Old City gets a destination cocktail bar with Almanac, which serves hyper-seasonal, Japanese-inspired drinks

Philly’s Old City has been a watering-hole hub for centuries, but let’s be real: In recent years, most of its bars haven’t been our best. That’s all the more true if you narrow the field to Market Street, where tourist traps mingle with a few precious gems.

But Market Street just might be home to Philly’s best new bar — Almanac, a Japanese cocktail lounge that draws on local, seasonal sourcing to serve intensely thoughtful drinks (think a house-blended rum sour spiked with acidulated Jenny Lind melon juice and sweetened with Japanese cucumber oleo-saccharum) and bar food that’s composed but fun (kombu celery sticks, a crispy chicken sandwich, a Wagyu hot dog, etc.).

The back bar is stocked with imported glassware and an impressive selection of Japanese spirits, including single-malts, vodka, gin, shochu, and bermutto (vermouth). The low-lit, wood-accented space opened earlier this month. It has room for 21 guests split between six tables and a 5-seat bar for walk-ins. Hours are Thursday through Saturday, 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. Reservations are recommended and max out at parties of four.

While the cocktails are main attractions, what sets Almanac apart is the start-to-finish omotenashi, or “overwhelming hospitality — that thing that [when] people go to Japan, they’re always wowed with," says head bartender Rob Scott. At Almanac, you’ll be greeted with a warm towel and a small cup of barley tea. A Japanese candy — maybe a muskmelon drop or a milk tea Kit-Kat — will be tucked into your check. In between, your drinks will be made to order and served on a handmade walnut coaster.

“Obviously we have Japanese spirits and we’re highlighting them, but what is more important to the program is taking the principles of bartending in Japan and ... really putting them right up front,” Scott says. A server waits tables at Almanac, but Scott flies solo behind the bar, hand-cracking ice and building every drink from scratch. He also crafts omakase cocktails ($21 a pop, or higher if you want to spring for premium spirits) by request.

Almanac is the companion bar to Ogawa Sushi & Kappo, itself a faraway sibling to Sushi Ogawa in Washington D.C. Philly’s Ogawa has cut an impressive figure since it opened last year, serving up what Inquirer critic Craig LaBan deemed the city’s next-best omakase, after the basically members-only meal at Royal Sushi.

From the beginning, Ogawa’s owners — South Philly neighbors Vy “Vee” To, Victor Ng, Albert Zheng, and Angelina Yang — knew they wanted to convert the upstairs space (formerly the dining room for Ikki) into a bar. They didn’t have a firm concept in mind beyond “something laid-back and intimate,” To says, “something in alignment with what [sushi chef] Carlos [Wills] is doing downstairs, in terms of seasonal ingredients, high-quality hospitality, the full package."

As Ogawa’s managing partner, To is in her first-ever hospitality gig; she’s eager to learn from experts. So when Drexel Food Lab director Jonathan Deutsch recommended she connect with Danny Childs, the James Beard Award-winning bartender who first cultivated his Slow Drinks program at South Jersey’s Farm & Fisherman Tavern, “I waited no time,” she says.

Childs' beverage-menu philosophy combines familiar farm-to-table principles — using local, seasonal, and foraged produce, herbs, and spices — with preservation and fermentation to create drinks of all kinds: homemade sodas, teas, amari, wines, liqueurs, and more. (Get the Slow Drinks book and you can do it yourself.) If it sounds hifalutin, it yields easy-drinking cocktails. You’ll only know how complexly layered they are if you ask for the story behind them.

In the case of Almanac, which bills itself as Japanese American, the Slow Drinks approach translates to a frothy matcha martini whose green tea powder blends seamlessly with homemade amazake (a fermented rice drink), or an apple brandy-based cousin of an Old Fashioned sweetened with smoked chestnut orgeat, or a fizzy Japanese highball variant with lemongrass-infused rice shochu and osmanthus tea. There are local ingredients folded in all over: persimmons from Childs' backyard in the Kaki Flip; South Jersey-foraged black walnuts in the nocino used in the Manhattan; and Childs' and Scott’s homegrown tomatoes were the basis for the tomato water in the dirty martini. Childs and Scott also deploy shio koji — the umami-rich fermented rice marinade that relies on Japan’s national mold — in savory cocktails.

While Childs developed the cocktail menu in conjunction with Scott, a fellow Farm & Fisherman alum, Childs is there in a freelance-consultant capacity as he spreads the gospel of Slow Drinks to other bar programs. (He’s been working with David Suro and family on the reboot of Tequilas and La Jefa, the all-day cafe/bar planned for the back of Tequilas.) He’s contracted with Almanac through next year.

Almanac’s debut menu will be cycled out in a matter of weeks, as will happen over and over, if all goes according to plan. Childs anticipates the drinks menu changing around 12 to 18 times a year, each with fresh produce featured in different ways. Next in the queue are daikon radish, celery, kabocha squash, seaweed, and Kyoto red carrot. (Besides what their personal gardens and foraging provides, Childs and Scott are lucky to have two Japanese-produce suppliers in Delaware’s Suzuki Farm and Bordentown, New Jersey, citrus grower Flavors by Bhumi.)

With all that goes into the beverage program, it’s perhaps unsurprising that most of the cocktails run $18 or more. The pricing matches the quality of product and the level of service, To says, adding that the staff tries to keep budget-friendly alternatives at the ready, especially for late-night industry visitors. Server Eli Eisenstein says Almanac is working on its own citywide special, potentially a shot of Mellow Corn whiskey with an Asahi. (There are other, more affordable items, too: The bar snacks top out at $16, and NA drinks are $12 and under.)

But more than likely, cost won’t be an issue for many Almanac customers. The staff were surprised when an Ogawa regular came in during the bar’s first weekend in business and ordered the market-priced omakase cocktail — in this case, an Old Fashioned made with 18-year-old Yamazaki single-malt whiskey. It sold for a cool $175.

“He loved it,” Eisenstein reports.