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Booze
Though Irene put a slight kink in their grand-opening plans, Mike Gartner and Chris Barnes' Lucky's Last Chance (4421 Main St.) is now officially rolling in Manayunk. The bilevel bar, which has been Yunkers and Tonic, is taking an all-local approach to both food and beer — "a little spin on what Manayunk has seen before," says Gartner. The 28-bottle list and six draft choices are heavily Philly craft-influenced (stop by on Tuesdays for $6 to $10 "Flight Club" samplings), as is chef Pat Brady's menu, which is big on burgers — they do "left of center" bunned options, like a PB&J bacon burger, a mac 'n' cheese burger and a rendition on the cheese-stuffed "Jucy Lucy" famous in Minneapolis. Upstairs from the main pub is a dance floor and DJ setup where the focus will be electronic and house music — "no Top 40," vows Gartner. Lucky's Last Chance is open Tue.-Sat from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. and Sunday from noon to 2 a.m.
For $45 a head you can get down at the Brews Blues & BBQ festival the Electric Factory (421 N. Seventh St.) this Saturday, Sept. 17. Spread out over two sessions (1-5 p.m. and 6-10 p.m.), the event will feature the chance to sample unlimited amounts of craft beer (Dogfish Head, Firestone Walker, Ballast Point, Troegs, Stone and Roy Pitz, to name just a few) and smoked-out food from locals like Cantina Los Caballitos, El Camino Real, Le Cochon Noir, Rembrandt's and more. Attendees will be able to cast votes for "Best in Class" barbecue in three categories — brisket, chicken and ribs. (Meal Ticket's own Drew Lazor will be in the house as a guest judge, too.) Satisfying the music part of the equation are live acts like Shakey and Slo, The Hired Guns and more local blues artists.
Hearing there's still a bit of space for tonight's Louis Guntrum wine dinner at Pub & Kitchen (1946 Lombard St.) — chef Jonathan Adams and crew are pairing up five late-summer dishes with five wines from the German producer, four of which are Rieslings. (P&K has been an enthusiastic local Summer of Riesling participant, after all). Full menu, with pairings and tasting notes, after the jump. The dinnner is $55 a head and tables are being taken any time after 6 p.m.; call 215-545-0350 or email events@thepubandkitchen.com to reserve.
Last week, we noticed Eulogy/Beneluxx owner Mike Naessens sharing an interesting Chinese/Teutonic sketch (right) via Facebook. Today, Naessens shared a bit more about his pending project, also located in Old City — he's taking over Old City Asian Bistro (206 Market St.) to open Tsingtau Lokal, a concept inspired by Qingdao, the Chinese port city held by the Germans, in a similar fashion to Great Britain's control of Hong Kong, until World War I.
The space will continue operating as the Bistro until a new liquor license Naessens has applied for goes live, which ideally will be sometime in the next six months. When it switches over, the kitchen (Naessens is retaining as many OCAB staffers as possible) will begin cranking out Asian/Euro specialties pushing the boundaries and traditions of Teutonic cuisine. (No chef to name just yet, but Naessens says he's in talks with several.) OCAB's sushi and bento box selection, popular with the lunch crowd, will stay. There are plans to install a draft system with 20 or more beers on tap; there will also be two beer engines and a 300-option bottle list. The décor will change — "It'll look like an old German pub that's started to have some infiltration of Chinese influence," says Naessens — but there won't be any dramatic construction overhauls.
Though we speculated last week that Han Chiang of Han Dynasty (108 Chestnut St.) might be involved with Tsingtau Lokal, Naessens says he's not partnered up at this time.
Mike Naessens, who owns Eulogy (136 Chestnut St.) and Beneluxx (33 S. Third St.) in Old City, was rumored months back to be chatting with his neighbor, Han Chiang of Han Dynasty (108 Chestnut St.), for a potential team-up. Last night the publican threw this rendering, depicting a stein-wielding Euro monk king hamming it up with a Buddha character wielding dinner plates, on his Facebook wall. Naessens ain't talking right now, but should we take this as an indication Naessens and Chiang's disciplines could me melding sooner rather than later?
Filmmaker Ken Burns, whose dense, infinitely detailed documentaries deal with patently American topics like baseball, jazz and war, is taking on one of our young country's most notorious courses with Prohibition, a three-part work that will debut on public television in early October (more info below). This Friday, Sept. 2, at 6:30 p.m. WHYY is hosting a free partial sneak preview of Burns' doc at the Great Plaza at Penns Landing (Chestnut and Columbus). The doc's co-director, Lynn Novick, will be in attendance.
Naturally, the event, part of WHYY's Connections Festival, will be appropriately wet.
Phoebe Esmon, top boozehound at Farmers' Cabinet and president of the Philly chapter of the United States Bartenders' Guild, tells Meal Ticket she and her USBG ilk will be pouring Philly Distilling-based thematic cocktails at both public and VIP bars. At the main watering station, look out for a timeless Tom Collins or an Income Tax Cocktail (Bluecoat gin, sweet and dry vermouths, OJ, Angostura bitters). In the ticketed VIP, open only to WHYY members, they'll pour tipples like classic 2-to-1 martinis, the Prince Farrington Cup (XXX Shine, maraschino liqueur, Pimm's, lime, ginger ale, Angostura bitters) and Izzy Einstein Punch (Bluecoat, Vieux Carré absinthe, maraschino liqueur, lemon, peach, green tea, soda). For the latter two originals, Esmon shares, the USBG adhered to ingredients and ratios cited in Prohibition-period cocktail manuals.
Via whyy.org:
Prohibition is a three-part, five-and-a-half-hour documentary film series directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick that tells the story of the rise, rule, and fall of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the entire era it encompassed. The culmination of nearly a century of activism, Prohibition was intended to improve, even to ennoble, the lives of all Americans, to protect individuals, families, and society at large from the devastating effects of alcohol abuse. But the enshrining of a faith-driven moral code in the Constitution paradoxically caused millions of Americans to rethink their definition of morality. Thugs became celebrities, responsible authority was rendered impotent. Social mores in place for a century were obliterated. Especially among the young, and most especially among young women, liquor consumption rocketed, propelling the rest of the culture with it.
In the past, Chifa (707 Chestnut St.) has hosted Brooklyn Brewery, Oskar Blues and other craft breweries for beer dinners at its sultry Seventh-and-Chestnut digs. Tomorrow, Aug. 25, Orange Country's The Bruery (a personal favorite of Meal Ticket) comes to town with a $65-per-person Canto-Peruvian feast. To start, expect broiled egg from the Garces crew, accessorized with avocado mousse, white soy-marinated habanero and citrus rice puffs and paired with out-of-commission Orchard White. To finish, there’ll be mini creme fraiche sorbet and lemon and blueberry ice cream sandwiches, served with Bruery's hopped strong ale, Mischief. What lies between, you'll have to make reservations and find out for yourself.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Philadelphia Folk Festival. (Check out CP's coverage.) To commemorate the event, Yards has prepared their own barrel(s) of fun — the brewery's first-ever lager, Folk Fest. The 6 percent ABV beer, brewed on Yards' pilot system, uses German malts and Hallertau and Tettnang hops. They produced only six barrels, or a dozen kegs. "We will be pouring the beer at the Folk Fest and only at the Folk Fest," says Yards' director of operations Steve Mashington. "We may keep a keg for the tasting room [in the Philly brewery], but that will be it." So if you want to taste their latest creation (Mashington provided "pretty awesome" as a tasting note), prepare to trip it out to Old Pool Farm. Expect to find a number of the brewery’s signature ales — Philly Pale, Brawler, IPA and ESA — in the festival’s beer garden, as well. Folk Fest tix are available here.
There’s a new booze blog in town: Home Speakeasy is Jon Kostesich and girlfriend Jen Killius' way of chronicling their amateur adventures in the world of craft cocktailery.
Both Kostesich and Killius were big spirits fans long prior to launching the blog: Kostesich spent his time drinking whiskey at Southwark (701 S. Fourth St.), his favorite neighborhood haunt, while Killius explored Columbus, Ohio, where she was living at the time. During their travels they discovered quite a few great cocktail bars, but all those $15 drinks soon began taking their financial toll. So the two started buying their own bottles and experimenting with their own original cocktail recipes.
Yet another nice get for Center City's The Farmers' Cabinet (1113 Walnut St.), which just landed Jason Goodman as its new chef the other day — bartender Christian Gaal, late of the just-sold-off Noble (2025 Sansom St.), now calls the F-Cab home.
Gaal, who is no stranger to CP — Felicia D'Ambrosio profiled him when he first started at Noble back in 2009, and he also helped us out with our fall 2010 piece on peculiar spirits — joins his ladyfriend Phoebe Esmon, who's been head bartender and bar manager at the Cabinet since it opened. Perhaps Gaal and Esmon will reprise the always-hilarious Saturday-night simul-mixing "Monogamous Cocktail Experience" we enjoyed more than a few times at Noble — Gaal's slated to hop behind the stick this weekend.
Photo: Jason Varney
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