Mojo No. 4 - A Bar Review
One lesson that I've learned while traveling is not to sleep on whiskey bars just because they're in smaller cities. Actually, it's often the case that bars in medium-sized cities or even smaller towns will have the best combination of selection and value-for-money out there (as my $16 pours of George T. Stagg, at Mandarin Hide in St. Petersburg, prove). Jacksonville isn't exactly the first town that pops to mind when one thinks bourbon, either, but they have a pretty decent watering hole there in Mojo No. 4.
Atmosphere and Service: Mojo is part of a larger chain of barbecue restaurants in northern and central Florida, and that comes through in its vibe. It's a little generic in appearance, albeit with some quirky touches like a giant, floor-to-ceiling painting of a blue chicken and a big wooden pig in one corner of the space. It reminds me a bit of North End in Indianapolis, a nice restaurant-bourbon bar combination. There are TVs, so this could be a good game-day bar for those who want to keep drinking whiskey while watching some football.
One visual touch that I did appreciate was that the bar had a true ladder gantry, i.e., that mobile wheeled ladder that is in bars where the shelves go so high and the selection is so extensive that the bartenders need some help getting to all of the bottles. That is exactly the kind of bar I want.
Selection: In a word, extensive. Mojo No. 4 has well over 100 bourbons, 40-odd ryes, around 60 scotches, and a bunch of others in miscellaneous categories (American, Canadian, Irish, French, Japanese, Taiwanese, and Indian whiskies). My rough guess is that they're in the 250-bottle range here, which would make them the best whiskey bar in a lot of cities in America. Their website does have a whiskey list, but based on what I got at the restaurant, the two essentially bear no resemblance to one another. The old list online, which hasn't been updated in a year or so, has some rare expressions that I was hoping to try, including old versions of Four Roses Limited Edition Single Barrel or Small Batch. Their actual selection is quite different -- not worse, per se, just not what's on the online list.
Just the bourbon list
Rare Bottles: They had several bottles of Buffalo Trace Antique Collection here, along with Pappy Van Winkle, lots of Orphan Barrel expressions, and both Four Roses Elliott's Select and Four Roses Al Young 50th Anniversary. The highlight arguably is a bottle of A.H. Hirsch 16, which is something of a white whale among the bourbon community (and priced accordingly, at $195 for a 1.5 oz pour). So, yeah, the list of rare bottles, particularly bourbons and ryes, also is impressive. On the scotch side of things, I wasn't noticing as much in the way of rare bottles, although they were offering some Balvenie Tun 1401, which at this point is a discontinued and fairly premium expression.
Value: There are values to be found on the menu, although in my perusal, they appeared to be primarily at the lower end of the spectrum. Lots of pours here cost under $10, which makes this an excellent bar for the budding bourbon enthusiast to come and try a bunch of different expressions. There were fewer bargains on the scotch side of the menu, although Laphroaig 10 for $11 a pour or Macallan 12 for $14 are somewhere in the realm between reasonable and acceptable.
***
Mojo No. 4 isn't the most exciting whiskey bar that I've visited, but it has more whiskey than you could try in 50 visits. It's worth a stop if you're ever in the Jacksonville area.