Doar Bros. is a refined, chill respite of a cocktail bar on a touristy stretch of Charleston’s Meeting Street. It’s the kind of welcoming bar cocktail geeks would be at home in, but so would said tourists stopping in for a drink and a bite. Brothers Jonathan and Adam Doar are the founders of this intimate midnight blue and green drink gem. The two grew up in Needham, Massachusetts, but the Doar family has deep roots in Charleston and goes back generations in South Carolina, with local landmarks named after them, from Doar Road to Doar Cemetery.
Owner/executive chef Jonathan (JD) started in the restaurant industry at age 14, and owner/general manager/investor Adam started in sales at 16. After graduating from the University of South Carolina with a hospitality degree, JD moved to Charleston in 2007 to cook at Charleston’s Peninsula Grill with chef Bob Carter, followed by stints at Triumph Bar in Seattle and David Burke’s Fishtail in NYC. He also spent time in Italy studying wine, cheese, olive oils, and the Italian language. Adam worked in high-end custom office furniture sales in San Diego for nearly two decades, still doing so remotely while spending weekends and nights managing the crucial business side of the bar, from payroll to scheduling.
Once their parents moved to Charleston in 2012, other members of the family slowly migrated back. First, JD in 2016, then Adam in 2020. The brothers initially thought about opening an upscale restaurant that would leverage JD’s chef background, Adam’s business chops, and the duo’s sophisticated palates cultivated by growing up with parents who were cooks. But JD’s finely tuned knowledge and love of cocktails, and his wife Marinela’s design chops (she designed well-known bars like Roquette in their Seattle years) led them to a vision of a cocktail bar that also served food.
Doar Bros. opened in December of 2018. Since then, the family business has survived the worst of the pandemic to become a neighborhood and Charleston staple. Community events marry the owners’ food and drink loves. For example, inspired by JD’s time in Italy, he’s thrown nearly 40 “Italian Nights” since the bar opened. Each features a different seasonal menu directly inspired by Italy. Their mom, Jody, contributes a dish from their family’s Sunday Italian dinner tradition, bringing the experience back to their family core. JD also weaves culinary elements into Doar Bros.’ signature cocktails, like his Manhattan fat-washed with smoked pork belly, featuring local ingredients like Virgil Kaine Rye Whiskey and Charleston Madeira.
The Doar Bros. team is tight, small, and empowered. Bar manager Jake Weinberger has a rich bartending history with roots in New York City and New Jersey. Stephen Blackmon handles all the bar’s photography, creates many of its cocktails, and has been on the bartending team since day one. A South Carolina native, Blackmon grew up on a farm in the small town of Marion, settling in Charleston in 2003. He caught the bartending bug while barbacking in Murrells Inlet during the summer of 2000. In Charleston, he established himself as a commercial photographer and IT professional, often involved with the food and beverage industry, working behind the scenes on events like the popular Charleston Wine + Food festival. Through it all, Blackmon’s passion for the bar world solidified.
After studying the rich history and art of cocktails, he dove into bartending in some of Charleston’s best bars, like The Macintosh, Edmund’s Oast, and Vintage Lounge, as well as regularly hosting virtual and in-person cocktail classes and mobile craft cocktail bar services for private events. In his own words, Blackmon talks about Doar Bros.’ ethos in craft spirits and hospitality, where he envisions the bar world progressing, and more.
How does being based in Charleston influence Doar Bros.’ style and operations and the drinks you create?
Doar Bros. has a New York feel with a lot of European influence. The combination of those historical references, presented as our Mary Moultrie [Cathead Vodka, Aperol, blood orange, rosemary, lemon, pomegranate seeds, soda] or Burnt District [mezcal, spiced pineapple shrub, lime, black walnut bitters] cocktails, and even our personal life experiences, reflected in cocktails like Hahn’s Provisions or our Tiger-Style Clarified Nitro Punch. Our operations are based around the production and vibe of these unique beverages, along with food that promotes friendly conversation and sharing.
What is your philosophy on deciding what spirit brands to stock in your bar?
Being a smaller bar, we are very picky when it comes to choosing spirits to line the back bar. We certainly stock items to produce every classic cocktail imaginable, but also we specifically choose spirits that are a “must” to produce our unique house cocktail creations. It’s not about the brand for us as much as its taste and quality or usable flavor profile to provide our guests a multi-spiritual experience, so to speak.
How do you educate customers on small-batch, quality spirits?
In curating our bar selection, we get to know our stock from tasting to discussing their cool factors and speaking with specific brand reps or educators from companies like Diageo, Brown-Forman, Barrell Craft Spirits, etc. These trials and brand education with our crew, along with already existing literature on each item, leads us to how we explain them to our guests in a much more casual yet informative fashion. A prime example of this could be a conversation on the simple key differences in agave spirits, like mezcal being smoky like a Scotch that is used in our Burnt District cocktail vs. tequila that, while not smoky, can have wonderful vanilla, pepper, or vegetal notes without getting too far down the rabbit hole of regions of production or intricacies of NOMS or specific agave types. Another method, since Charleston is such a whiskey-heavy city… we also have the opportunity to have high-end brands like Barrell Craft Spirits come in to do tastings and talks of cask-strength blending with our guests at the bar or tableside during operating hours.
What is the philosophy on hospitality?
We pridefully treat all who enter with the familiarity of entering the living room of a home. When you are here, you are friends and family to us. We enjoy sharing random stories and interest in cocktail culture, along with making sure your experience with our offerings is as top-notch as possible throughout your visit.
How do you envision the bar world evolving in the coming years?
Given the ever-advancing technologies and evolving production techniques within [the hospitality] world, from distillation to kitchen to bar, there should be a very strong push to the boundaries of what a cocktail can be.
We recently held a competition where we pitted an AI technology to produce cocktails based on a guests’ input vs. human bartenders. This kind of organic tech could be applied to the way our spirits are made, to the way we develop our drinks and even the way guests order. Things should get interesting.
What is exciting you most in the craft distilling world right now, locally and/or farther afield?
Charleston is very in tune with the beverage world overall. Fantastic and award-winning producers like High Wire Distilling Co., Hilton Head Distillery, and Virgil Kaine Lowcountry Whiskey Co. allow us to produce cocktails using top-quality and unique locally sourced spirits. We use High Wire’s Hat Trick Gin to make one of the best bees knees you’ll put your lips to, or Hilton Head’s Solera Rum for an excellent daiquiri or old Cuban. Also, our signature Doar Bros. Manhattan using Virgil Kaine’s Robber Baron Rye. The excitement is definitely in the fact that we have such places producing and setting the bar very high right in our own backyard.
