I’ll admit I overlooked this little jewel. Armada in the Old City opened in February of 2014, and according to owner Zachary Calfee, I did what others did: assumed it was another dance club. It was cold out, I hurried by and promptly forgot about the place. Recently, when interviewing Jessica Cumbee about Barre Belle Yoga, her new business on the 100 block, I learned that her husband, Zachary Calfee, owned Armada and it was nothing resembling a dance bar. I arranged to meet him to learn more.
I met with Zachary, manager Lance McNew and the newest addition to Zachary and Jessica’s family. Zachary grew up on Norris Lake, working at the boat dock there, and says he has worked in the service industry since age 15. He attended UT and started tending bar at age 19. He worked at Wok Hay, among other places, and said that was a very helpful experience because he worked with one bartender who was a speed competition award winner and another who had years of experience and had worked in some of the finest bars in New York City.
He says he actually attempted to avoid being a bartender, because so many he met were bitter, grumpy and generally hated people. Zachary, by contrast, enjoys people tremendously – even the drunks. He worked at the Hilton, Peter Kern and Ruth Chris. In his kitchen making amaretto, a drink he didn’t particularly care for, he realized he loved his version and got excited about making his own liquors.
That started him on a venture of experimenting with various infusions and making a range of alcohols. He makes his own campari, sweet vermouth, absinthe, coconut rum and gin. They also make their own vanilla and simple syrup and he began infusing botanicals and making spirits with their own character, which he says is the biggest thing at the bar. This would include “chicken whisky.” (You’ll have to ask him.) He said, “If we can make it, we don’t want to buy it.”
By the time the bar opened, he’d seen many things that worked and many others that didn’t. Excitement building in his voice as he talked, he said, “Making a drink for a person that they can’t get anywhere else brings them back.” Word of mouth has served them well, so far, with people from Blackberry Farm and Asheville coming to check out what they are doing.
The theme that runs through the cocktail menu is a very modern, creative twist to many very traditional drinks. He feels many bars in town stifle the creativity of the bartenders by telling them precisely how each drink must be made. He feels the best drinks were conceived of before prohibition and most of what he does is find ways to make them different. He rattles off names of pre-prohibition drinks, pointing out that most people don’t even know about them and fall back on drinks that were popular in recent decades.
Lining up a staff that can handle the complexity of some of the drinks they make has been a challenge, but he believes they have established the right mix and he points out that everyone in the establishment does everything – from mixing every drink to cooking bar food and every menial task involved in running a bar. He wants to deliver great personalities making and serving great drinks.
The bar food they serve is simple, but fresh. They roast about forty pounds of chicken each week for their mini-tacos (a dollar each), which are served on hand-made tortillas. They also offer Ramen Burgers and other small plates, appetizers and pizzas. Zachary describes a perfect night as one in which they sell lots of great cocktails early in the evening, discussing the history and composition of each with the patrons, and then transitioning to selling more food later in the evening when people have had enough to drink.
He feels Knoxville is just on the cusp of developing a craft cocktail scene and says he’d like for people to start thinking of some of the places serving them as a group. He mentioned Public House, Sapphire, Peter Kern, Uncorked and Knox Mason as examples of others who are doing good work. He said he often sends people to Peter Kern, Sapphire and the others, and hopes they do the same. He’d love to see them do events as a group and has an upcoming event with Crafty Bastard. (He does keep a small amount of beer on tap.)
Lance is from Tupelo, Mississippi and has spent most of his career in casual fine dining in northwest Arkansas. He always wanted his restaurants to be fun and funky, but still have the finest food and spirits. His parents are from Knoxville and he moved here to be with them in 2013, when he became the general manager for Tupelo Honey.
Wanting to do something more hand-crafted, he saw Armada as an incredible opportunity. He quotes Dave Thomas as saying, “I’m not in the food business, I’m in the people business.” Lance adds, “If customers find their favorite people in an incredible atmosphere with handcrafted food and drink, they will come back.” He’s been at Armada for four months and says his, “knowledge of spirits has grown 150 fold.”
The two say the patrons of Armada form a very eclectic group, from rednecks to sorority girls and families. They have a ninety-five-year-old regular and often serve twenty-one-year-olds their first craft cocktail. Lawyers pile in after work some days. The music is a reasonable volume to allow conversation, the chairs are comfortable and the value served in the cocktails is high.
There is no doorman, but a pretty strict control is exercised to see that no one over-drinks. They will cut someone off or decline to serve someone who has had too much to drink, feeling their duty is to the other patrons, to make sure everyone has a good experience. They don’t want the obnoxious person at the bar to be the memory others take from their visit. They call it, “an adult place for adults,” and want everyone to get home safely and return.
Not all the drinks are expensive – a $5 Old Fashioned is a delicious basic offering during happy hour – but others cost more. He pointed out a group had come in the week before and commented on the price of the drinks – theirs were $10. One of the members of the group had lived in Manhattan and he quickly pointed out that drink would easily be $20 there. The goal is to serve the quality of drinks one might find in a larger city, but with Knoxville prices.
The bar opens at 5:00 PM Tuesday through Saturday and close by 3:00 AM – unless the food is selling, in which case they’ll make you a virgin cocktail and a mess of tacos. Indoor cornhole and a free pool table await inside. They don’t want the place to be stuffy, but fancy while not pretentious. Think of it as a fun dive bar with fancy drinks. There is no smoking, save the occasional cigar, which is only allowed if the others at the bar don’t mind (they ask).
In the interest of presenting a thoroughly researched article, I enlisted Shaft, my resident cocktail expert, to split four drinks with me (that’s just two total drinks apiece, people, don’t judge) just to be able to give our personal evaluation. We split the Old Fashioned (Bourbon, Vanilla Syrup, House Bitters, Whiskey Cherry), the Little Joe Cartwright (Bourbon, Turbinado Syrup, House Cinnamon Clove Bitters, Smoked Ice Sphere), the Charleston (Bourbon, Brandy, Maraschino Liqueur, Orange Liqueur, Dry Vermouth, Sweet Vermouth) and the Lion’s Tail (Bourbon, House Allspice Dram, Lime, Simple Syrup, Bitters). You can see a full drink menu, here.
Each and every one was exceptional. I’d likely give a nod to the Charleston as far as my taste, though the Little Joe Cartwright was close behind. We were joined at the bar by a middle-aged man from out of town and two young twenty-something couples. A table nearby had a half-dozen middle-aged women, one of whom had been in before and wanted her friends to give it a try. If you like hand-crafted specialty cocktails, it’s a place you should give a try, as well. Tell Zachary, Lance and the others that you learned about them here.