A night with cocktail royalty
and pop-up concepts. He has promoted diversity — embracing D.C.’s Shaw neighborhood and events showcasing female bartenders at the time of the women’s march in January.
And on this evening, he is giving a reporter a tour of his kingdom of whimsical temporary bars and carefully curated destination drinking experiences.
Brown’s signature cocktail bar, Columbia Room, has been a three-time semifinalist for a James Beard Award. His ham-and-sherry bar, Mockingbird Hill, was a semi-finalist in 2016. He was a semi-finalist in 2010 and 2015 in the Wine and Spirits professional category.
His latest venture, these imaginative pop-up bars at Southern Efficiency and Mockingbird Hill, attract near-three-hour waits each night and are social media gold. Inspired by a pop-up in New York, Brown launched the Christmas-themed Miracle on 7th Street in 2015. The concept has now expanded to this current iteration, which celebrates the cherry blossoms and their Japanese origins. The next pop-up will be in June, though Brown is keeping its theme a secret.
“Derek has had an incredible effect ... on the D.C. cocktail scene,” said Nycci Nellis, publisher of TheListAreYouOnIt.com, a site that highlights Washington-area food and wine events. “It’s no secret that D.C. is having a complete explosion in real estate with restaurants opening up with a breakneck speed. Staying in the top consistently and being on top of minds consistently is hard to do.”
It’s a far cry from the straight-edge teenager who grew up in Olney not knowing what he wanted to be when he grew up. It wasn’t until he was almost 30 that he started to build his brand.
“I wore [my parents] down,” said Brown, who dropped out of high school and moved out at age 16. He later got his GED, went to Montgomery College, worked in food service and traveled, with stops in Israel, Spain and Morocco. He later studied anthropology and communications at George Mason University. “I don’t know if they expected anything from me.”
“I’m very lucky in many ways. I never expected to have the life and career I have now,” says Brown,who is quick to smile and is wearing jeans and a black button-down underneath a khaki jacket. He buys a new pair of black and white Adidas Samba Classic shoes every year.
This day, like most, started at 6 a.m., when he got his 2-year-old son, Avery Strummer, ready for the day. Then, he says, “It’s emails with ‘Sesame Street’ on in the background.”
At the cherry blossom pop-up at Southern Efficiency, Brown glances out the windows as the crowd has swelled in anticipation of the 5 p.m. opening. Impatient passersby — the concept ends April 15 — try to open the locked door only to scowl and sulk back into the line.
He walks into the adjoining Mockingbird Hill, the Super Mario Brothersthemed half of the pop-up, which features billowing cloud puffs, red mushroom caps and glowing geometric brick boxes suspended above. Several bartenders dressed in suspenders and oversized newsboy-style caps have taken on the persona of Mario and Luigi.
And of course, the cocktails are memorable. One — a sweet, milky and slightly sour concoction called the Neko Colada — is served in a ceramic cat-shaped glass. It has been so popular, that customers are now required to leave ID with the bartender when receiving the drink to thwart theft of the cups.
Brown says that the effort to transform the existing bars into themed pop-ups takes about six weeks. The work is done almost entirely by staff, not professional artists.
The eager crowd, which has now started flooding the bars, eats it up, and appreciates the effort.
Washington resident Cindy Spalding and her sisters Liz Rangel and Rebecca