Who doesn’t love a festive occasion, one that brings good friends together and might celebrate a milestone or special landmark in our lives? These special events should come not only with great company and food, but also a great cocktail, or two! One such master of these libations is Talmadge Lowe. You might think he’s a modern day Southern gentleman by his charm and knowledge of each cocktail’s origins. He’s definitely known to get things off to a great start with a most elegant glass and delicious concoction. We recently sat down with Talmadge and were able to learn a bit more about the man behind one of L.A.’s most creative cocktail catering companies: Pharmacie.
Where did your memorable name, ‘Talmadge Lowe’, originate from?
It’s a family name. It’s been on my Dad’s side of the family for generations. It’s my Dad’s name, Uncle’s, Cousins, Grandfather, Great Grandfather, and so on…
Where were you born?
I’m from Jacksonville, Florida. Northeast part of Florida, although I haven’t lived there for about 20 years. I grew up there, but left in my 20’s. I went to New York for about 8 years and I’ve been out here for almost 12.
What made you move to New York?
Well, I originally moved to be an actor but worked in restaurants as everyone does. I had some success, I guess, but nothing really financially or that you would of seen in the world. Although I was able to pay my bills for a while as an actor but I always worked in restaurants. Even when I was having success as an actor I worked in restaurants, ultimately did a lot of bartending as well. That sort of started my journey through the world of hospitality.
When did you make the move to Los Angeles?
2002, very beginning of the year.
What did you do when you first landed in Los Angeles?
I had tested the waters in L.A. briefly in the 90’s – very, very briefly. I had a friend out here, a guy who I’d done a play with in NY, and when I got to LA in the 90’s I had gotten in touch with him. He had gotten me a job working for a catering company as a bartender. So when I came back out here in 2002 to start putting down roots and getting serious about living in L.A., I called that same company and they remembered me and were happy to have me back on the team. So I started as a bartender for a catering company when I came back to L.A. as my means of financial support. The company was called The Kitchen for Exploring Foods. They are still going, still a pretty busy catering company. They are called The Kitchen for short.
The early 2000’s was the heyday of catering. Before the recession hit it was BUSY. I mean, people were having any excuse to have a party. It was great, I worked a lot and was able to pay my bills and take care of myself and still have a pretty decent life just as a catering bartender.
When did you start working with Heirloom LA?
I left The Kitchen in 2007 and went to work for AKASHA Restaurant. They were just starting that restaurant then and I went to work as an assistant manager and catering director. They quickly found out that opening a restaurant takes all of your time and you don’t have time for catering. That was really my strong suit, I wasn’t as interested in just showing up to a restaurant for 12 hours a day 6 days a week. It just didn’t suit me. So when they decided to table the catering for a while I moved on to Joan’s on Third. When I was working there I met Matt, who is the chef at Heirloom, socially and he was at the point of wanting to start Heirloom in earnest as a full fledged catering company. I had experience on the side of it that he didn’t have experience on, the managerial/operational side, not the kitchen side. He asked me to jump in and help get that going, which I did for about 2 years. They were on solid ground when I left and still are today.
I feel like cocktails have had a very strong resurgence in the last little while, when did you start noticing that shift?
I started noticing that shift probably around 2003 / 2004 but it was just inklings of that happening. People were thinking about it, it was in the air but it had not taken a real foothold in the hospitality industry in that way, yet. It took the last 8 or 10 years for it to become so ubiquitous and so refined and creative. So it’s kind of a slow start and then a big boom. I feel that the boom has not subsided yet, we’re still kind of living in the boom which makes me think that it’s not really a fade any more, or a fashion or trend, but now a real part of hospitality. Part of restaurant services, bar programs and services and now part of catering.
What influenced you to gravitate towards the cocktail side of things?
Two things really, I was interested in what was happening with cocktails, even in the little tiny contributions I made when I was in catering at the Kitchen, Joan’s on Third or Heirloom. I contributed cocktails to events just because I was interested in it. I always had a desire for creativity, to do something creative and that was my creation. That was what appealed to me; I understood cocktails, and flavor profiles. Somehow I was just more adept at it than working in the kitchen being a chef and cooking. I went home and experimented with different cocktails. It was more interesting to me.
Tell us a little about the Pharmacie Speakeasy’s.
That was great, those were the good old days. I was catering at Joan’s on Third at the time when that started. I have a good friend, Matthew Kanar who is the wine director at Bar Covell, also recently named one of the top ten Sommeliers in America, and he’s just a really smart guy with great taste and a lot of energy. We were buddies and we would buy bottles of interesting and obscure whiskeys and do little tastings and that turned into me making cocktails. One night after we had done that Matt said, “these are really good, we should have a party and make cocktails”. So it wouldn’t just be the two of us sitting around and enjoying it. He had a lot of friends in the beverage industry because at that time he was at Silverlake Wine so he just got a huge list of interested people. I had the event and organizational background so I organized from one side and he organized from another and we had a party. With the first one we invited 100 people and 50 people came and all of those 50 people loved it. We kept doing it and it went from 50 people to 80 to 100. We kept it all very hush hush, no Internet presence, invitation only, you got the address the day before and certain sartorial requirements or dress code and I selected the cocktails and the spirits that were going in the cocktails. It was a very controlled atmosphere but I think people loved it because there wasn’t anything being done in L.A. at that time. There are people that do it now all over LA but 6 years ago, Matt and I were the only ones doing it. He went on to Bar Covell and I continued to do the speakeasy while working for catering companies and then of course one day a light bulb went off about merging these two ideas and you’ve got a brand new business idea. Thus, Pharmacie was created in 2012. The speakeasy was called Pharmacie as well.
Where did the name Pharmacie come from?
My dad was a Pharmacist and had his own Pharmacies for a while so I kind of liked the idea of paying tribute in that way. Also, there is an apocryphal story about the first cocktail ever served in New Orleans was ‘allegedly’ a Sazerac and the mixture and ingredients were all combined at a Pharmacy. It was a French Pharmacy so spelled Pharmacie in New Orleans.
Was there a particular cocktail that initially inspired you?
That’s a great question. The first cocktail that I ever had was certainly the one that made the biggest impression on me and made me want to do that was a drink called the Sidecar. It’s a classic cocktail and I was working in New York at a restaurant called Orso. I was being trained as a bartender there and at the end of your shifts they allowed the staff members, as they counted up and divvied money, to have one end of shift drink. My second day, Sheryl, the bartender who was training me suggested a Sidecar to me. Orso always had an old school mentality with cocktails, fresh juices, homemade simple syrups, all that. They didn’t serve a lot of them and didn’t have a menu like you see everywhere now but the owner, Joe Allen, had a very serious background from the 60’s when they did that and he carried it forth and had his staff trained to do it. So Sheryl made me a Sidecar and I was blown away. I had no idea that you could have things that amazing and delicious in a glass!
What was the first cocktail that you created?
The first cocktail that I could call my own concoction that wasn’t based on another drink, as I did other flavorings of the Old Fashioned or Margarita’s, but the first one that was truly my own was a drink I called The Bee’s Pajamas. It’s Gin, Mint, Chartreuse liquor, lemon juice and Angostura Bitters. I remember literally standing in my kitchen, trying different liquors, different bitters, over and over trying different things to come up with a different flavor of something I liked. When I got this combination it was good, it was a keeper. So that was kind of my first real cocktail.
Does it take a long time to create a concoction?
Sometimes it takes no time and other times it takes some tinkering. I feel like I have the ability to do it. I feel like either you have the ability or you don’t, much like a chef would have the ability or painters, musicians, etc. They are able to know what something will be without actually having to do it. Not always, there are still times where I have to actually have to do the work.
You seem to know a lot about the history of cocktails, do you think that helps in what you’re doing now?
I read about it and study about it because I’m interested in it. I want to have the knowledge that backs up what I do. I made the drink the Bee’s Pajamas, which I looked up and researched and that combination had never been done before so not knowing that would seem like a blind spot. I wanted to be informed about what I was doing. Sometimes I just sit and read books that are just recipes. I don’t make all of them but I’ll bookmark something. It’s an overwhelming amount to absorb. I want my clients to know they can trust me and that this guy knows what he’s talking about and to do that, you really DO have to know what you are talking about and not fake it.
What do you enjoy most about working an event or wedding?
Well, being at an event, a wedding especially, there is something honorable about being present at the most important time in this person’s life to that point. They are asking you to celebrate with them. The bar is usually the first stop and the last stop of the evening. We approach it sincerely. The best part about it is having people react so positively to the cocktails, it adds a dimension to the celebration. People are going to have a good time and catch up and enjoy each others company no matter what but if you have the added bonus of something really interesting and unusual that is hand selected by the couple, representative of their day and their personalities, it adds another element of celebration and special quality to the day.
Everything has been hand selected by that couple for the wedding; the flowers, the meal, cake, and now the cocktails can be too.
On your business card, you use the word Drinkist rather than Mixologist, is there a reason behind that?
I’m not a fan of the word Mixologist. It feels a little pretentious or it feels nouveau riche to me in a weird way. I’m a traditionalist and a classicist in a lot of ways. When I was reading the book Imbibe!, which is maybe the first history of cocktail book that got a lot of notoriety and has a stellar reputation, he addresses what to call people who are in this profession who are more than just bartenders. He goes through many options of what they were called in the past and one word that was used to describe that profession was ‘Drinkist’, which never caught on by the way, but I thought it was great. Sometimes it’s standard to say, “Lets go get some cocktails”, but I’ve always preferred the saying, “Let’s have drinks or come over for drinks”. And because I love that phrase so much and I saw someone once ages ago tried to call themselves a ‘Drinkist’, I thought, I’m taking that!
Follow Pharmacie on the web at:
www.pharmaciela.com
+ on Twitter & Instagram
Photos by: Caroline Tran
