Aaryn Brewer likes to make things.
"Right now, I'm designing a fence," she says. "My old fence fell down, so I'm using that as an excuse to build a new one out of steel."
Brewer, who graduated from the University of Arizona a year ago with a double major in classics and art history, says she learned how to work with metal when she took a bronze-casting course at Pima Community College.
Working with steel is different than working with bronze, she says. But she's learning as she goes.
"You can't really forge bronze like you can steel," she says. "With steel, you can reheat it and bang it around into the shape you want."
Brewer says she can use the forge at PCC's West Campus because she's enrolled in the bronze class.
"I'm not melting the steel down to a liquid," she says. "But I'm making it red hot. I'm sticking it in the forge and pounding on it and twisting it in whatever way suits me." When she's not making fences, Brewer's inventing drinks at Plush, 340 E. Sixth St.
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"I like to come up with new drinks," she says, "but I don't like to name them. I feel like drink names always have to be about sex. What people want from their drink names sort of annoys me. You call drinks 'orgasm' or 'sex on the beach' or something else obnoxious. I get disgusted with the whole process."
Drinks Brewer has invented include her modestly named Italian soda (strawberry vodka, Grenadine, cream and soda), grape sweet-tart (lemon vodka, grape Pucker and sweet and sour mix), and cherry lime-aid (cherry vodka, Rose's lime juice, Grenadine and 7 Up), which she developed in conjunction with another bartender.
"Plush's most popular mixed drink is our Sexy Blue Jesus," she says. "It's made with Stoli Vanilla Vodka, Stoli Peach Vodka, Midori melon liquor, Malibu Rum, blue caraco, apple Pucker and pineapple juice."
So you're a homeowner?
"I bought my house about five years ago. I had wanted to move to Spain, but that fell through. So I took my savings and I bought a house instead."
Do you have any roommates?
"No. Unless you count my cats. Technically, I have one cat. But my ex-boyfriend has two and they're still in my house. So currently I have three."
That's a lot of pets. Do you have any pet peeves?
"People who make up words, like 'irregardless' or 'conversate.' "
If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
"The Greek Islands. They're all blue and white and warm and they have these perfect pebble beaches."
Your first name is pronounced "Erin." But it's spelled more like "Aaron." What's the story?
"My mother had planned to have a boy and when I turned out to be a girl she made a small adjustment."
If you go
• What: Plush
• Where: 340 E. Sixth St.
• Hours: Mondays-Saturdays 4 p.m.-2 a.m., Sundays 6 p.m.-2 a.m.
• Happy Hour: Mondays-Saturdays, 4-8 p.m. $2 well drinks, $2.50 pints.
• Daily Specials: Tuesdays, $4 martinis. Wednesdays, $2 domestic longnecks. Thursdays, $2 well drinks. Sundays, $5 wine by the glass.
