Pouring on liquid charm for art crowd

THE quality of free booze at art openings in Los Angeles is on the upswing.

Galleries along Culver City’s La Cienega Boulevard art corridor and in and around Chinatown’s Chung King Road schedule their openings in tandem, to draw maximum foot traffic. A complimentary cornucopia of designer drinks, often served by uniformed bartenders, has been flowing at recent opening evenings. Grolsch and Peroni Beer, Don Julio Tequila and the Windex-blue cognac-based Hpnotiq are among them.

Is an effort underway to rebrand these drinks as the cool, arty beverages of choice? “Grolsch started sending us beer a few months ago for some reason,” said Jack Hanley, the owner of an eponymous gallery in Chinatown. “We’ve got crates of it in the back.” The nearby David Kordansky Gallery also said it gets free Grolsch.

Drew Heitzler, a co-owner of the Mandrake Bar on La Cienega, has found that it’s not bad for his business, either: “Once they get sick of drinking all that Campari, they come over here and get the party rolling.”

-- Chris Lee