Science meets cocktails with a bit of theater at the new bar By Weight and Measure, another entertainment-focused environment by the entrepreneurs behind Joystick Game Bar. Owners Johnny Martinez and Brandon Ley joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom along with managing partner Ian Carlson to talk about their new all-senses-indulging beverage experience. The bar officially opened on July 16 in the collective at Coda Food Hall near Georgia Tech.
Interview highlights:
A vision of inclusivity in bar culture:
“I want By Weight and Measure to be a place that is welcoming to all people. I really want it to be the sort of place that democratizes the art of the cocktail,” said Carlson. “You have your dive bars that are very affordable, and then you have your restaurant bars that are doing lots of cool things because they have lots of money [to] buy equipment and ingredients and all that kind of thing. And you have your dive bar that has your $7 cocktail, and you have your restaurant bar that has your $22 cocktail, and it’s that missing middle where we want to bring that high-end stuff to everyday folks; to grad students, to people working in office buildings in Midtown, just kind of a nice neighborhood place for folks to come and grab a drink.”
A science-based approach to quality cocktails:
“[Science] allows us to bring a level of consistency to the table. So just the precision that you get from measuring everything that you’re doing allows it to be so that if you come to the bar on a Tuesday and I make you a cocktail, it’s going to be the same cocktail as if you come on a Friday evening,” said Carlson. “There’s a lot of places that they make great cocktails, but sometimes depending on the bartender, it might be better to go on certain nights than others.”
“[In] our space we’ve got, we call it ‘the sushi case,'” said Carlson. “It’s a large glass enclosure right at the front where all of our cocktail mixing, as well as our prep, happens. So anything that we’re doing to make all of the ingredients for our cocktails happens out front, where everybody can see. We want to put that on display so that during the daytime, folks may not be getting a cocktail at lunchtime, but they definitely come up and want to know what we’re doing and what we’re making. And, ‘Oh, this goes into that cocktail? Man, I really have to come back at five o’clock when I’m done for the day and have one of those.'”
Bringing attention to detail in drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic:
“One of our most popular drinks right now is the ‘Get Up, Get Out,’ which is named after an OutKast and Goodie Mob song from the ’90s. It’s a cocktail where we have a strawberry-infused gin, and we’re doing that gin in a different way,” Carlson explained. “We are slicing the strawberries up and dehydrating them, and then we stick them in a blender with the gin itself and pulverize the strawberries. And then we treat that mixture with a pectin enzyme, which breaks down the pectin in the fruit so that it doesn’t make a jelly on us. And then we actually strain that and then run it through a centrifuge to pull all of the very fine particles out so that we get this beautiful, clear, red spirit.”
“To see what Ian’s done with the non-alcoholics … to have Ian craft these drinks, these beverages with the same intentionality as he does the ‘Get Up, Get Out’ is really nice and encouraging, and quite frankly, they’re delicious,” said Ley. “I think that they’re perfect for the environment considering that … the collective is busiest during lunchtime. We do have a lot of students who are there studying or office workers who are there just need something refreshing, and it’s not quite time to have a drink yet, but you can still really appreciate what he’s offered.”
By Weight and Measure is open now in the Coda Food Hall collective near the Georgia Tech campus. More information is available at www.weightandmeasure.com.
