"Bar Month" at OnMilwaukee.com is back for another round! The whole month of February, we're serving up intoxicatingly fun bars and club articles -- including guides, unique features, drink recipes and more. Grab a designated driver and dive in!

It's bar month at OnMilwaukee.com and I won't likely get out to more than a couple bars all month in my leisure time. The result is that my bar of choice is the liquor cabinet and the refrigerator at home.

While the image of someone drinking at home is sometimes perceived as a sad one, I rarely feel blue when I pop the cap on a Stella or pull the cork out of a beloved Barbera in my kitchen and enjoy it with dinner.

Even less sad is drinking at home in summer, when there's no bar in town that can serve up the same pleasure I get sitting out on the patio as the dogs chase one another, my toddler enjoys the sunshine, the "water feature" (aka fountain) gurgles away and we discuss what we'll cook on the grill that evening.

In fact, even after looking at what seems like a proming two-week forecast for February in Wisconsin, I still yearn for summer. That's when it's fun to be a homeowner (mostly), enjoying the fruits of one's labor and of one's check-writing. In winter, it's all shoveling, ice dam breaking and trying to ease the effects of nature. In summer, it's getting out the kiddie pool, cooking up some brats and having an evening grappa before bed.

Of course, summer has it's hiccups, too -- like mosquitoes, lawn mowing and the rumble of the boom cars in the alley -- but right now I yearn even for those (kinda).

In the meantime, I'll keep enjoying my wine, beer and spirits of choice mostly in the comfort of my own home -- no one smokes there and there's no fear of DUI -- although I will think of the good times to be had in area taverns, where there's camaraderie, the conversation struck up by chance and the electric atmosphere.

Best of all, at home -- unlike in bars -- I'm rarely tempted to drink to excess.