On the eve of midterm elections, Crow’s more media-saturated neighbor Nabob was packed high with eye-rollers and shit-talkers raising their blood temperatures over their country’s inevitable slide into some nightmare Libertarian abyss. Of course, this only optimized the subdued warmth of Crow from my favorite Election Day activity — getting smashed by myself and cloistering up against any possibility of idle chit-chat about the lumbering, impotent beast we call American politics.Sadly, Crow’s cocktail list featured only one whiskey drink: one appropriate to their nomination for Seattle’s best Manhattan in 2010. The Granhattan features Old Overholt rye, Grand Mariner (hence the portmanteau), Dry Vermouth and orange bitters. Its cloudy, orange appearance matches the drink’s strong, yet fleeting citrus taste.If this drink and Brian Mura’s Queen Anne Manhattan taught me anything, it’s that Crow appears to prefer serving whiskey steeped strongly in citrus. When I asked for something along the same lines, my bartender Claire lit up at the chance to make a Bourbon Sidecar. Here, Crow plays it safe, keeping the tartness of triple sec and lemon juice caged inside of a well-sugared rim.The Sidecar has a long history as a cognac cocktail, with some accounts dating the drink back to the first World War. The most common legend has the drink being invented for a particularly frozen motorcycle passenger seeking an after-dinner appertif to cure the side-effects of riding in something so silly-looking. The Sidecar was invented by mixing two of them: cognac and orange liqueur (depending on whose version of the story or promotional material you believe, it’s traditionally Grand Marnier or Cointreau). The Bourbon Sidecar replaces cognac with whiskey, still allowing the drink to retain its signature warmth while notching down its sweetness.Keeping within the night’s tendency, Claire served something on the rocks named the Ginger and Mary Anne (not to be confused with the Ginger and Bloody Mary Anne, which in my experience tastes like a heavy smoker chugged half of a V-8 and spit it back into the bottle). A liberal amount of lime juice gave the drink a little too much of a whiskey sour vibe to it for my tastes, but the muddled ginger at least kept it from being one-dimensional.Only four days into her job at Crow, Claire shows a healthy exuberance towards sensible substitution as well as more radical experimentation. Although the restaurant’s cocktail list is a little light and veers towards the dark side of saccharine vodka infusions, you can certainly do much worse when you’re looking for a quiet yet intriguing cocktail in Lower Queen Anne.