Come sit a while: Inside the Social Aid and Pleasure Club lounge on Main Street

PARK CITY, Utah — Walk in off Main Street, and Alpine Distilling’s Social Aid and Pleasure Club invites you to stay a while, maybe pick up a deck of cards or a half-finished knitting project from a previous lounger, order a slice of pie or charcuterie.

A hub built for hosting

Alpine Distilling built its front porch right in the heart of historic Main Street, with one door opening onto Main and another facing China Bridge.

“You can’t miss it,” Xania Woodman, events manager for Alpine Distilling, said. “We catch you coming and going.”

The Social Aid and Pleasure Club is a craft cocktail bar open six days a week, pouring drinks made with Alpine’s award-winning gin and whiskey, alongside spirit flights, charcuterie boards, snacks and the pie that has followed the brand since its earliest days before the pandemic. Behind the scenes, the same space converts into Alpine’s venue for wedding parties, corporate gatherings and other private events, catered in-house.

But the bar’s real purpose, Woodman said, is simpler than any of that. It’s meant to feel like an extension of your living room.

“What do you do in your living room?” she said. “You enjoy cocktails. You also enjoy entertainment.”

Through Dec. 1, ensure that your group of 4-14 or more makes a lounge reservation to secure a spot in the lounge rather than gambling on the waitlist.

An evening in, away from home

Tucked between the main bar and the Distillers’ Lounge sits a stretch the staff has named the dopamine zone, a cluster of tables stocked with card and board games, postcards that Alpine will stamp and send for you, a basket of communal knitting that migrates from guest to guest, and more.

“The knitting project is so funny because someone puts their stamp on it for a little while, they put it back in the basket, and then the next person picks it up,” Woodman said. “I can’t wait to see what this thing becomes.”

The dopamine zone’s unofficial mascot is a human-sized teddy bear, a beloved fixture in the lounge. He is, technically, a replacement. His predecessor, a slightly smaller bear, vanished last year. “He was kidnapped by a wedding,” she said.

The new bear is bigger, in part so the staff can keep a closer eye on him, and in part because he’s become an accidental celebrity, turning up in a steady stream of guest photos.

Once a month, on a Thursday night, the lounge adds live music to the mix with Gin and Jazz, a recurring set from vocalist Kate Chanson. About once a month beyond that, Alpine throws a themed party built around nothing more than an excuse to have one. A recent yacht rock night has given way to plans for a Miners Day weekend celebration built around whiskey, the West, and country music playing through the speakers.

“No particular reason other than just the fun of whiskey,” Woodman said.

When six becomes a crowd

Smaller groups tend to take care of themselves in the lounge, Woodman said. Four people can walk in, order a flight, snack on charcuterie and talk to the staff about the spirits without much guidance.

For larger groups of six or more, Alpine offers private classes, tastings, and experiences, which is where Alpine’s guided experiences come in, giving a bigger group a shared starting point: a time to show up, a reason to be there, something to do together before the evening loosens up and people scatter into their own conversations.

The most traditional of those offerings is a seated, guided tasting, the kind of structured, expert-led session some guests want, particularly when Alpine’s gin distiller Sara Sergent is in town to lead it herself. But Alpine has also built two newer experiences for guests who want something looser or more creative.

Finding the right gin and tonic

Alpine’s newest experience centers on a drink most people don’t think to interrogate too closely: the gin and tonic.

During the Ultimate Gin and Tonic Experience, guests taste through Alpine Distilling’s gin lineup, the Elevated Gin, the Lily Lake Hibiscus Gin and the Barrel Age Gin, then sample three different tonics side by side with the help of the distillery’s partner, Fever-Tree. Most people never get that kind of side-by-side comparison, Woodman said; they drink whatever tonic their bar happens to pour, or whatever their host has on hand.

After tasting through the lineup, guests draw lines on a card matching gins to tonics based on what they think will work. Woodman then mixes each guest a mini cocktail built to that pairing. From there, guests can stick with their original match, switch to one of the other combinations they tasted, or invent something new entirely, which becomes the basis for a full-sized cocktail to close out the session.

“There’s lots of opportunities here for sipping and socializing, with a little bit of education on the front end, and a lot of enjoyment on the back end,” Woodman said.

Both the painting class and the gin and tonic experience require a minimum of six guests and run as private bookings.

The exception is when Alpine runs a themed solo or duo night built to bring couples or individual guests together for a shared experience, which the distillery calls out explicitly when it’s on the calendar.

Painting with whiskey

The Spirited Paint Party came out of a chance discovery: a press release about a local artist, Briar West, who, during the pandemic, started dissolving her own paint with vodka and other spirits out of boredom. She uses a specialized paper, along with straws and her own breath, to move the ink across the page, sometimes weaving in metallic silver and gold.

This experience isn’t the typical sip-and-paint class where a plant sits in front of everyone and a wine glass keeps hands busy. Guests use droppers to apply spirit-dissolved ink to the paper, then blow it into shape, producing something closer to a Rorschach print than a still life. Everyone leaves with three finished pieces, two small and one large, framing quality.

“You could frame them and give them as gifts because you’re using our elevated gin or our whiskey to dissolve her inks,” she said. “Gin and whiskey fans love it. It’s kind of a little Easter egg.”

Where to find out what’s next

Alpine keeps most of its planning details, along with booking links for private events, weddings and off-site mixology sessions, on the experiences page of its website. Through Dec. 1, standard lounge reservations are free. Beyond the website, Alpine leans on Instagram to spread the word about whatever is happening next, whether that’s a themed party, a new class, or a simple reminder that the doors are open and cocktails are flowing.

The invitation underneath it all stays the same, Woodman said: come in, stay a while, and let the staff make the cocktails while you sit back and enjoy yourself.