Get ready for banana daiquiris, blue Hawaiian and Mexican rum mojitos from March. A new cocktail bar in a shiny silver airstream is about to roll into downtown Phoenix.
Valley drinks experts Colton Brock, Tyka Cheng and John Sagasta team up to bring the new bar called Baby Boy to The Pemberton. The camper will park alongside other food trucks and trailers at the local business complex that appears in the courtyard surrounding a historic home on Second Street.
The Pemberton also includes the new location of the Film Bar, where customers can watch films in an open air theater. Other trucks and trailers at various stages of opening on the property include Saint Pasta, Dino’s Napoletana Pizza, and others.
Baby Boy will park in front of the ticket bar area of the Pemberton Complex’s Film Bar and serve up “big, bright, sexy cocktails,” says Brock, which are perfect for customers watching a movie or just enjoying the courtyard.
“They’ll be just fun and delicious drinks that somehow match the mood outside of the Pemberton,” says Brock.
While restaurants and bars are open across the state, Arizona still has high COVID-19 cases and related deaths and people are safest at home. The Centers for Disease Control and the Arizona Department of Health say eating and drinking outdoors is a safer option than eating indoors.
Meet the beverage experts behind Baby Boy
The team behind the new concept is a powerhouse trio in the Phoenix beverage scene.
By the end of the month, Brock is creating cocktails focusing on mezcal and other agave brandies at Ladera, a Mexican restaurant in Sunnyslope. He was also crowned the winner of the 2020 Last Slinger Standing, a cocktail competition that sees some of the valley’s most talented bartenders compete in multiple rounds of cocktail competitions.
Cheng has honed his bartending and chef skills at various bars and restaurants in Phoenix, including Gallo Blanco and UnderTow. Most recently he created a dim sum menu for Jobot Coffee, where he works with Sagasta.
Sagasta owns the Jobot Café and Bar and has been a staple of the downtown Phoenix dining scene for more than 10 years. Together, the trio plans to bring a total of three concepts to market, with Baby Boy being the first.
Later, the trio plan to open a restaurant that will serve agave brandies with Southeast Asian food, as well as a bottle shop and deli, Brock says.
BONUS:She has been in the bar at this historic hotel for decades. Meet the Rhonda Benston Showman
The following awaits you in the Boy Boy menu
The Airstream was built in the 1970s and, according to Brock, polished so that “when the sun hits it you go blind,” he says with a chuckle.
The way the camper was renovated, with a large open service window, reminds Brock of a lemonade stand, he says. And he draws on the vintage feel of the motorhome to inspire the cocktail menu.
“I think of big citrus cocktails, bright red cherries, umbrellas, a bit tropical, not tiki, but drinks that you remember from the 90s,” says Brock.
The whole thing is going to be “a little cheesy,” he says. But the cocktails will also reflect the team’s skills as a bartender. While the drinks are designed as familiar setbacks, they may also offer customers an opportunity to try a new taste at the same time, Brock says.
Many of the cocktails will highlight unusual base spirits, including a sangria made from Chilean or Peruvian pisco instead of brandy and a daiquiri made from Charanda, a rum-like sugar cane brandy from Michoacan, Mexico.
As a nod to Cheng’s background and the future restaurant, Brock said some of the drinks will contain ingredients like chai, Thai chiles, and Asian herbs.
The cocktail menu starts with a choice of eight or nine drinks, says Brock, and he looks forward to helping customers sample new spirits through old favorites.
“It’s like raising people in blue drinks and slushies,” he says.
details: The Pemberton, 1121 N. Second Street, Phoenix. www.pembertonphx.com.
Reach the reporter at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @tirionmorris, on Facebook under Tirion Rose and on Instagram under tirionrose.
Support local journalism and subscribe to azcentral.com today.
Comments are closed.