Tommy Klus never stopped collecting whiskey. He just stopped having a place to share it.
Scotch Lodge, the first solo venture from Klus, a noted bartender and spirits expert who worked at Scottish distilleries and set up the impressive collection at Multnomah Whiskey Library, will open early next year in the former Biwa space, The Oregonian has learned. Intriguingly, the bar will pair its drinks with a modern French menu from St. Jack chef Aaron Barnett.
"It's an expensive hobby," Klus said of whiskey collecting. "I've got the Pappy (Van Winkle)s and the Wellers and the Eagle Rares, the limited releases that come out, the Port Charlotte series from Bruichladdich, old Laphroiag, old Macallan and some old WWII bourbons that I can't sell legally, but I've got 'em. There's a really cool variety of stuff that I've just been waiting to share."
Klus won't replicate the tufted leather decor or completist approach to the spirit taken at Multnomah Whiskey Library. His collection is more personal. Klus spent six weeks at Bruichladdich, makers of that heavily peated Port Charlotte series, working and living behind the distillery on the wind-swept isle of Islay. Alongside the whiskey, Scotch Lodge will also pour gins, rums, mezcals, brandies and other spirits.
Working with Ben Hufford from design firm Design Department, Klus envisions a room with lots of dark wood and copper surrounding a marble bar top, the walls painted a peacock palette of dark blues and greens. You might not notice it in the finished product, but the Jules Verne adventure classic "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea" and Captain Nemo's submarine library was an inspiration -- "only not in a steampunk way," Klus says.
The Scotch Lodge, the cocktail that gives the bar its name, was introduced at La Moule, the Southeast Portland mussel bar run by Barnett and Klus. The drink started as a riff on the Black Lodge, an earlier version named for the "Twin Peaks" dream space that Klus put on the original menu at downtown Portland's Kask.
"I get really excited about basement bars," Klus says, "this idea of walking into a space that you don't really see from the street, places that make you feel that you're escaping the outside world. This is my whiskey version."
The old Biwa. Klus hopes to give the subterranean space a different feel, one partially inspired by Captain Nemo's library from the adventure classic "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea."
Barnett's involvement could prove just as interesting as the spirits list. The chef, who opened the original St. Jack in 2010 on Southeast Clinton Street (Klus was an early bartender), has traveled and eaten extensively in France over the past couple of years, coming away impressed with the modern approach to French food found at Paris' so-called neo-bistros. Barnett, Klus, their families and select staff visited several of those forward-thinking restaurants this summer, including Les Arlots, Carbon and Clamato. At Scotch Lodge, Barnett will translate those experiences into a loosely French menu of drinks-friendly small plates with an emphasis on seafood that draw influences from around the globe.
Barnett is already at work on the menu, and teases some of the ideas they've been tossing around: a wagyu ribeye cap with button porcini, black garlic and lemon garnished with freshly shaved katsuoboshi; a local fried cod sandwich with sauce gribiche and pickles on Japanese milk bread; and a mushroom dish with grilled matsutakes, sautéed shimeji and shaved porcini topped with Peking duck broth and duck cracklings.
"We're going to be as modern as we can without gimmicks or chemicals," Barnett says. "It will be a very natural style of cooking. More veg-forward than what people are used to from me. After all the years of doing St. Jack with the hooves and the snouts, it's going to be nice to get into something that's a little less dense, and prettier."
Scotch Lodge isn't the only new food business coming to the former Biwa space. On Wednesday, Bar Casa Vale chef Jacob Harth announced plans to open Erizo, a new 20-seat, 15-course tasting menu restaurant in the old Japanese restaurant's former office space. The new supper club will focus on super-sustainable seafood, including line-caught fish, bycatch and invasive seafood species such as purple sea urchin, as well as dry-aged beef sourced from retired dairy cows, all cooked over an open wood fire. A portion of the Erizo's proceeds will be donated to two nonprofits, the Ocean Cleanup and Zero Foodprint.
Look for Scotch Lodge to open in early January at the corner of Southeast Ninth Avenue and Ash Street. Tickets for Erizo's first dinners will go on sale around the same time. For more information, visit scotchlodge.com and erizo.com.
-- Michael Russell