No matter if you’re a teetotaler or you like a tipple, Killjoy will offer a totally unique drinking experience.
There’s never been a better time to be a consumer: whether we’re talking build-your-own burrito bowls or luxury cars, custom-designed sneakers or vacation packages, these days, we’re placing a premium on purchasing exactly what we want.
So, why should our cocktails be any different?
This spring, Zack Thomas and Josh Gagne, longtime fixtures in Raleigh’s bar and hospitality scene, will open Killjoy, a bar designed to custom tailor a cocktail experience for each individual guest who walks through the door. Located in the building at 116 North West Street across from Clouds Brewing—a space seasoned Raleighites will remember as the erstwhile Blue Martini—Thomas and Gagne say the concept, for the Raleigh market, is one of a kind.
“We will initiate a conversation with each guest to figure out their particular tastes and guide them through our drink building process,” Thomas explains. If a guest can’t speak with a bartender directly, he says, they can fill out an order pad with options for spirit, style and complexity. “This will ensure that the guest receives the same amount of attention on a busy Saturday night as they would on a slow Tuesday afternoon.”
Another selling point? Guests who don’t want to imbibe have the option to buy a delicious drink that’s completely spirit-free.
Zack Thomas | RDP3 Photography
For Thomas, that point is personal. Though he’s worked behind bars all over downtown Raleigh, and with Chapel Hill’s Crunkleton and as a brand ambassador for Durham Distillery, Thomas has been practicing sobriety for two years. Thomas says his path to sobriety wasn’t easy, given his past and choice of career, but that it was a decision he had to make for his health and to achieve balance in his life.
“If you want to be completely dedicated, recognize what’s working for you and what’s not working for you,” Thomas says. “It’s intimidating.”
A Raleigh native, Thomas grew up on Hillsborough Street, in and out of bars including Pantana Bob’s, Players Retreat, Crowley’s and East Village where his dad worked as a bartender.
“My daycare as a kid would be going to bars, helping him set up, and my mom would pick me up after working at NC State,” Thomas says. “I have a unique perspective.”
It’s a perspective that served him well as he decided to enter the family business, landing at Foundation where he honed his craft building creative cocktails using only American spirits and, later, as the bar manager at Crawford and Son. But when Thomas’s son was born four years ago, Thomas says he started to think about making some changes.
RDP3 Photography
“I felt the only answer to being a good father was to get a 9 to 5 job,” Thomas says. So he took a position at the City of Raleigh Museum and enrolled in school full-time. “That only lasted a semester because I missed being behind a bar so much.”
Eventually, Thomas decided to give sobriety a try. He joined Ben’s Friends, a food and beverage industry support group for professionals struggling with substance abuse and addiction. Thomas got to know Scott Crawford, the co-founder of Ben’s Friends and founder of the Raleigh chapter, and he connected with others in the local industry facing similar daily struggles.
“I was pretty alone in being a bartender,” Thomas says. “What do you do if someone offers you a shot?”
But he persisted, taking the view that, for him, alcohol functioned as a food allergy.
“I felt I had some anxiety associated with my job and alcohol was getting in the way of being able to address it,” Thomas says, “Also, I’ve lost 50 pounds. I have so much more money now and I have mental clarity.”
Guarav “G.” Patel, the owner of Eschelon Hospitality and another longtime fixture in Raleigh’s bar and hospitality scene, says he’s seen a rising interest in practicing sobriety among young people. Patel, who himself has been practicing sobriety for nine months now, has served as a consultant to Thomas and Gagne on the Killjoy concept.
“It’s about a balance,” Patel says. “It’s about having the right balance, practicing wellness and having the option. That’s really it, not just having to say, ‘I’ll have a soda water with cranberry juice on the side.’”
RDP3 Photography
Along with design-your-own cocktails and spirit-free drinks, Killjoy will offer a selection of traditionally prepared, frozen, draft and bottled original cocktails featuring in house specialty ingredients. A list of quick classics will be posted up behind the bar for convenience and the owners will maintain a database to help bartenders decide how to create drinks based on customers’ stated preferences, “allowing them the freedom of creative expression,” in Thomas’ words.
Patel compares the Killjoy experience to dining in a high-end restaurant where you can describe exactly what kind of dish you’d like and the chef will prepare it for you according to your tastes.
“It is very much a new concept for Raleigh, for North Carolina,” Patel says. “This is about being hospitable to anybody, and everybody, filling a void we believe is here in the market and enhancing Raleigh.”
For non-drinkers like Thomas, Killjoy will be a welcome addition to the city’s bar scene.
“I don’t hate alcohol whatsoever,” Thomas says. “Sobriety doesn’t have much to do with being a bartender, it isn’t as hairy as people make it out to be. It all boils down to whether you trust yourself or you don’t. There are the same problems I had when I was drinking. But now, I don’t have the ability to drink them away and forget about them.”
The Prohibition years were ones of mystery, of exhilaration and, unexpectedly, the ones that brought us some of today’s most beloved classic cocktails. Jon Seelbinder, owner of Local Icon Hospitality Group, is bringing back a taste of those times with a new speakeasy called The Merchant in the former Level Up space at 126 S. Salisbury Street. The name is a nod to the long history of the building that will house the new speakeasy; built in 1920, it originally served as the offices for the North Carolina Retail Merchants Association. Seelbinder sees the space, recently renovated by Louis Cherry Architecture, as an opportunity to bring a concept that doesn’t already exist to the city. “Raleigh doesn’t have enough true, secret door, cool speakeasies,” Seelbinder says. “I love the elusiveness of a secret door that leads to something really special.” Along with a concealed entryway, The Merchant will offer classically inspired cocktails by Beverage Director Brett Michael Lysak and a chef-driven sharing plates menu from chef Ethan McClellan and chef Adrian Black, whose resumé includes a stint at Herons at The Umstead Hotel. Modern riffs on traditional speakeasy-style drinks along with unique house favorites pair well with charcuterie, burgers and strip steak in the revamped space decorated to capture the dark ambiance of the 1920s. “This is the most exciting project I’ve done in seven years,” Seelbinder says. Expect to duck into The Merchant either late this year or early next—if you can find the door, that is.
Logan Mosteller looks a bit young to be the beverage director for South Blount Street’s speakeasy-style cocktail bar Watts & Ward. But talk with him for five minutes and you quickly realize that Mosteller exceeds his years in knowledge of, and passion for, his trade—a trade he says was never on his radar for most of his life.
Growing up in a household that’s members only imbibed with the occasional glass of wine, Mosteller “got hooked” into the curious world of bartending just days after his 21st birthday, securing his first role behind the stick at the bustling Cowfish in North Hills. Mosteller spent a year and a half learning cocktails and developing his style and when he left to try his hand in corporate America, a longing to return to the bar quickly overcame him.
“I couldn’t shake my love for the work,” Mosteller says of being away. “I would come home from work and read about cocktails, the art of bartending and cooking, and would doodle recipes to try.”
Certain of his calling, Mosteller knew it needed to be the right environment—one that would take him out of his comfort zone and engage him creatively. Lucky for him, when the opportunity came to work at the newly-opened Watts & Ward nearly three years ago, he was happy to jump back in. He secured an apprenticeship under then-bar director Daniel Barnes, who he credits for helping him take his bartending career to the next level.
Fast forward to now and the majority of Mosteller’s work goes on behind the scenes preparing his team to deliver consistent, quality drinks in a timely manner—no simple feat given the sheer volume of the subterranean space and the three working bars in cavernous rooms that fill to capacity on any given Friday or Saturday night. While still a “work in progress,” Mosteller says his current projects include expanding the large-batch program and building a selection that’s strong enough to encourage patrons to try at least two signature drinks, at least one of which that’s unfamiliar to them.
With an offering of more than 20 house-made products including tinctures, bitters and infusions, Mosteller says his favorite products are the regional Amari because of the time and extensive ingredient list required for producing them. Hosteler says his main inspirations for drinks come from travel, cooking and reading, but when he’s drinking close to home, he enjoys Santa Teresa Rum, Teeling Rum Cask Irish Whiskey, Ramazzotti and other Amari. Admittedly, Mosteller says, he prefers infusions over syrups and he pays careful mind to not turn every flavor into a sweetener. This explains why Mosteller seldom drinks an Old-Fashioned, he says, as they’re often “overly sweet and usually used to hide bad whiskey.”
Vincenzo’s Revenge, Cactus Garden and the So-to are some of the staff favorites from the Watts and Ward menu. A favorite new cocktail is the Foxfire:
Foxfire
1 ½ oz. Wild Turkey Rye 1 oz. Vino Pasubio ½ oz.Cocchi Vermouth di Torino 3 dh. Jerry Thomas’ Decanter Bitters Flamed Orange Zest
Stir ingredients over ice 25-35 seconds. Julep strain into Nick and Nora glass. Heat oils of orange with a lighter and express cocktail through the flame over the cocktail.
It’s 3 p.m. on a Monday in the Warehouse District, and Samantha (Sam) Lott has just set up the A-frame chalkboard on the sidewalk, signaling to passersby that Circa 1888 is open for business. An original member of the bar’s starting lineup upon its opening in the spring of 2015, Lott tends bar at Circa on what those in the hospitality business refer to as “industry nights;” that’s Sunday, Monday or Tuesday evenings when your local bartender, chef or mixologist enjoys a day off. During these days, Lott finds herself serving the familiar faces of fellow service professionals who duck into the cool, dark comforts of Circa’s exposed brick archways to enjoy a game of pool or relax over a pour of whiskey from the rich mahogany back bar.
After discovering bartending in her early 20s, Lott worked on and off at restaurant bars outside of Detroit while also operating her own landscaping company on the side. When her husband’s career brought the two of them to Raleigh nearly eight years ago, it wasn’t long before Lott met Linda and Brendan O’Reilly, the owners of the popular Landmark Tavern on Hargett Street, and found herself opening the freshly renovated doors of Circa 1888, then their newest venture. “It felt like a real challenge,” Lott says of her bartending schedule. “I thought, ‘How am I going to build a following, especially at the beginning of the week?’ I had no previous bartending experience in Raleigh.”
Fast forward four years and Lott has found herself at home, catering to countless regulars who she knows by name and by drink preference, not to mention the loyal community of four-legged friends accustomed to her warm hello and generous treat-giving at the corner of the bar. “People refer to me as ‘mom,’” she says, “probably because I have a somewhat soothing personality and I always respond to my customers with kindness.”
When she’s not playing the role of “mom” behind the bar and making every guest feel special, Lott spends her time expressing herself as an artist. Her business, Nature Pottery by Sam, offers a collection of handmade porcelains for landscape art and décor—from detailed bird houses to vibrant flowers and critters for gardens. “Anything that’s clay in here, I made,” she says, pointing to a few of her pieces around the bar. And, like many who choose bartending as a way to pay for, or complement, their true passions, Lott finds herself lucky to be able to meet people from all walks of life—some of whom have become lifelong friends.
It’s now about the time Lott’s crew of local bartenders will start arriving for their regular afternoon game of pool. On the right, a gentleman stops in for a quick beer while waiting for his son to finish his martial arts class next door. In between pours for customers and cutting her citrus for the night, Lott explains what bartending means to her. “It’s a stage,” she says. “It’s about service and listening to people’s needs and responding with care. And you have to be willing to get on that stage, no matter what.”
It’s a rare moment when a who’s who of Triangle bartenders gather at the same place on a Friday afternoon, but that’s what happened when Jim Meehan came to town. Meehan, a bartender and journalist, and the author of Meehan’s Bartender Manual and The PDT Cocktail Book made a stop in Raleigh’s Dram and Draught during a tour of the state, signing books and talking the business of tending bar.
Meehan, who won the 2018 James Beard Foundation Cookbook award in the “beverage” category, charmed the crowd with tales of creating cocktails at New York City’s famed speakeasy Please Don’t Tell, as well as Hong Kong’s Centurion Lounge. On the topic of the future of cocktail creation, Meehan said he thinks cocktails will be more DIY going forward.
“People will always enjoy a good drink in a bar, but we are going to see more people learning to mix cocktails at home,” Meehan said. “The trend of building a home bar will continue to get stronger.”
Meehan’s Bartender Manual shares the origin of each cocktail recipe that’s included, along with hacks, or short cuts and variations, on the ingredients for creating different drinks. More than half of the cocktail recipes use between three and five ingredients only, making them approachable for the newbie home mixologist.
Here’s one of our favorites:
PALOMA
Recipe
• 3 oz. Squirt
• 2 oz. Siete Leguas reposado tequila
• 0.5 oz. lime juice
• Garnish: ½ grapefruit wheel
Build in a chilled kosher salt– rimmed tumbler, then add ice.
Garnish with the ½ grapefruit wheel.
