For example, if a guest wants something shaken, refreshing, semi-sweet, and autumnal, with no restrictions on it, Scott might offer up a Penicillin riff by leaning into barrel-aged spirits like apple brandy, Calvados, rum, or cognac and lemon.
“Ours is a little smoky with tartness from citrus and a bite of ginger. I’ll use our honey syrup, shio koji for savory notes, pull back on scotch, and throw in barley shochu in there for earthiness,” Scott explains.
In less than a year, Almanac has scaled up from being a reservation-only spot helmed by one bartender three nights a week to being a walk-in-friendly industry hang open six nights a week, with a growing bar team, Japanese American bartender Chi Yorizumi, who was previously at Philly mainstay, The Franklin Mortgage & Investment Company.
We recently caught up with Childs and Scott to learn how seasonality and locality show up on the menu, and how Almanac is meeting this dynamic moment in drink culture.
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DC: So much of what I and the Japanese do is oriented around seasonal ingredients. We’re using nocino from walnuts I harvested last year. The lemongrass we use in our highball is from my backyard. I did a ton of sourcing from Suzuki, a Japanese family farm in Delaware, and Kitazawa Seed Co., an Asian seed purveyor. I planted Japanese mugwort, mitsuba, momotaro tomatoes, and shishito peppers. At Almanac, we ferment our own sodas and kombucha. We make quick applications of koji fermentation for products like shio koji and amazake. We utilize the preservative nature of alcohol to make our own things like tinctures, bitters, liqueurs, amari, aromatized wine and vermouths.
DC: Our motto is we have it until we don’t. [Almanac] is very much a pantry approach; the menu changes every two or three weeks. When things get low, we ask, ‘What is a good seasonally-appropriate drink using this ingredient?’ In the winter, is it for something dark and strong or warm? In the spring, is it light, bright, and effervescent? Rob and I will come together and think that a highball would be great, or a Todavía Viva (preserved strawberries, lemon, tequila, and shochu), or it could work well in our “Hey Mami,” an ever-changing umami martini with different fermented ingredients.
