Drinks or desserts? The salon on James Brown Boulevard is full of both
A popular downtown Augusta spot got off to a bitter start for Troy and Amy Adamo.
In less than a month in 2017, Troy’s mother and Amy’s father died. Troy was only a few years away from leaving the United States Air Force. Amy had just received her master’s degree in international human resources from Penn State. Family tragedies led the Adamos to a moment of clarity.
“And we looked at each other and said, ‘What would you do if you could do anything?’ “, said Ms. Adamo. She chose pastry. “He said, ‘I want to open a bar.’ I said, ‘OK, let’s do this.’ He said, “Which one?” I said, “Both.”
The result, which opened in March 2021, is Vance’s Bakery Bar, 123 James Brown Blvd. The 50s/60s decor lounge is where cocktails taste like desserts and alcohol-infused desserts complement the cocktails.
And the answer is no; customers cannot get drunk while eating the desserts. This is perhaps the biggest misconception among new customers.
“People will say it’s not boozy enough, but it would be slushy.” You have to know that fine line,” Ms. Adamo said. “We put white wine with shrimp langoustines, red wine with beef bourguignon. It’s a flavor enhancement. You’re not just going to take a bite and get drunk.
At one event in town, she said, a deputy ate two cookies and two cupcakes from Vance, then failed to produce a result on a breathalyzer.
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The Adamos enrolled in mixology school to become bartenders, but more importantly to learn more about transforming cocktails into desserts. Vance’s bartenders and bakers experiment with flavor palettes to develop the next popular menu item.
“A lot of what we do is encourage our staff to create cocktails to help create the desserts,” Mr. Adamo said. “Their ideas are instrumental in the success that happens here. They own the products we produce.
Some desserts might make you feel like a kid again, but Vance’s is still a bar. Only customers 21 and older are allowed inside to order items such as the Lil Vance Cosmic Brownie, Adamos’ version of the Little Debbie Cosmic Brownie. It’s a moist fudge brownie topped with Mozart dark chocolate liqueur ganache, crunchy rainbow chips and a mini scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Whenever possible, Vance’s prefers to source its alcoholic ingredients locally. A recipe calling for beer might include a pale ale from Savannah River Brewing Co. A popular dish, Ric Rac bread pudding, is drizzled with a homemade sauce from 2sd City Ric Rac salted caramel whiskey, distilled in the Augusta region. The “bread” in the pudding is freshly baked pound cake.
Perhaps the sweetest part of Vance is his name. The Adamos named the bar after Ms. Adamo’s father, whose jovial, athletic life ended with a fatal heart attack at age 80.th birthday.
“I learned my baking skills from her mother,” she said. “He loved life, he loved good cocktails and he loved desserts.”
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Augusta Eats bar and bakery combines drinks and desserts downtown.
