Crooks Club Bottle Shop and Bar

It's hard to figure out how to review this place. Does a bar located in the middle of nowhere automatically start out with a couple of stars? Do I give them more leeway and not deduct points for things that I would deduct points for had the bar been in NYC or Portland? Does anyone even care?

  My wife is from the very small city of Crookston, and I have visited a half a dozen times over the nine years we have been together. I had never gone to a bar in the town, instead choosing to drive all the way to Grand Forks, where the fear of hick rape is less. This night however, my brother-in-law was playing his first paid show and it happened to be at Crooks.

  My first thought when I walked in the place, even though I was with four locals, was that I wasn't going to make it out of there alive. Maybe it's my city upbringing, but I tend to get more nervous with every person I see dressed in camouflage or fatigues. I quickly downed a couple shots of Crown (they were all out of the fancy Maker's Mark) to get some nerves and then frightfully glanced towards the taps. I almost soiled my pants when I saw that they had Mojo and a number of other better than decent beers on tap. I did soil my pants when I saw the selection of bottles- a selection that would be pretty impressive had I been in a non-dead city.

  Most of the night is a blur, as the shots flowed like water. I do remember that the Mojo was cheaper than it is at Boulder Beer (where it is brewed), although I received many strange looks no one tried to beat me up, and the most interesting was that the women seemed to be all up on my nutsack, as I was from out of town.

  I obviously wouldn't go out of my way to go to Crooks (as it is far removed from civilization) but next time I'm in Crookston, you'll find me at the bar, Mojo (and hopefully some damn Maker's Mark) in hand.