends, the bill features Mount Oso, Driving Slow Motion, Zealand the North, Panther City Riots, and Greybloom. If I had to hazard a guess, I guess I could say “post-rock” features the kind of propulsive beats and angular guitarwork that’s usually associated with proto-punk. (Don’t ask me what that is, either.) Tickets are $12 in advance or $15 at the door. — Anthony Mariani

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Before Magnolia Motor Lounge (3005 Morton St, 817-332-3344) goes the way of Lola’s Trailer Park and Saloon, there’s still a wealth of top-notch live music to catch there. On Saturday, 40 Acre Mull, Brave Little Howl, and Cameron Smith & The Slings will be slinging some groove-oriented blues, soul, and roots-rock. Tickets are $12-100.

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WED 7/20 FT. BLEED, STINK, PANCHO PYRO, DEEP INCISION

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