The Eighth Annual Great American Distillers Festival will grace the Tiffany Center downtown today from 5 to 10 pm and tomorrow from 1 to 10 pm, meaning over forty bartenders and sponsoring distillers will be warming you up for Portland Cocktail Week with shots of knowledge about more obscure brands of liquor. Domestic spirits have a lot to offer—short of tequila, of course—and Oregon will most likely have a local presence of its own thanks to our impressive Distillery Row offerings. Meet distillery representatives from across the country, try some weird stuff or just stick to your poison of choice, and learn a little more about the wonderful world of American spirits. What could be more patriotic than that? Cocktails will be available as well, and all vendors will be selling through the festival's bottle shop if you just have to have Rogue Spirits’ Spruce Gin or whatever else to keep you warm through the impending weeks of relative cold.

$15 buys you admission for a day along with five tasting tickets, and $10 gets you an additional five tastings. Food will be available for purchase— so make sure you eat something before you spend those tickets, Blogtown. You learned drinking on an empty stomach was a bad idea the last time you flushed the price of a good time down a dive bar's toilet.

Have fun!

The Tiffany Center is located at 1410 SW Morrison Street.