Evans throws art, drinks in the mix

Beer isn’t her go-to beverage.

“I like beer. I love beer,” said Sheila Evans, who co-owns Spokane’s Iron Goat Brewing with her husband and another couple. “Usually, when I have a choice between the two, I will have a cocktail. I prefer cocktails” – particularly the vintage variety.

The artist recently combined three of her loves – classic cocktails, antiques, oil painting – to create an art book featuring a series of still lifes and old-school drink recipes. Copies will be for sale at tonight’s book release party, held in conjunction with First Friday, the monthly art and music event held at downtown restaurants and retailers.

It’s equal parts art and functionality, a book that belongs in two places. The images are so pleasing you’ll want to keep them on your coffee table. But the recipes are so useful you’ll want to stash them in the kitchen or bar.

The self-published volume features 19 recipes and prints of original oil paintings, which will be on display in Mizuna’s bar and new banquet room during tonight’s First Friday event. Most will be for sale, too.

Mizuna will offer drink specials based on the book. And Evans, 48, will be on hand to greet guests. She won’t be bartending but said she loves to mix a hand-crafted cocktail for company.

“It’s like a little gift,” she said.

Evans grew up in Spokane, graduating from University High School in 1984 and earning an art degree from Gonzaga University four years later. In the 26 years since, she’s become known for painting lots of large leaves – peaceful, pretty and abstract.

“They’re big and expensive, and I wanted to do something that was fun and accessible,” she said.

The book represents a departure from her usual work. There’s little foliage in this thematic project, which Evans said gave her an excuse to go antiquing, “rescuing these little orphan glasses.”

It also draws on reproduction wallpaper and flooring for backgrounds and uses props from Spokane shops such as Vintage Rabbit Antique Mall, United Hillyard Antique Mall, Tossed and Found, and the Raising the Bar, which specializes in “vintage and badass barware,” according to its business card. The new retailer, located in a travel trailer, is slated to attend tonight’s event.

Inspired by the recent resurgence of classic cocktails, Evans said she got the idea for the project a while ago and “just kept thinking about it.” She took a workshop in Eugene last year to brush up on her still-life skills. A few months later, she began collecting vintage barware and doing practice pieces. Recipe testing and full-scale work on the book – completing about two paintings per week – started this summer.

Evans painted during the day in her studio in a Craftsman rental house on Spokane’s Lower South Hill, often listening to the Django Reinhardt channel on the online radio station Pandora to get her in an old-time mood.

At night, she tested recipes with her husband and friends, usually four to six folks in all.

“The recipe tasting was really fun,” Evans said. “We really put our heart and soul into tasting these recipes. I was kind of sad when we were done.”

The book includes recipes and accompanying artwork of the Manhattan, Old Fashioned, French 75, Gimlet, Negroni, Whiskey Sour, Sazerac and Corpse Reviver II.

The newest cocktail is the Vesper, created in 1953. It was the drink of choice of James Bond in the book “Casino Royale” by Ian Fleming. Served in a Champagne coupe, the beverage includes gin, vodka and Lillet.

Evans isn’t sure which recipe came first. “A lot of these, nobody really knows,” she said. Some “go back to the 1800s at least.”

Her favorite is probably Embassy, created in the 1930s at an exclusive Hollywood club by the same name and featuring dark rum, brandy, Cointreau, freshly squeezed lime juice and bitters.

Following tonight’s event, books will be for sale at Atticus, 222 N. Howard St., and Raising the Bar, which can be found on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ raising.thebar.7. Books are $25. Prints and paintings range from about $35 to about $600.

Meantime, Evans is already contemplating her next art-cocktail-recipe book: “Mixology with a Twist.” It will focus on modern recipes from mostly local bars and bartenders.

“It’s too much fun not to do another,” Evans said.