Contributors

Blogging Tales of the Cocktail: 2009 is a collaborative effort involving many of the world’s most widely read bloggers covering spirits, cocktails and the art of mixology. Meet our regular contributors:

Editorial Team

Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles) is a contributing editor to Imbibe magazine; the spirits and cocktails columnist for Serious Eats; and has contributed articles and essays on spirits, cocktails and the culture of drinking to the New York Times’ Proof blog, the San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle magazine and other publications.  Since May 2005, Paul has documented his exploration of fine spirits and mixology on The Cocktail Chronicles, one of the first exclusively cocktail-related blogs on the Internet. Paul is also the founder and moderator of Mixology Monday, a monthly online cocktail party that has attracted scores of participants from around the globe. While he’s still not sure it’s a good thing that his drinking habits have attracted media attention, Paul has been profiled on Salon.com and in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and his blog has been declared an “Online Find” by the Boston Globe and a spotlighted “Pick” by Yahoo!. Paul has been quoted in articles on spirits and cocktails in publications including the New York Times, the Seattle Times, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Baltimore Sun and Tiki Magazine.

Anita & Cameron Crotty (Married…with Dinner): Professional writers by day and amateur mixologists by night, Anita & Cameron are co-authors of Married …with Dinner, “the continuing adventures of a couple of San Francisco food dorks”. They’re best known in the cocktail blogosphere for their Drink of the Week feature and award-winning beverage photos. They’ll also shamelessly admit to holding the title of “Best Blog Covering Drinks”, courtesy of the 2007 Well Fed Food Blog Awards.

Michael Dietsch is a freelance editor who lives in Providence, Rhode Island. Dietsch is a poser who dabbles in dipsology solely as an excuse to bash his liver every day. For three years, he has written about spirits and cocktails at A Dash of Bitters. When he’s not mixing drinks, he’s either smoking huge chunks of meat, grilling vegetables, arguing on the Internet about comic books, or enjoying a fine cigar. He’s married to Jennifer Hess, and they have three cats.

Gabriel Szaszko (Cocktail Nerd) lives, drinks, and writes in Tulsa, OK, and found himself trapped in the inescapable allure of cocktails after littering his lawn, and checkbook register, with one too many champagne purchases. He endeavors to one day stop tinkering around with Aviation proportions and various obscure gins and work his way to the left of his bar where the darkly-colored spirits live. He is a founding member of the Cocktail & Spirits Online Writers Guild Group, blogs at Cocktail Nerd and writes for Oklahoma Magazine. He also has the finest family this side of your front door.

Designers & Technical Crew

Jeffrey Morgenthaler of Portland, Oregon has been writing about bartending and mixology for several years at his website, jeffreymorgenthaler.com. The website features original cocktail recipes, product reviews, and discussions of bartending technique. Jeffrey has been tending bar professionally since 1996 and is currently the bar manager at Clyde Common in Portland, Oregon. His recipes and wisdom have appeared in Wine Enthusiast, Playboy, Wired, and Imbibe magazines.

Jay Hepburn (Oh Gosh!) is a cocktail enthusiast and writer from London, England. You can read about his adventures in the world of cocktails at Oh Gosh!, where he compares recipes, discovers new and unusual spirits and seeks out the best places to get a decent drink. In addition to Oh Gosh! Jay also writes for Mixology and produces Oh Gosh! TV, an online video series showcasing the finest bars around the world and the people at the forefront cocktail and bar culture.

Blair Reynolds (Trader Tiki) is a tropical cocktail consultant, blogger, and obsessive mixologist living in Portland, OR. When not slinging drinks in the Galley, his home bar, or blathering on about the drinks of Don the Beachcomber or Trader Vic, he’s updating his site with the latest findings from the notebooks of old Vic’s bartenders and notes from the books of Jeff “Beachbum” Berry. He can be caught at Teardrop Lounge the third Tuesday of each month, where he puts together the menu and hosts Tiki Third Tuesday.

Rick Stutz is the author of Kaiser Penguin, a cocktail blog featuring original recipes, homemade ingredients, classic cocktails, and tiki drinks. Host of the Mixoloseum’s Thursday Drink Night, he brings together bartenders, spirit writers, and cocktail enthusiasts from around the globe each week to create original cocktails and build on the knowledge and relationships in the cocktailian community.

His passion for photography and garnish fuel his work, which has been featured in Imbibe! Magazine and at notable tippling establishments including Forbidden Island, in San Francisco, and Vessel, in Seattle. He currently lives in Pennsylvania where he trains in the art of fire-breathing.

Original Artwork

Craig Mrusek (Dr. Bamboo): Who is Dr. Bamboo? Some say he is a renegade scientist who renounced his original field of study to dedicate himself to the advancement of cocktail culture. Others claim he is a powerful shaman who practices the forbidden arts of a long-forgotten civilization. Still others maintain he is actually a traveler from a faraway world, sent to our planet as an ambassador of intergalactic fine living. Whatever the truth may be, one thing is certain: He makes a mean Martini. When he’s not foraging for obscure drink ingredients and vintage barware, Dr. Bamboo works as a freelance illustrator, is the drinks columnist for Bachelor Pad Magazine, and a contributor to BarNoneDrinks.com’s monthly newsletter.

Correspondents

Lauren Clark (DrinkBoston) is the publisher of drinkboston.com (bars, bartenders and imbibing in Beantown) and a freelance drinks journalist who has written for the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, the New York Times, and Nightclub & Bar, among other publications. A former bartender and brewer, Lauren is also a founding member of the Boston chapter of Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails (LUPEC).

Stevi Deter (Two at the Most) is a cocktail ingenue living in Redmond, WA. Her passion for a great drink was sent into overdrive upon picking up a copy of David Wondrich’s Imbibe!, ostensibly as a gift, and then greedily keeping it for herself. She is a member of the Cocktail and Spirits Online Writers Group (CSWOG), and an associate member of the Washington State Bartenders Guild (WSBG). She can frequently be found haunting the bar at the Mixoloseum. On her blog she reviews liquors, books about liquor, and her process for inventing new drinks. She measures her growth as a home bartender by the quality of her Pisco Sour.

Marshall Fawley is the co-author of Scofflaw’s Den, an “online speakeasy of potent potables and other pabulum.” The “Scofflaw’s Den” name not only reflects the term given to those who imbibed during the dark days of Prohibition, it is also in honor of Marshall’s ancestral roots of moonshine runners. A good ole Southern boy based out of Arlington, VA, Marshall co-authors Scofflaw’s Den with his good friend and college buddy, SeanMike Whipkey. Marshall covers original and classic cocktails, product reviews, home mixology, cigars and the Washington DC area’s growing cocktail scene. An attorney by day, Marshall spends his evenings soaking up cocktailian history from his collection of old bar guides, making homemade ingredients and photographing the results. A contributor to The Mixoloseum website and covered by the Washingtonian magazine, Marshall is proud to be a Virginia/Washington, DC voice in the world of cocktails. As a side hobby, Marshall has made it his mission to single-handedly resurrect the Cocktail de la Louisiane and popularize it throughout the Washington , DC area — next step the world!

Jonathan Forester (Drinking the World), freelance writer, has worked as a wine salesman, at a microbrewery, as a hard cider maker, an artisanal cheese maker, rustic wood fired bread baker, studied at the French Culinary Institute and in culinary schools abroad, and is a food & beverage business consultant. He writes for a variety of print, trade, and online publications; and is developing several blogs of his own including DrinkingTheWorld.com and DiaryofaDistiller.com. He has also been a psychologist, wilderness guide, educator, and more. Forester recently moved to mid-coast Maine where he consults to local food businesses and restaurants, creating new products and food/drink menu lines. He is a partner at Winterport Winery which makes dry and semi-dry fruit wines; and their new, English style hard ciders aged in used bourbon, rye, and rum casks. In partnership with Winterport Winery, he has started a new venture; Penobscot Bay Distillery & Brewery. There he makes whiskey from organic and heirloom locally grown grains, charred barrel aged fruit brandies, gin, aged rum, and specialty ales. He is creating unique, premium spirits, and re-creating lost ones especially for the Cocktail Revolution; the Second Golden Age of Cocktails that is being celebrated at Tales of the Cocktail.

Craig Hermann (Colonel Tiki’s Drinks) is a nefarious ne’er-do-well who haunts the locales of Portland, Oregon. He is a mixologist, a cook, a braggart and a stalwart good friend. He is also a founding member of North West Tiki, LLC  an organization to support and spread Polynesian Pop enthusiasm throughout the Pacific Northwest. NWTiki produces and organizes TIKI KON, a yearly convention in celebration of all things Tiki. His blog, Colonel Tiki’s Drinks, serves as a clearinghouse for current and future project plans, drink recepies and discussions, food opinions and diversions, chest thumping and proclamations.

Robert Heugel: Drink Dogma is a digital document of an obsession with all elements of bartending. Specifically, spirits and cocktails have slowly started to consume his life. When not bartending, Robert is either reading books or online resources about cocktails, experimenting with recipes at home, or searching for a good drink in Houston. He loves old-school cocktails and ingredients; he’d put Chartreuse (green, of course) in his cereal if he could get away with it.

Sonja Kassebaum (Thinking of Drinking) has been an avid home bartender for many years, and loves exploring old and new cocktails, obscure ingredients and creative techniques.  She has expanded on that interest in the last few years by starting and running a boutique distillery with her husband, North Shore Distillery, and by teaching a range of cocktail classes across the Midwest.  In her spare time, Sonja is the President and Founder of Chicago’s chapter of the Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails, and a member of the United States Bartenders Guild, Illinois Chapter.

Ted Munat (Le Mixeur) has carefully crafted a reputation for himself as one of the west coast cocktail scene’s foremost malingerers. He is a master at employing the power of the written word to create the illusion that he has made tangible contributions to the cocktail world, yet has coyly led most people to believe he’s merely a knave who likes to throw parties and spend entirely too much time in bars. At the same time, he seems to have lost his life-long race to avoid responsibility, and suddenly finds his cocktail events – Le Mixeur – growing in scope, size, and repute, and the blog of the same name actually being read by people to whom he is not directly related. What’s more, he is now a contributor to Drink Me Magazine and author of the soon-to-be-released book, Left Coast Libations. This has created mass confusion within the cocktail community and an identity crisis for Mr. Munat. Clearly, he is at a crossroads between fantasy and…well, a different fantasy. Pray for him.

Tiare Olsen (A Mountain of Crushed Ice) hails from Stockholm, Sweden and is a passionate cocktails and spirits geek with a special love for tropical and tiki drinks.You’ll usually find her either mixing up a range of drinks, crushing ice, making garnishes, syrups, infusions and bitters, or photographing all her experiments, which find their way onto her blog ”A Mountain of Crushed Ice.” She is especially interested in cocktail garnishing and ice, and is a collector of demerara rums. After working many years in restaurants she is now a mobile phones marketer and consultant, while still occasionally bartending, writing her blog and hanging out in the Mixoloseum bar chat room.Her favorite cocktail is a proper Mai Tai.

Marleigh Riggins is the writer and publisher of SLOSHED! Begun in early 2005 as a way to keep track of her growing interest in cocktails and spirits while sharing those experiences with anyone who would listen — or read, as it were — the focus of SLOSHED! is on cocktails good, bad and indifferent, with a definite bias toward the classics and the occasional bar review thrown in for good measure. Marleigh’s cocktails have been featured on Los Angeles bar menus including Malo in Silverlake; she is a member of the Cocktails & Spirits Online Writers Group and can also be found posting on the Mixoloseum blog. When not writing or photographing for SLOSHED!, Marleigh works as a graphic designer and favors cold Belgian ales.

Matt Robold (Rum Dood) lives in Orange County, California, where he spends his time riding his bicycle, tinkering with various software projects, annoying bartenders in Orange and LA counties, exchanging notes and recipes with other cocktail and spirit bloggers, and – of course – drinking and writing about rum. In addition to RumDood.com, Matt contributes to the Mixoloseum blog. Rum captured Matt’s interest in 2005 when a trip to St. Lucia saw him return with a bottle of Admiral Rodney rum. After finishing a bottle of the best rum he had ever had, Matt began the long search for a replacement bottle, which lead him to Ed Hamilton’s Ministry of Rum. Unable to obtain a new bottle of Admiral Rodney right away, Matt started trying other rums and soon had a collection of 5 or 6 rums occupying his liquor cabinet. By 2009, that number had grown to more than 110 different rums as things moved from “hobby” to “obsession.”

Matthew B. Rowley (Rowley’s Whiskey Forge) is an advertising executive, former museum curator, and past board member of the Southern Foodways Alliance. He has traveled extensively in search of moonshiners, poitín-makers, and amateur & craft distillers to uncover local liquor and, when possible, promote the people who make it. He is a past presenter at Tales of the Cocktail and has talked on drinking and cocktail culture for universities, radio, and television. His recipes and essays have gotten ink from the University of North Carolina Press, Simon & Schuster, the Taunton Press, Lark Books, and others. Although he’s far too shy to mention it, his 2007 distilling history/practicum— Moonshine! Recipes * Tall Tales * Drinking Songs * Historical Stuff * Knee-Slappers *How to Make It * How to Drink It * Pleasin’ the Law * Recoverin’ the Next Day — has been called a modern classic among hobbyist distillers. Rowley lives in San Diego, California, where he maintains a 2,000-volume culinary library open to chefs, bartenders, historians, journalists, and students and is proprietor of Rowley’s Whiskey Forge, blog a devoted to the history and practice of distilling, mixology, and good eats.

Steve Schul and Paul Zablocki (Cocktail Buzz) have been plying their love for cocktails, mixology, and food pairings on their Web site, Cocktail Buzz. They present videos that offer demonstrations of cocktail/appetizer pairings, recipes for meals to follow your cocktail, as well as a blog about cocktail bars and restaurants in NYC and other cities. They love to share cocktail info and recipes to those who want to have fun at home and celebrate the joys of imbibing, yet like an occasional night at the bar. So check out what they have to say at Cocktail Buzz and watch them create intoxicating delights.

Chuck Taggart (The Gumbo Pages) is a dedicated cocktailian whose work and explorations have been featured in The Joy of Mixology,Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails, The San Francisco Chronicle and various other publications.  He’s pleased as a bowl of Columbian Punch to see some of his original cocktails being served in bars from Seattle to New Orleans to Boston. Since 1994 he’s been the author and editor of the New Orleans food-, drink- and culture-related website The Gumbo Pages, which regularly features his musings on cocktails and spirits in the weblog Looka! He also worked as a public radio DJ and music programmer in Los Angeles for 20 years, and in 2004 was the compiler, producer and accompanying book co-author of Doctors, Professors, Kings and Queens: The Big Ol’ Box of New Orleans, a 4-CD collection of New Orleans and Louisiana music on Shout! Factory Records.

Keith Waldbauer (Moving at the Speed of Life) is a bartender, consultant and writer from Seattle.  He currently tends bar at Barrio, a Mexican-themed restaurant with a well-regarded spirit and cocktail program.  He recently joined Kathy Casey Food Studios as a Consulting Associate Mixologist.  As a writer, he contributes to his own blog, Moving at the Speed of Life, as well as for Slashfood.com, part of the AOL Food Network.  Recently, he was nominated for a Rising Star Mixologist Award by StarChefs.com, and serves as Vice-President of the Washington State Bartenders Guild.

SeanMike Whipkey (Scofflaw’s Den): SeanMike’s parents used whiskey to help him with his teething.  It was only about 30 years later he realized he should’ve asked for some bitters to go with the bourbon. He drifted through college where the mark of a well-made drink was “you can’t taste the booze in it” or “the sours mix won’t give you heartburn”.  As the years went on, he stuck with beer and wine more and more until his friend Marshall started dragging him into the world of cocktails. Next thing he knew his bar was bigger than most restaurants, he was writing a blog about cocktails and occasionally cigars, and people seemed to think he knows what he’s talking about.  He’ll show them!

Special Contributors

Kirsten Amann (LUPEC Boston) is a freelance writer, lifestyle publicist, and founding member of the Boston chapter of Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails (LUPEC Boston). Her writing has appeared in DailyCandy, The Second Glass, The Weekly Dig, and Bachelor II Groom.com. Under the “Pink Lady” byline, Kirsten writes and manages editorial content for lupecboston.com, and coauthors LUPEC Boston columns in The Weekly Dig and the Massachusetts Beverage Business. Kirsten also holds the title of Public Relations Broad for LUPEC Boston, and has placed stories about the group in numerous local and national media outlets, including Tasting Panel magazine, Misstropolis, The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, DailyCandy, and The Chet Curtis Report, among others. Kirsten is currently at work on a book-length version of Undercover Blonde, the experiment she has conducted to see if “blondes have more fun”, and chronicled at UndercoverBlonde.com since 2005.

Jamie Boudreau (Spirits & Cocktails) was born on the right side of the continent in Montreal, Quebec. Realizing that the weather and politics of Quebec were too much for him as soon as he popped out of the womb, he decided, as many before him had, to go west! Traveling across Canada by car, Jamie has lived in, or visited, every major (and quite a few minor) cities in Canada, before he finally decided to call Vancouver his home. Jamie has worked all over Vancouver where he ran some of the best bars that the city has to offer, and is now stationed in Seattle, Washington. Jamie most recently presided over the bar at Vessel, an upscale bar in Seattle, furthering his quest for the perfect cocktail. Establishing Vessel as one of the premier bars  of America, he has now moved on to other ventures, helping tweak bar programs and offering international seminars, all the while tending bar in various venues. Jamie’s influence is also developing internationally as well, as he is consulting for bars in the United States as well as leading mixology seminars in the New Orleans, Prague, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil. Jamie’s thirst for cocktail minutia is infamous, and if conversation turns to a subject that he is unsure of, you can be assured that he will research it as soon as possible. He has a love for the classics, but at the same time is always looking for new, exciting ingredients with which to try out new recipes..

Natalie Bovis-Nelsen (The Liquid Muse): As editor of TheLiquidMuse.com, Natalie keeps an eye on drink trends around the world, and her coverage sometimes lands her on syndicated radio shows and TV segments. As a professional mixologist, she designs cocktails for product launches and celebrity-studded shin-digs, and does consulting for beverage companies. Natalie’s first book “Preggatinis: Mixology for the Mom-to-Be” was included in about.com’s Top Ten Best Cocktail Books of the Year upon release in December 2008, and her second cocktail book (also women-oriented) is due in Fall 09. Natalie educates the everyday consumer by teaching cocktail classes, nationwide, including: “TLM Sustainable Sips® Eco-Friendly Cocktails,” “Booze for Broads®,” and keeps pregnancy fun for parents-to-be with her “Preggatinis™” course. This is Natalie’s third year at Tales of the Cocktail, and the second one in a row that she has the honor of creating the “Official Nonalcoholic Cocktail.” She is also excited to unveil The Liquid Muse Virgin Mixology® in her seminar on July 11. If you see Natalie rushing toward you with a microphone and cameraman, don’t be alarmed. The Liquid Muse is hosting her annual podcasts again this year, and she probably wants to broadcast you to the world via Internet. (A word to the wise, a bottle of Visine in the pocket comes in handy at moments like these… especially by Day 4 of Tales of the Cocktail!) Natalie is also hosting two new online shows: “Inspired Sips” on the Small Screen Network and “The Liquid Muse’s Little Black Book,” on her own website, highlighting hot spots to drink in Los Angeles. Don’t forget to sign up for The Liquid Museletter to stay “in the know!”.

Emma Davis (Yoga & Gimlets) – Now working with IPBrands/IP PR, Emma has 17 years of experience in the sales and marketing of wines and spirits including most recently 7 years launching and building the highly acclaimed Martin Miller’s Gin both in the UK and globally. Emma is an expert in distribution and marketing in the UK, US and other global markets. She has also worked on many famous wine brands including Torres, Guigal, Jean Luc Columbo as well as Janneau armagnac, Chartreuse and other spirits. Emma started her career in the in-house PR at Berry Bros and Rudd and will also be heading up with IPB, IP PR as collectively they are media savvy and have extensive contacts within the UK and globally. Emma is also chairman of LUPEC UK (www.lupec.org), the first international chapter of LUPEC outside the US. LUPEC UK will be a mentoring and advisory body for women in the industry. Emma also contributes to Drinksology and her own blog, yogagimlets.blogspot.com.

Erik Ellestad (Underhill Lounge) is a blog author and contributor to such sites as eGullet.org and DrinkBoy. His most famous misadventure is likely his ongoing effort to make all the cocktails, in order, from The Savoy Cocktail Book. The eGullet.org topic he started documenting this quixotic project, “Stomping Through the Savoy,” has proven strangely popular with cocktail enthusiasts and others in the food and beverage industry. He hopes, if all goes well, to be approximately half done by the time of Tales of the Cocktail 2008.

Camper English (Alcademics) is a freelance cocktails and spirits writer for publications including the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine, Wine & Spirits, and Best Life, as well as the cocktail blog Alcademics.com. He He has covered everything from urban moonshiners to drinks with maple syrup. His work has taken him to places like Warsaw (vodka), Barbados (rum), and Mexico (tequila), though he most enjoys the cities where they can mix a mean drink at happy hour. He is oddly obsessed with distillery waste product recycling and cocktails with black pepper.

Misty Kalkofen (LUPEC-Boston) is one of Boston’s most highly regarded mixologists. Before joining the team at Drink, Barbara Lynch’s new cocktail bar in Fort Point, she spent two years as bar manager at Green Street in Cambridge, where her cocktail program emphasized classic drinks and proper technique. She is President and founder of the city’s first and only women’s classic cocktail society, LUPEC Boston (a local chapter of Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktail), and a founding member of The Jack Rose Society. Kalkofen first stepped behind the bar while studying theology at Harvard Divinity School. She credits local music legend Brother Cleve with cementing her interest in classic cocktails the day he “presented her with a bottle of Old Overholt rye and dubbed her his protege.” Upon completing her degree in 1998 Kalkofen realized what excited her most about the Bible was the part where Jesus turns water into wine. Shortly thereafter Kalkofen joined the opening staff of the B-Side Lounge, the first bar in the city to focus on classic cocktails and vintage spirits at a time when Cosmopolitans and Sour Apple Martinis ruled. Kalkofen has spent the past ten years honing her craft and her palate, and has earned a reputation as one of Boston’s foremost authorities on cocktail history and culture. Kalkofen’s cocktail recipes have been excerpted in magazines and blogs across the country, including Wine & Spirits, Salon.com, Imbibe Magazine, and The Cocktail Chronicles. Kalkofen has received numerous accolades from local media, and has been featured in Boston Magazine, The Boston Globe, Stuff@Night, and The Improper Bostonian, among others. Kalkofen has been featured as a cocktail expert on regional radio shows and was a featured mixologist at James Beard’s Taste of America 2007, Boston Edition. Her writing on cocktails and women’s history can be found on the LUPEC Boston blog: lupecboston.com.

Darcy O’Neil (The Art of Drink) is a bartender with a formal education in chemistry. His motive for becoming a bartender was part by chance and partially to fulfill his culinary desires. Darcy feels that in life, food and drink are too important to take short cuts, so he quickly became an advocate for making great cocktails. Darcy currently works as a bartender and spends his time writing about his mixology and bartending experiences on his website, The Art of Drink.

Robert Simonson (Off the Presses) is a Brooklyn-based wine and spirits journalist who has written for the New York Sun, Salon.com. Saveur.com, Wine Spectator, Culture and Travel and Time Out New York, as well as his own blog, Off the Presses.

Chris Stanley (An Exercise in Hospitality) is an occasional bartender, cook and cocktailian reprobate-at-large whose overlong ramblings & flowery language are normally limited to his blog, An Exercise in Hospitality. He is a founding member of the Cocktail and Spirits Online Writer’s Group, a member in good-standing of the USBG’s New York chapter and an active participant in the online cocktail community. Chris has worked in several areas of the food, beverage and hospitality industry and continues to devote a great deal of his (limited) free time to similar pursuits, all while completing a degree in Food Management at New Jersey’s Montclair State University. Widely-traveled, his eclectic professional and personal experiences have lent him an appreciation for ethnic cuisines (& their component flavors); elements of which often influence his cocktails in a variety of innovative ways. Furthermore, as an avid collector of vintage bar and cocktail guides, Chris is well-versed in classic cocktails – constantly experimenting with variations on the same or originating new libations with a solid foundation in those of the past. Examples of his cocktails have appeared in Imbibe magazine, won acclaim at the CSOWG’s Mixoloseum and graced the menu of the highly-rated Catherine Lombardi’s restaurant in New Brunswick, NJ.

2008 Contributors Included:

Brad Ellis (Bar Mix Master) has always loved putting things together to make something new and exciting. He is a Software Engineering Manager by day which is where he spends his time improving processes through the use of technology. Brad has a team of Software Engineers, a Project Manager, a Technical Writer and Support Programmers; his team builds complex projects to make something new and exciting for users. There is a great thrill that he gets when they deliver a product that exceeds the customer’s needs for a project. Cocktailing is the same for him. When Brad makes a great cocktail for a guest in his home and they love it, he gets that same thrill. His favorite drink is a Maker’s Mark Manhattan, straight up.

Seamus Harris (Bunnyhugs) hails from Auckland, New Zealand, and divides his time between there and Shanghai, China. In a vivid demonstration that travel can still broaden the mind, Seamus’ cocktail epiphany occurred after years of wandering the Far East in search of enlightenment. Meditating in a Japanese bar in Shanghai, Seamus was awakened to the realization that a perfect cocktail depends on the careful execution of numerous small details. Sensing his awakening, the barman, Mr. Jin, taught Seamus that ice was the neglected detail at the center of it all. Seamus has been a religious ice-Nazi ever since. Acquaintances deal with this by remembering urgent but forgotten appointments and politely taking their leave as soon as the subject of chilled H2O comes up. Seamus thus often finds himself abandoned to the company of a too-rapidly-diluting drink. For therapy, Seamus’ friends have suggested he write a cocktail blog, which can be found at www.bunnyhugs.org.

Kevin Kelpe (Save the Drinkers) is a bartender, restaurateur, and amateur writer living in Boise, Idaho. His work has spanned over 10 years and every aspect of the food and beverage business from bar and menu design to business management and consulting. Most recently, Kevin has been developing regionally focused bar and food menus in Boise, Idaho with Just Eat Local, a restaurant company focused on building sustainable food systems in urban areas. Kevin chronicles his travels and the happenings of his test-kitchen and bar, Red Feather Lounge, through mediocre camera phone photography and snarky musings on his blog at Save the Drinkers.

Lance J. Mayhew (My Life on the Rocks) had his first sip of distilled spirits at age 12, from a bottle of Vandermint stolen from his father’s liquor cabinet. In spite of his poor choice of initial spirit, Lance persevered, and ended up ending bar right after his 21st birthday at Stuart Anderson’s Black Angus Fun Bar, where he mastered every variation of the Long Island Iced Tea. From there, Lance worked in a variety of upscale restaurants and nightclubs, and quickly developed a passion for well-made classic cocktails. Lance’s particular interests are gins, whiskies, amaro and arak, and the history of American cocktails. Lance is one of the founders and current president of the Oregon Bartenders Guild, and currently can be found behind the bar in Portland Oregon at Beaker and Flask.