Bar Sylvia, Germantown, PA (2026)

05/22/2024

First off, there hasn't been a post in a while because the bar plans have fallen through. There aren't any current plans to open a bar in Germantown. Hopefully someday.

Even though we don't have a bar, we do have a menu! We'll be slinging bottled 750ml cocktails from Mike's house. We've done a few pop-ups like this and offered bottles for holidays etc. We're going to try a new thing where we just always have bottles available. The menu will change seasonally and the first one goes live tomorrow. So if you would like a bottled cocktail for a Memorial Day party or to take down the shore with you, hit us up. Pickup will be from Mike's porch in Germantown.

For menu, payment, and pickup details, send a DM to . This round is all recycled booze bottles. If u want something nicer for a gift or u just have classy parties and don't want blue tape on an old bottle, that can be arranged but will take longer and cost more.

Strawbridges - St George Green Chile Vodka, Strawberry syrup, lemon, Coconut water

Cold Brew Martini- Chopin Potato Vodka, Cold brewed Ethiopian coffee, Kahlua

Modern Love - Blanco Tequila, Campari, Grapefruit liqueur, salt

Bolero - Smith & Cross Jamaican Rum, Banana, Falernum, Campari, Vermouth (not pictured)

Daisy Age Old Fashioned - Chamomile infused Rittenhouse Rye Whiskey, local Spring Wildflower Honey, Baltamaro Chamomile bitter, Orange bitters.

11/15/2022

🌿Nettles Martini🍸

The martini is perhaps the most divisive classic cocktail. People have very specific expectations for their perfect martini so its a real challenge to make a crowd pleaser martini.

A classic martini is gin, dry vermouth and orange bitters. Its basically the dry, herbal opposite of a manhattan. Some people just call Vodka up a martini. Sometimes a sweet vodka cocktail is a blank martini. Its complicated.

With respect to the original, here is a dry herbal martini with a unique and underused forest ingredient, Stinging Nettles. It grows in wet forests and meadows around here. The dry ingredient is easy to work with. The fresh ingredient hurts.

It has a unique green/ savory/ slightly sweet flavor that pairs great with a juniper forward gin. We made this drink as a ready to pour batch but rather than add water for the diluton usually achieved by stirring ice, we added a strong 3hr nettle infusion. Inspired by the martini we added a small spoonful of vinegar. We made it real local and swapped champagne vin for bitter lemon vin from .

By storing a martini in a very cold freezer, you can make it colder than physically possible by stirring or shaking with ice. And you dont waste any water.

It wont be for everyone but we would love to get some martini fans to test this soon. Its very good! 🍸🌿

08/04/2022

Hostas are edible!
We learned that this summer and used the flowers for garnish a couple times. They are not especially delicious but flowers on a drink always feels fancy! The young shoots are eaten as a vegetable in parts of Japan. The green leaf in this pic however, is Shiso, another prolific producer in our shade garden at home.

This drink is essentially a moscow mule with a bunch of Nordic ingredients and garnishes that dont match but are in season in the yarden.

Akvavit, fermented raspberry syrup, rhubarb shrub, elderflower liqueur, ginger beer and a float of Peychauds bitters.

Made these a couple days ago and really enjoyed them. The elder/raspberry combo is excellent and the shrub helps balance the sweetness with tart cider vinegar. Ginger beer lengthens it and gives it a bit of spice. A nice refreshing summer drink highlighting ingredients from earlier in Spring and Summer.

07/13/2022

WE BOUGHT A BUILDING!

Its still very early and there is much to be done, both to the physical space and regarding paperwork/ beauracrcy.

We are in the beginning stages of transforming maplewood nutrition and dietary food shop into a distillery tasting room.

After several locations for a bar/ restaurant fell through late into planning with landlords we decided to try to figure out a way to do it ourselves. There is a lot to say about it but basically we will be blending and making our own spirits and serving them here on Maplewood Mall in Germantown.

With the craft distilling license we can also sell beer, wine and spirits made in PA. Our offerings will be limited but there are many great producers in Pennsylvania for all of these categories and we are excited to share them with you. 😻

02/17/2022

Was this the preferred drink of a known thief? Does drinking this turn one into a thief?

Horse Thief
1.5 Old Tom Gin5 Sweet Vermouth
2d Absinthe

There is no context for the name and we will probably never know how it came about. It is a Martini variation or more accurately a Martinez variation. The Martinez likely predated Manhattans and Martinis and was one of the original, if not the very first, cocktails to incorporate booze and vermouths. A Martinez would have a similar recipe build but with Maraschino liqueur and orange bitters rather than absinthe as a modifier.

Old Tom Gin was the popular English gin of the era. It landed historically and flavorwise, between Holland’s Gin - Genever, and London Dry Gin. There are differing opinions from modern producers over whether it was a barrel aged spirit or a lightly sweetened, unaged spirit.

This is a good drink and seems likely to be a Tom Bullock original. There are a couple modern occurrences with wildly differing drinks. Any mention of a historical drink with this name points back to Tom Bullock.

02/10/2022

Chocolate Punch
On shaved ice
1tsp sugar375 Curacao
1.5 Port (no style recommended)
Whole egg
Top with milk -size of glass matters for this quantity

Shake and strain into a punch glass, grated nutmeg on top.

We are using Tawny Port and decided “top up with milk” must mean more than a jigger (1.5oz)
This is an unusual recipe and may be a Tom Bullock original. It's hard to search the internet for such common words. The fact that there is no chocolate in this drink is not surprising and it may likely be a reference to the coffee cocktail, which had no coffee.The coffee cocktail was also in this book and is from Jerry Thomas’ 1887 Bar guide. It has brandy instead of curacao and no milk.

This is an odd one. Its like a fortified wine eggnog. The foam seperates to the top quite a bit and maybe is thought to look like hot cocoa and whipped cream? The foam really stays on top as you drink it. You mostly drink whats under the foam.

02/02/2022

Bizzy Izzy Highball75 sherry75 rye
2 tsp pina syrup
2 d lemon juice (.25? .5?)
Drop a piece of ice in highball glass, no further instructions

Working from 100+ year old recipe books has many challenges. Ingredients change, techniques change, public opinion on flavors change, measurements change and something as simple as meticulous editing wasn’t always the standard in publishing. The recipe above is from the book with my guess about citrus and note about no instructions added.
Right at the top sherry with no mention as to style. We don't need to get too deep at the moment but sherry can be both the sweetest wine and the driest wine. It has a massive range. The drink will be remarkably different with a very sweet, raisiny Pedro Ximinez sherry. I feel confident that a drier style was inferred. Dry sherry/ pineapple (or stone fruit)/ lemon is a reasonably common flavor combo in the modern cocktail zeitgeist. This is a very forward thinking cocktail and one that seems to have been created by Tom Bullock. At the very least it was from St Louis in the time that the Ideal Bartender was published.

That being said, there are likely some editorial issues here. Highballs generally include soda but occasionally a non soda mixer still counts as a highball. This recipe has neither. We suspect, with strong influence from version of the drink from that I read about on that there is a missing ingredient of soda water. The drink is built on large ice and has no dilution as written. This was very uncommon in this text. Many drinks are stirred or shaken on shaved ice to get maximum dilution. Highballs are often built on a lump of ice but topped with soda to get the dilution. As written this is more of an old fashioned build with a touch of citrus.

That touch of citrus brings up an issue that runs through the entire text and generally older bartending guides. Base spirits are measured in fairly accurate, if archaic, terms like jigger and pony and fractions thereof. Liqueurs, syrups, juices get measured by the teaspoon occasionally and by dashes often. Which only tells us that a dash is different than a teaspoon. (Cont; sorry!)

02/01/2022

For Black History Month, we will feature cocktails from Tom Bullock’s “The Ideal Bartender” from 1917. He was the first Black bartender to publish a cocktail book. It was one of the last cocktail books printed before prohibition. He was especially well known for Juleps but he wrote a whole book, so lets dig in!

Brandy Scaffa
Equal parts:
Maraschino liqueur
Green Chartreuse
Brandy

This was a very small glass with .5oz of each ingredient. A scaffa is an old style of drink. It is composed of a spirit and one or more liqueurs or bitters. B&B (Brandy & Benedictine) is basically a bottled Scaffa. They aren't even always mixed, sometimes the ingredients are carefully layered. Scaffas are generally just poured in a glass and served at room temperature. They have fallen out of favor over time. They are similar to Pousse Cafes that were always layered and generally involve many liqueurs. It is a fun Science Fair project about the density of liquids.

We are not sure if this version is Bullock’s original recipe. Many recipes simply call for Brandy, Maraschino and Angostura bitters. There is generally a lot of crossover, sometimes with adjustments, amongst the pre prohibition cocktail books.

This was fun to try out but probably isn't something we'd drink often. Layers are visually interesting but we are not sold on all the layers in a drink being separated. It makes for meticulous production and awkward drinking. Adding a float of a specific ingredient to alter the sip of a fully formed drink underneath is more compelling, flavorwise if not visually. We could see serving this as a shot if one could layer quickly with speed pours. We carefully poured each ingredient down the back of a spoon and it was slow building it.

12/02/2021

Hot Scotch
1 blended scotch5 islay scotch5 honey syrup
Very hot water to taste; 4-6oz

Like many classic drinks, the definition or expectation of Hot Toddies has changed over the years. Originally it just meant booze and water, topped with nutmeg. It wasnt even hot all the time! Hot for winter and cold for summer. Not necessarily sweetened.

Today, many assume a hot toddy is a sweet cup of hot tea with lemon and a shot of booze.

This drink is simple and delicious. Sometimes it doesnt take much. A few good ingredients that ring clearly. We are going to serve some form of Hot Toddy (maybe/ probably more complicated than this and maybe more than 1 version) at Germantown Kitchen Garden Holiday Market on December 11th. Well have a few hot drinks and maybe some soup to help keep you warm while you shop.

10/13/2021

Hermitage
Amass Riverine, Nettles Cordial, Lime, Matcha.

The Riverine is like a non alcoholic gin of sorts. It has lots of herbal foresty notes. The cordial was made from Nettles we picked on the weekend. Shook those up with some fresh lime and then floated cold brew matcha on top.

It looks pretty floating but tastes better all stirred in. Grassy, herbal, limeade. Tasty if not seasonally appropriate. Its almost time for warm drinks, I suppose.

10/07/2021

Ghia Ginger
Roughly 2 parts Ghia Apertif to 3 parts Barrits Ginger Beer. Express a big grapefruit peel over top.

This is another simple 2 part situation but the Ghia is really special. I busted out the crystal on purpose for this one. Unfortunately, its priced like its special too. It is nearly double the price of any of the other NA spirits, which already feel very expensive. Its very bitter and citrusy.

We made a couple different spritzy things using it but ginger beer was the best. There is some ginger in the Ghia and the extra ginger/citrus/sugar boost allows all the botanicals to open up in the best way. This doesn't feel overly sweet and somehow feels more bitter than when mixed with just soda water. Ghia is unique amongst NA jawns in that I dont think it is distilled at all. I'm pretty sure it is infusions and extracts. It is boldly flavored and it is boldly priced.

Im not sure that a bar could afford to mark this up appropriately but we highly reccomend it for home use. They have it at and you can order it online.

Bar Sylvia

05/22/2024

11/15/2022

08/04/2022

07/13/2022

02/17/2022

02/10/2022

02/02/2022

02/01/2022

12/02/2021

10/13/2021

10/07/2021

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