Classic cocktails at Greenville's new Copperhead Saloon
Tom Houser takes the craft of a cocktail very seriously at The Copperhead Saloon, his elegant new bar and lounge in Greenville.
To create a $12 specialty drink he calls Ole Smokie, he uses a sprig of rosemary as a brush to first paint the inside of the glass with Laphroaig scotch whisky, giving the cocktail a rich, peaty aroma.
Then, he carefully muddles orange slices and Azucar Morena brown sugar from Mexico and uses an eye dropper for the orange bitters. Tart, sour German cherries are added (never maraschino) along with a healthy 2 1/4-ounce pour of Maker’s Mark bourbon. A pre-smoked ice ball is plopped in the glass.
While some might know the cocktail best as an old-fashioned, it’s the final, modernist twist that Houser adds that brings the wowsa factor.
He finishes the drink not with a swizzle stick, but points a smoking gun in the glass to create puffy white and gray clouds that further enhance the cocktail’s woodsy perfume. Lift the napkin off the top of the glass and it’s like you let a genie out of its bottle.
“And this is why everyone who sees it starts ordering more,” Houser says of the theatrical display.
The Copperhead Saloon is a sophisticated bar, somewhat in the speakeasy-style vein, that quietly opened June 9 in The Powder Mill Square shopping center at 3826 Kennett Pike. Leave the kids at home, this is an adults-only establishment with a taproom license that only allows patrons to enter who are 21 and older.
Neo speakeasies have been a hot trend of the American bar culture for almost 15 years. Some have unmarked doorways, such as Hummingbird to Mars, a speakeasy atop Catherine Rooney’s in Wilmington’s Trolley Square. You need to press the intercom at the 16th Street to enter.
Others are accessed by a password or by way of a secret entrance such as the phone booth door at PDT (Please Don’t Tell), a New York business within a hotdog establishment that was awarded a 2012 James Beard Award for Outstanding Bar Program.
Copperhead Saloon is absent such kitsch, but still has an air of mystery. The simple Copperhead sign outside of the 1,731-square-foot building, the former Dagmar’s Reason spa and beauty salon, does little to explain that inside its doors is a modern day cocktail lounge open daily from 3 p.m. to 1 a.m.
The only real ideas Copperhead borrows from other speakeasy operations are its use of fresh juices and boutique spirits. The menu does include drinks from the pre- and post-Prohibition era such as the Monkey Gland, which sounds like nothing you want to put in your mouth. But don’t let the name steer you away from giving it a try. The obscure $10 drink, made with gin, orange juice, homemade grenadine and absinthe, is delicious. Penicillin, a post-Prohibition cocktail, has blended scotch mixed with lemon, honey syrup and muddled ginger.
Beer and wine are also available. A limited small plates menu has 10 items, which will change frequently, that now include cheese trays and charcuterie boards ($20), flamed goat cheese with olive and sundried tomato tapenade ($14), duck confit with gorgonzola grits and spicy tomato chutney ($18), bacon-wrapped dates ($10) and sweet & spicy bar nuts ($7). Discounts at happy hour, from 3 to 6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, include $1 off draft beer and wine by the glass and $8 classic cocktails.
Houser, a St. Louis, Missouri, native, attended the University of Oklahoma to study architecture. He soon fell in love with the bar culture and owned and managed beer and wine bars, gastropubs and a brewery in Norman, Oklahoma, near Oklahoma City, where he met his fiancee Erin Wallace, who grew up in Delaware and graduated from A.I. du Pont High School. The couple, who now have a 15-month-old son, Conner, moved to Delaware in 2014 to be near Wallace’s family and to open a business.
Houser says he began scouting bar locations in 2014 and eventually settled on the site in Greenville’s Powder Mill Square. “I came in and looked at it and I loved the location. I like the charm of the place and its intimacy.” Houser says the area “really does remind me of St. Louis in some ways.”
Renovations on the former beauty salon began in October. Wallace says she and Houser wanted the decor to feel somewhat like a comfortable, upscale living room. The sunny space is snug with 40 seats, including comfortable, black leather bar stools, some low tables and a few high-tops, along with a faux fireplace.
The beer tap handles are wooden sculptures of animals and figurines that Houser found in stores and websites. Some of the glasses were purchased from thrift stores and estate sales. The bar top is made from reclaimed oak planks, dating back to the 1970s, that were once the building’s flooring.
Pennies decorate the front and back of the bar as well as the restroom floors. It’s one of the few nods to another “speakeasy-style” style bar in the area. Philadelphia’s Hop Sing Laundromat, the four-year-old swanky bar on Race Street known for its meticulously made cocktails, has a vestibule whose floor is coated in pennies.
Houser says he hopes Copperhead, which gets its name from the pennies, will become a traditional neighborhood gathering place with really good drinks and interesting conversation. Building relationships with the clientele is the best part of his job, he says.
“This really is my idea of a cocktail party,” Houser says. “We might not know everyone when they come in, but we’ll know you when you leave.”
Contact Patricia Talorico at (302) 324-2861 orptalorico@delawareonline.com and on Twitter@pattytalorico
IF YOU GO:
WHAT: The Copperhead Saloon is a new 40-seat bar and lounge offering classic cocktails (pre- and post Prohibition) as well as beers on tap, wine and a variety of small plates like bacon-wrapped dates ($10) and pork rillete ($16). Leave the kids at home. The business has a taproom license, meaning you must be 21 years or older to enter.
WHERE: Powder Mill Square Shopping Center, 3826 Kennett Pike, Greenville.
WHEN: Open daily from 3 p.m. to 1 a.m.
INFORMATION: Call (302) 256-0535 or visit The Copperhead Saloon Facebook page.