Forget that old go-to swill you’ve been drinking. It’s high time you branch out in West Michigan and meet these six life-changing, high-end cocktails.

In celebration of Grand Rapids Cocktail Week, on Sunday, Nov. 22 the UICA and Grand Rapids Downtown Market are hosting a hands-on cocktail class from 3–5 p.m. at the market and are pairing it with a 5:30 p.m. screening of the 2013 documentary Hey Bartender at the UICA.

Most people look at imperial stouts as big, thick malt bombs. While they are indeed all of those, they’re also nuanced pours, often infused with savory, roasty flavors (coffee and chocolate, in particular) and sweet aromas. We assembled nine Michigan-made imperial stouts from those available at the time and from the cellar and decided to see which ones we liked best in a blind tasting.

Craft distilleries are opening at a pace that probably has the teetotalling proponents of Prohibition turning over in their graves. The influx of neighborhood distilleries surely has the fine people of West Michigan careening into the rapture, glasses filled with craft bourbon in each hand. But the truth of the matter is a little less ominous as the rash of new craft distilleries has far more to do with the growing craft movement in general than it does with the end times.