Giving your taste buds the... uh, boot in Ballard

The best thing to do with boots is obviously knock them, especially if you live in H-Town. But in Seatown, where most guys are closed-off and not good at that kind of intimacy extremely manly and tough, we prefer kickin' them, especially now that the crew behind The Matador's opened Kickin' Boot Whiskey Kitchen. They've fitted a repurposed warehouse with custom everything, from the diamond-plate mesquite grill/smokers, to a massive U-shaped bar and a steel tower of bourbon, too many of which'll likely make you Babel.The menu's built around classic BBQ offerings like fried chicken served w/ a buttermilk biscuit, half & whole racks of those baby back ribs Chili's commercials desperately want, and a housemade Hot Link that comes w/ slaw and "gold sauce". KBWK's also slingin' steakhouse classics (a center-cut New York w/ smoked cheddar tasso grit sticks), sandwiches (the sausage on top of brisket on top of pulled pork Smokestack), and apps like the spicy beer butter sauce'd Kickin' Shrimp, aka Lionel Messi, and/or every other soccer player other than Roger Levesque. He's kind of tall. If all this is making you thirsty, there might be something wrong with you since it should actually be making you hungry, but either way there's a massive wine list, scratch-made sodas, and old-school Southern imbibables like the gin/Lillet/orange curacao/absinthe Corpse Reviver, which they'll pour for you all night looong, ooh oo... or at least 'til closing.