We Tried Drinking Vaporized Alcohol.

Deep Ellum Barbershop Speakeasy High & Tight Serves Vaporized Alcohol. It’s… Interesting.

As speakeasies in Deep Ellum go, High & Tight Barbershop is hardly the most gimmicky one around. For one thing, the barbershop that serves as this cocktail lounge’s storefront actually functions as a place where you can get your locks chopped. It’s not just some facade.

But that’s not to say the place is without any gimmicks at all. Because it’s got at least one pretty big one that it’s been touting since it opened in November 2015. At the bar in High & Tight’s back room, they serve vaporized alcohol.Supplied to the spot by the Austin-based company Vapshot, the version served here is a vaporized concoction of some green chartreuse mixed with a peach liqueur.

The concept is that, since you’re inhaling the stuff, it hits your system faster, being piped right into your bloodstream via your lungs as opposed to being digested through the stomach a la a more traditional libation. Also, it’s just a bit of a different experience, which is something not to dismissed if an excursion from the norm sounds like your idea of a good time.Still, I’ll say this having tried it for myself this weekend: Ordering one of these guys here takes some guts. It goes like this: In exchange for a fiver, one of High & Tight’s barkeeps will grab what basically looks like a Nalgene bottle, toss a straw your way and ask that you wait as they retreat to a filling station behind the bar where he or she will fill the plastic container with a cloud of alcohol. Upon their return, they’ll open that sucker pretty loudly — it’s a pop akin to a champagne bottle being opened — hold it out in front of you and instruct you to inhale the vapor into your person via your straw.

Then you just breath in as faint, fruity notes flavor an otherwise ordinary respiratory feat. Aside from an entire bar’s worth of people staring you down like you’re an alien with no understanding of how boozing is supposed to work, it’s a pretty painless process.So: Does it get you super drunk, super quick? Um, I’m not really sure? Maybe? It’s not like chugging Everclear or anything, which is to say that it doesn’t seem like Vapshot’s too strong. It certainly won’t immediately knock you on your ass. It didn’t do that to me, at least.

But it’s not a total scam, either. I did feel something. I think I did, at least.

I’m still not sure how I really feel about it, though. I guess it’s kind of fun. Also, it can’t really have many calories, right? That’s a plus, I suppose.Anyway, High & Tight says it’s the only spot in Dallas to serve this concoction, although, rather fittingly given its promise of a quicker buzz, I hear some spots along Fry Street in Denton serve it too.