Pulp

A Rock-Ola 440 jukebox glows below a wall of disco balls in the corner of Pulp, one level down from The Orange Peel’s stage at 103 Hilliard Ave. Speakers and a television pipe the show upstairs straight down into the room, so whichever band has the main stage plays over a backbar stacked past 550 bourbons. Justin Ferraby opened Pulp in 2009; Brandon Hyduk, an Asheville native who’d booked talent at a venue in Greenville, has tended the bar since. A corner Vinyl Station, sponsored by West Asheville’s Harvest Records, spins Big Band and blues, and Slice of Life, a local comedy troupe, takes the room over once a month. A Music Lovers Book Club meets in the same room in partnership with The Orange Peel, working through musician biographies and music history one book at a time; a recent pick was Robert Gordon’s Stax Records history, Respect Yourself. A wood-burned Asheville Bourbon Society roundel hangs over a fringed lamp on the bar. Its private tasting runs $50 to $75 a person with a printed sheet of notes to take home; past pours have included a Redwood Empire Screaming Titan and a six-year Russell’s rye. In a 2025 Downtown in Bloom cocktail contest, the bar entered a Violet Femmes: bourbon, crème de violette, crème de cassis, lemon, a violet petal. Whoever is playing upstairs picks the soundtrack down here more often than the bartender does. Check The Orange Peel’s schedule before you go — the room you get depends on it.