Less than an hour before sunset, the Alchemy Distillery (330 S. G St., Arcata) gives off the glow and thrum of a party through the large open window counter, where patrons sit inside and out, bustling bar traffic on one side, overhead heat lamps cutting the chill on the other. There's still a line of people waiting to get in and place their orders from the evening's pop-up menu. Running the register and mixing up drinks are Alchemy proprietors Amy and Steve Bohner. In the open stainless steel kitchen in back, Alex Yang and his crew are turning out plates of bulgogi beef and egg rolls.
Yang, who plans to open Kogiri Thai Fusion Korean BBQ in Arcata this spring, is the third chef to take over the kitchen in Alchemy's newly built tasting room. Marisela Salas of Cocina Mariposa was first with a prix fixe dinner, followed by a couple more pop-up nights that sold out quickly. The South G Kitchen also took a turn in the kitchen, and there have also been evenings with cocktails and pairings with Cypress Grove cheeses and Beck's Bakery. While pop-ups have been more common on the Humboldt scene in the past couple of years, at Alchemy, guest chefs are the only cooks in the kitchen.
"For us to have a brick-and-mortar kitchen and for pop-ups being the only cooking we do, I haven't seen that," says Amy Bohner, who presides over the distillery business the couple started in 2015 while Steve manages Alchemy Construction.
Alchemy Distillery had a tiny industrial tasting room but Amy says the couple always had an eye on the adjacent space facing G Street. When it became available, they started working on gutting and renovating it to work as a drinking and dining space with a hexagonal bar at its center, tables around the perimeter and counter seating on both sides of the open wall. Gutting and rebuilding the former glass shop into something more on the chic side of industrial took time, she says, since their construction company was busy working on paying clients.
With their craft distiller's license, Amy explains, "We can serve an ounce and a half per person per day unless we sell food." Hosting a rotating slate of chefs allows them to sell more drinks, promoting Alchemy's line of craft liquors to new clientele. "It is profitable for us and the chefs," she says. "I have a long list of chefs we're talking to. And I really want to keep it diverse so we can make it like a different restaurant every time." That, after all, is part of the magic of a pop-up, the expectant mood among diners who are in it together to try something new that may never happen again, like a party among jovial strangers.
To make it an attractive deal, Amy says, they put in top-of-the-line Hestan appliances and stocked the kitchen with equipment and tools. "All you're supposed to do is show up with your food and your knife bag."
Yang, who had already hired Alchemy Construction to renovate the old Golden Harvest Cafe spot for his new restaurant, table-top grills and all, is in love with the setup at the tasting room. "Their gear, their stovetops," he gushes, "all the equipment they have is heavenly. Their stove heats up so fast. It helped me out so much because as soon as the doors opened, I needed to get 20 tickets out." A veteran of Korean sushi and Thai restaurants, as well as other local pop-ups, he says it's the best kitchen he's ever worked in. Playing his beloved K-Pop on the excellent sound system, he says, made it all the more fun.
It was also an opportunity to show people what Kogiri's food will be like. "We pretty much sold out almost everything," says Yang. After trouble with overloading the rice cookers the first night and running out, he and his crew had a smoother run on Sunday. Now that he's more familiar with the kitchen, the crowd and the pacing, he's eager to come back. "I feel like we turned away a lot of people because of the wait."
Even after Kogiri opens, he thinks he'll be back at Alchemy, and not only because he feels the 20 percent cut the house takes is fair. A night or two at the tasting room, he says, would allow him to experiment with fine dining outside of Kogiri's regular menu, "when I get my creative itch."
And the Bohners are having a good time, too. "We have our own little safe space behind the bar. It's just the two of us bumping into each other," Amy says with a laugh. "We've been together for 23 years so we have this way of working on projects without a lot of communication." After running a distillery and a construction company, she says, it's like a third business running the tasting room, one where they finally get to work side by side.
The whiskey ginger cocktails end up the big sellers of the night, even more than the Thai tea slushie spiked with Alchemy's clear unaged whiskey and served with a blown glass straw in a tumbler cut from a glass bottle. "I always do a signature slushie," Amy says, noting the clear unaged whiskey was the first hooch they sold as they waited for barrels to age; customer demand brought it back.
With a handful of events under their belts, the Bohners are planning three to four pop-up and pairing nights a month, opening up for cocktails more or less when they are in the mood and letting folks know a day or so ahead via social media. Upcoming events include a Feb. 4 Mardi Gras brunch by Dana Burstein, and an evening of Korean food by Birdie's Eats with chefs Catlin Conlin and Ande Reardon Wall on Feb 16 and 17.
Amy happily recounts the whole room singing "Happy Birthday" to a woman during the Kogiri pop-up, saying how much she enjoys the community vibe and the growing list of regulars. The crowds have kept cheerful, she says, even with the new ordering system and the lines. "I've really been thrilled that people are patient with the process," she says. "It's a win-win."
Jennifer Fumiko Cahill (she/her) is the arts and features editor at the Journal. Reach her at (707) 442-1400, extension 320, or jennifer@northcoastjournal.com. Follow her on Instagram @JFumikoCahill and on Mastodon @jenniferfumikocahill.