BY MEG VAN HUYGEN for WEEKLY VOLCANO 3/6/26 |
When you rent an apartment or house, you generally spend your time living in the whole place for the whole month, night and day. But what if you’re only home for six or seven hours during the day, and the place sits empty the rest of the time? It seems like kind of a waste, right?
The same is true for bars and restaurants, and veteran bartender Chris Keil noticed it about a year ago when he opened Proof Tacoma inside the Anthem Coffee space in Old Town. From Tuesday through Saturday, when Anthem closes at 3 p.m., the keys are metaphorically handed over to Keil, and the café polymorphs into a sleek, dimly lit cocktail bar.
He was inspired to open his own shop while freelance consulting for other bars. “The idea of a new concept was rattling around in the back of my head,” he says. “I realized that I wanted to create a chill, neighborhood cocktail bar with a sophisticated cocktail program that is accessible and unpretentious.”
Keil’s background is in craft cocktails specifically. He’s an alum of En Rama and 1022 South, among many other Tacoma institutions, and he takes inspiration from the legendary barmen who were behind the craft cocktail renaissance that sprang up in Seattle in the early aughts and spread across the nation. “My sense of hospitality was deeply influenced by a number of bartenders who were working in Seattle fifteen-plus years ago,” Keil says. “At the time, I was very hungry and probably obnoxiously green, and folks like Murray Stenson [Zig Zag Café, Il Bistro] and Jay Kuehner [Damn the Weather, Sambar] were incredibly patient and gracious bartenders. They answered questions and showed a seemingly unending generosity that made me feel at ease.”
Keil adds that, with Proof Tacoma, he wants to share the feeling he had while sitting across the bar from these masters of the craft, who were genuinely kind people. By all accounts, he’s nailing it. It takes about an hour to reshape the room from a daytime coffee shop into a moody, sultry lounge. Cocktails are grouped into categories to make them approachable: spirit-forward classics, low-ABV options and batched drinks. There’s also a thoughtfully curated selection of nonalcoholic beverages, like a grapefruit cordial with chamomile honey and a hibiscus mule with a dash of cayenne. There are no reservations at Proof, and although the drink list can compete with any high-concept faux speakeasy with a James Beard nomination, the vibe here is utterly snob-free.
Proof’s drink list is tweaked often, and what seems to be the hit single of the album lately is the Woman in the Dunes. Per the name, I noticed a Frank Herbert theme running through the cocktail names, saluting Tacoma’s proudest son. It’s a complex, aromatic drink that balances floral sweetness with warmth and texture: Japanese whisky that’s been infused with apple blossom and beeswax, dressed with a touch of both sugar and salt, and poured over a big cube. It’s a pretty simple idea, kind of a botanical take on a classic sling. The beeswax adds a subtle velveteen texture to the drink, and it smells amazing.
“It’s ultimately a pretty simple drink that I took the long road to get to,” Keil says. “Initially, it was conceived as a highball, but the ingredients didn’t lend themselves to that, so as we worked through the R&D process, the drink revealed itself as something pretty straightforward, a salted sling that lets the ingredients shine. The process reminded me to be humble, and that sometimes the initial vision isn’t the right path.”
“Also,” he adds, “sometimes less is more.”
The South of No North, ay, a Bukowski reference this time, is a personal fave, made with tequila, cold brew coffee, banana liqueur, foam and Cynar, an artichoke-based amaro. In comparison to the Woman in the Dunes, the flavors on this one are in your face: fruity-tropical from the banana liqueur, rich from the coffee and a bitter bite from the Cynar. It’s not subtle.
Almost everything I’ve had at Proof is very pronounced and flavor-forward, and Keil is definitely using the bar as a lab, leaning into creativity and experimentation, honoring traditional techniques while incorporating unexpected twists. There’s a sherry old fashioned on the menu that’s pretty far from an old fashioned, but arguably even more delicious: medium-dry amontillado sherry, moscatel, a Spanish dessert wine, Pedro Ximénez, more sherry, and Amargo de Chile, a spicy Latin-style amaro that imparts a kind of Oaxacan mole flavor. It may not be an old fashioned, but it’s killer. Mmmm, spicy wine.
There’s a small menu of snacks and light bites, too: new potatoes with a ranch-inspired “dilly-dally” sauce, a Costa Rican-adjacent “turbo strudel” that consists of house-made cinnamon pastry filled with orange–guava cream cheese. Good thing they have such nice food options, because it’s hard to get out of here without at least two drinks. They’re all so very curiosity-making. A recent wintertime special was the Golden Path, with cinnamon tequila, herbal Becherovka and mulled cider, served hot, and although I was already two drinks deep, my partner and I had to try this one before we closed out. It was fantastic. For my next trip, I’ve got my eye on a Boulevardier that uses chocolate milk-washed bourbon.
Speaking of, I’m always fascinated by the number of drink ingredients that are done in-house at this place: charred pineapple falernum, coconut-washed gin for the gimlet, homemade ginger beer. But his thoughtful, labor-intensive, meticulous cocktails aside, Keil says the detail he obsesses over every single night is still the immaculate level of hospitality with which he serves them.
“So much of the enjoyment of cocktails is about context,” he says. “We try to prioritize hospitality, to take care of people, and for me that starts with trying to do my best for my team. If they have what they need to take care of people, then it creates an environment where people can relax and enjoy their food and drink.”
He adds, “It doesn’t matter how meticulous or thoughtful a cocktail is if it’s served to you by a jerk.”
