By Lavanya Ramanathan Washington Post Staff Writer December 3, 2010 Theme is king on H Street NE, where bargoers can play rounds of indoor mini-golf, sing karaoke between bites of deep-fried sushi and get a taste Germany in liter mugs of Hefeweizen. But if you're looking for a bar that is just a bar, well, you're in the wrong place. Fruit Bat, the latest arrival, isn't about to shake up that divine order of things. The cozy sliver of a nightspot, which opened in August, has positioned itself as H Street's South American oasis, an export from sunny Cartagena with the tan to prove it. The theme plays itself out in the sexy Latin jazz that flows from the speakers overhead and in the fruit that hangs in Colombian-made baskets above the bar. Warm, burlap-covered walls and the steady arrival of brightly colored mai-tais and icy caipirinhas only heighten the vibe. Cool enough, but there is one other promising gimmick at play at Fruit Bat: The bar offers customers a chance to build their own cocktails by ordering one of the bar's fruit-infused spirits, a liqueur to add depth and fresh fruit juice to top off the creation. "We wanted to figure out what would be a niche on the block, since everything there is a niche," says owner Erik Holzherr, who also owns Wisdom on Capitol Hill. So he drew on his Colombian heritage (he is half-Colombian, half-German), peppering the bar with finds his family picked up on South American sojourns and introducing a small menu of snacks that includes Colombian/Venezuelan specialties and tacos (that the menu includes vegetarian offerings and even soy-milk cocktails is a credit to the bar's general manager, Roxanne Fereydouni, who is vegetarian). Holzherr says Fereydouni, who lives in the neighborhood, also pushed him to turn Fruit Bat into a haven from the construction on H Street and the sights and sounds of the city. The goal was to create something "that's tropical and warm and a contrast to what's out on the street," he says. Coming months will bring a separate bar upstairs with yet another theme: Holzherr will reveal only that it will be a lounge-style "church to cocktails" that won't be quite as casual as Fruit Bat. But he's not ready to use the dreaded word - reservations - either. "We want to have the grown-up bar on H street," he explains, quickly adding: "But we don't want to be snotty." The scene : Asking customers to invent their own drink can feel a little like asking them to answer a riddle, but the servers at Fruit Bat will pitch in with ideas. "It's a really inventive, fun idea," says Anna Longview, 28, who tried a few of the house-made infusions at Fruit Bat with a handful of friends on a recent Saturday night. "They're very creative in their approach." But for the full experience, you're better off going on a weeknight or before 8 p.m. on a Friday or Saturday; on weekends, the bar is packed with 20-something customers, the bartenders mix in hip-hop with the reggae and tables tend to fill up with Dos Equis rather than cocktails. In your glass : Plenty of folks at Fruit Bat will stick to caipirinhas or play it safe and try Xingu Brazilian beer, Dos Equis or the two lambics on draft. But the real lure of Fruit Bat is the bartenders who make it easy to dream; on my visits, directions to make something sweet got us a mai tai; when I asked for herbal, I got a cocktail laced with the Colombian anise-scented liqueur aguardiente, topped with a float of raspberry lambic. The highlight of the fall menu is the habanero-black current tequila infusion: It arrived with fresh lemon and lime, a splash of cranberry and a little triple-sec, and I couldn't stop sipping the spicy, tart concoction. Fruit Bat also has a couple of curious add-ins that will be hard for the adventurous to resist. Coca-leaf liqueur, for example. The bar stocks Agwa de Bolivia, a mildly minty Dutch drink that gets its kick from the leaves of the Bolivian coca plant, as well as caffeine and guarana. (Yes, caffeine; the bar also lets you add caffeine powder to any drink.) Fruit Bat serves it in the Rum and Coca, with cola and guava rum, but customers can also order it as a shot. It's a parlor trick more than anything: The leaves that go into the beverage are treated to remove cocaine (it's widely believed similar "decocainized" leaves still go into Coca-Cola). But to order it still feels awfully subversive. A couple of qualms: Not every infusion (priced at $7 for a shot, $9 for a cocktail and $12 for a martini) captures the flavor it purports to. A kiwi-basil tequila (which is not on the fall menu) didn't taste like basil or kiwi; same goes for the pineapple-cardamom rum. "When you taste a drink, you should taste every note that's incorporated," says Longview, who noted that the rum didn't quite live up to her expectations. Still, they're a better choice than some of the cloying flavored rums and vodkas the bar uses occasionally (drinks are priced between $8 and $12). Infusions and juices also rotate more slowly than one would like, which can take some of the excitement out of a return visit and particularly out of building your own cocktails. On your plate : The tiny kitchen turns out a selection of "Bat bites," small plates featuring a number of vegetarian offerings, including a cheese-filled arepa served with a sweet and fiery salsa ($4), a hearts-of-palm salad ($7) and a pair of vegetarian tacos ($7) assembled on thick, flavorful house-made tortillas and dotted with avocado and a crave-worthy pineapple salsa (pork tacos are also available for $9). Some of the items can be made vegan, too. (As mentioned, the bar also stocks soymilk. This makes for creamy, dreamy drinks like the Banana Boat and even White Russians.) The kitchen's schedule has been erratic since Fruit Bat opened in August but should ultimately be open Tuesday through Saturday nights.
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