“Being a former baker, I love my days in the lab,” says Tone Arasa, lead bartender and prep lead for True Laurel in San Francisco’s Mission District. Though they also enjoy the never-dull days on the floor engaging with guests, “When I can make the bartender’s life easy, that’s what makes me the happiest.”
Together with co-owner and bar director Nicolas Torres, Arasa sources and processes the Bay Area produce—foraged and farmed—that drives the cocktail bar’s renown. “My drink-making process is heavily inspired by the seasons,” she says. “When I’m creating, I work around what’s available locally.” In a drink called the Quincess Bride, California-grown quince stars in the base spirit as well as a housemade syrup and garnish.
This sense of place is crucial to Arasa, who’s from the Coastal Miwok tribe of Graton Rancheria. “Being Indigenous, I have a strong social and environmental duty to the land I inhabit,” they say.
True Laurel prioritizes environmental responsibility without compromising on creativity, and that ethos reflects Arasa’s own commitment to a no-waste philosophy and a reciprocal relationship with the land. They regularly forage native and local flora and support local agriculture, not to mention the communities connected to all of these practices. “Sustainability is not just a value—it’s a central ingredient in every drink I make and create.”
Get to know Tone
The drink that got you interested in bartending:
Negroni. It was my mentor’s pick of cocktail that really pushed me to understand the importance of each unique ingredient and read every bottle I picked up.
Best piece of advice you got when starting out:
Keep your head up and engage with your guests. Don’t go into gremlin mode.
Weirdest drink request:
Once someone asked me to make a milk-clarified cocktail, dealer’s choice. They understood the technique behind that drink; I just thought it was an odd thing to ask in the middle of a shift. What’s the most underrated cocktail?
Bamboo
What do you know now that you wish you’d known five years ago? I’ve only been tending bar for five years, but I wish I knew it’s OK to not know everything, and keep learning.
The one thing you wish would disappear from drink lists forever:
“Baller” cocktails
Hometown: San Francisco Bay Area Favorite classic cocktail: Rye Manhattan
Your approach to cocktails in one word:
Storytelling
Years as a bartender:
5; 14 in the hospitality industry
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Arasa’s drinks prioritize local and seasonal ingredients from the Bay Area. In a drink called the Quincess Bride, California-grown quince stars in the base spirit as well as a housemade syrup and garnish.
The Quincess Bride
Daniel Bareswilt has spent 15 years working in hospitality in Tampa, Florida, including a decade at cocktail bars like CW’s Gin Joint and Azure. Now, at Alter Ego, a new nightclub with a bar program that punches above its weight, Bareswilt is crafting some of his best drinks yet.
On the menu, cocktails are named for popular tracks whose titles aptly fit the flavor profiles of the drinks in question. The Lemonade by Gucci Mane, for instance, which Bareswilt describes as “a clean, lean Collins,” can be made with either vodka or gin to complement the bar’s house citrus cordial. “It’s an exercise in minimalism, but also super delicious,” he says.
For a cocktail to make it on the menu at the high-volume venue, Bareswilt asks himself questions like, “Can we sustain making this drink quickly and consistently 50 times a night? Can we sustain the ingredients we’re sourcing well enough to put a drink in print?” For his program, the fewer bottle pick-ups the better.
This practicality has led Bareswilt to develop his own brand of crowd-pleasing understatement. And it’s gone a long way toward winning over an audience that doesn’t necessarily come for the drinks. According to Bareswilt, most of his guests are drawn to Alter Ego “because the bar is beautiful and the music is good.” But even if only a small percentage of guests are what Bareswilt describes as “cocktail connoisseurs,” he’s not deterred. “I absolutely stand by the integrity of our cocktails,” he says.
Get to know Daniel
The drink that got you interested in bartending:
Sazerac, at Tall Paul’s in Gainesville, Florida. Andy Amron made it for me. I didn’t know it was possible for something to smell and taste like that. I had to know why.
Best piece of advice you got when starting out:
I am often appreciative of the veteran bartenders that held a younger me accountable on the days I didn’t pull my weight. What part of your job do you like most?
I like work that’s physically demanding. I like to convert people into [trying] a spirit or cocktail they previously disliked. I like being part of a team that plays for each other. I like teaching new professionals a trade that provides well. I like hosting the function.
Weirdest drink request:
I used to work at a restaurant that sauced their pork shank dish with a cranberry chutney. I thought the chutney sounded interesting, so I tried it as the sweetener in a Whiskey Sour. I didn’t realize the chutney was full of garlic and onions. It was terrible. What’s the most underrated cocktail?
I’ve never had a guest send back a Corpse Reviver No. 2 in my entire career—knock on wood.
Hometown: Jacksonville, Florida Favorite classic cocktail: Piña Colada
Your approach to cocktails in one word:
Scrumptious
Years as a bartender:
10; 15 in hospitality
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ICE CREAM PAINT JOB
This Neapolitan ice cream–inspired drink embodies Bareswilt’s penchant for crowd-pleasing cocktails. A mix of sherry, rum, coconut milk, strawberries and vanilla, “it’s desserty but not a sugar bomb,” he says. “It surprises people.”
Capucine Prager felt the pull of the hospitality industry while weighing whether to remain in her native France or move closer to family in New York. Working as a restaurant server in her hometown of Toulouse in 2019, she fell so in love with the staff camaraderie that she decided to remain in the industry rather than follow through on her original plan of going back to school. Something “just clicked” at that restaurant job, she says. “I couldn’t ignore how right it felt.”
In the six years since that job, Prager has learned to push the envelope with esoteric cocktail ingredients and original flavor combinations dialed in with precision and restraint. Her first bartending job was at L’Heure du Singe in Toulouse. From there, she honed her spirits knowledge at the now-closed Quarter Kitchen & Cocktail Lab in St. Barts, leading VIP tastings thanks to the extensive collection of rums and whiskeys. In New York, where she currently lives, she has worked at Manhatta, HiLot and Bar Belly. Along with her partner Ben Hopkins, she has also launched a consulting project, curating the cocktail menu at celebrity events like Eric André’s housewarming party.
When an opportunity at Bar Goto came along, Prager knew she had to take it. Prager says she’s inspired by the constraints of owner Kenta Goto’s intentionally pared-back approach. Her drinks, similarly, deliver complex, evocative flavors with just a few ingredients. Take her Golden Daylily, for instance, which combines whisky and oolong tea. Describing the inspiration behind the drink, Prager might as well be describing her entire approach. “This drink is inspired by the idea of calm confidence,” she says. “It’s a spirit-forward cocktail that doesn’t need to shout to be heard.”
Get to know Capucine
Best piece of advice you got when starting out:
Slow down to speed up. When you’re new, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and feel like you have to move at lightning speed to prove yourself, but rushing usually means mistakes, and redoing a round isn’t faster. Taking a breath and dialing in helps everything fall into place, and honestly, it’s advice that I still remind myself of today.
What’s the most underrated cocktail?
The Bijou. But also, people know the Corpse Reviver No. 2, but I feel like No. 1 doesn’t get nearly enough love. Cognac, Calvados, sweet vermouth, bitters. I feel like it’s absolutely worth rediscovering.
The one thing you wish would disappear from drink lists forever:
Dehydrated citrus. I know it’s popular, but I just don’t see the point. It adds waste, doesn’t look great, contributes nothing in terms of flavor or aroma. I’m a big believer in less is more when it comes to garnish.
What do you know now that you wish you’d known five years ago?
Boundaries aren’t optional. They’re essential. Five years ago, I thought saying “yes” to everything was the only way to prove myself. I took on too much and tolerated a lot I shouldn’t have, all in the name of being “nice” or “professional.”
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La Pícara
Prager layers unexpected flavor pairings in her drinks. La Pícara, which takes inspiration from tacos in Mexico City, merges a pepper-infused tequila with floral shochu and nutty pandan syrup. “It’s savory, bold and a little mischievous—just like the street food that inspired it.”
Having built a sterling résumé 13 years deep, bartender and beverage director Lou Bernard has reached a point where he is able to center a key motivation: highlighting his culture through drinks. Now the beverage director at Latin American vegetarian hot spot Mita in Washington, D.C., Bernard, who is half Bolivian and half Venezuelan, calls on ingredients like the custardy lucuma fruit of Chile and Peru, the Peruvian ají amarillo chile and Mexican spiced elote to create singular cocktails.
Before landing at Mita, Bernard was working as the beverage director for Carla and Juan Sanchez’s buzzy Bolivian pop-up Casa Kantuta, also in Washington, D.C. Thanks to his program, it became recognized as the country’s first Bolivian cocktail bar.
When the Mita team approached him to work together, Bernard wanted to channel this same authenticity and representation into the program. There, he brings Latin American flavors to life with drinks like the Tomatito, which mixes mezcal and a tomatillo salsa verde, and the Amazon Forest, which is based around cachaça and aguardiente.
“For me, after bartending for 13 years, what’s pushing me is the culture behind what I can do,” Bernard says. “Being Latin American has shaped a lot of things for me and I want to represent that to the fullest—not one particular country, but all of Latin American culture.” This, he adds, means using ingredients and presenting flavors that wouldn’t typically be found outside of Latin American establishments. “This has driven me to be who I am now, so that’s how I’m going to shape my program.”
Get to know Lou
Hometown: Washington, D.C. Favorite classic cocktail: Last Word—the mezcal Last Word, not gin. Your approach to cocktails in one word:
Innovative
Years as a bartender:
13
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TOMATITO
Bernard’s cocktails spotlight Latin American flavors. In this savory drink, lemongrass mezcal meets housemade tomatillo salsa verde, pineapple and celery bitters.
Molly Gajdosik took a winding road through the service industry before landing as a bartender at Gigantic in Easthampton, Massachusetts. “I probably had every job you could probably have,” they recall, including working as a food runner and prep cook at a now-closed lesbian bar in New York, as a baker at Milk Bar and as a pizzaiolo in Montreal.
“Every experience I have keeps me curious and wanting to learn new things, whether it’s a new technique or new ingredient,” Gajdosik says. “I am always looking to experience things that will lend a view to what I’m creating, whether that’s traveling or going to a new restaurant.”
Gajdosik got into bartending by pouring craft beers at breweries like Counter Weight Brewing Co. in Cheshire, Connecticut. Then, when a job opened up at Gigantic, a bar that focuses on historic, classic cocktails alongside a small roster of thoughtful originals, Gajdosik leapt at it. “The first time I went was during Escape the Northeast, when they do the tiki bar takeover,” they say. “I immediately fell in love with it.” Making cocktails wound up being just the right fit for Gajdosik. “I like the flow of service as a bartender—it reminds me a lot of cooking,” they say.
If curiosity and experimentation are the keys to Gajdosik’s bartending style, rum and tropical drinks are at the heart. “But I don’t necessarily want to box myself in to that category,” they say. While many of their drinks take a page from the tropical playbook, the real through line is that they’re “approachable and full of flavor... I try not to take my drinks too seriously—I just have fun.”
Get to know Molly
The drink that got you interested in bartending:
Erick Castro’s Iron Ranger. It’s a bourbon tiki drink. It’s bourbon, lemon, pineapple, falernum, simple syrup, Angostura. I was big into bourbon first; it took me a while to branch out to other spirits, but when I found rum, things really clicked for me.
Best piece of advice you got when starting out:
To continue to learn new things every day. My goal going into this job was to learn as much as I possibly could, and to absorb everything like a sponge. There’s something to be learned in every interaction.
What part of your job do you like most?
I like working through a stack of tickets and putting my head down and working. It’s a totally different mode that you have to get into, and you see all the preparation paying off in that moment. And I like executing the drinks—it’s fun.
Weirdest cocktail experiment you’ve ever attempted:
During the development of one of our Queer Night menus, I was playing around with 50/50 amaro combinations and I combined Meletti and Sfumato. When I first tried Meletti initially, I was like, “This reminds me of an old woman who wears a lot of perfume.” Then I combined it with Sfumato, and I was like, “This is an old woman who smokes cigarettes.” I called it Nonna Smokes. It’s still on the menu.
Hometown: New Haven, Connecticut Favorite classic cocktail: Daiquiri Your approach to cocktails in one word:
Curious
Years as a bartender:
1 1/2 bartending; 6 including breweries
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UNDERBERG FRAPPÉ
Tropical drinks are Gajdosik’s specialty, but they started out with a passion for craft beer. This colada-like cocktail, starring the German digestif they’d frequently see at breweries, is “a subtle nod to the beer industry from which I came.”
At one of Los Angeles’ hottest new restaurants, Firstborn, bar director Kenzo Han is matching the hybrid cuisine of Chinese American chef Anthony Wang with a menu of genre-defying cocktails. “I was drawn to Wang’s shared emphasis on local, seasonal ingredients, and I apply that philosophy to my cocktails—technique-driven and ingredient-focused,” says Han.
Before Firstborn, Han tended bar at The Varnish, from the late Sasha Petraske, where they learned classic techniques and personalized hospitality. Prior to that, they gained invaluable education in the vast world of Chinese tea and helped launch the bar program at the teahouse Steep, Firstborn’s neighbor.
At Firstborn, Han puts their tea expertise—which extends to Japanese teas and tisanes, too—into practice across the cocktail menu: Deeply fermented green pu-erh tea stars in a Kingston Negroni riff; earthy sobacha flavors a bourbon fizz; toasty hojicha drives the nonalcoholic milk punch. They also work with local and seasonal ingredients and prioritize sourcing spirits from smaller distillers and producers.
Han’s Korean, Japanese and French American heritage has shaped their deep appreciation for the way traditions can intersect in the glass. On their menu, tequila and gin feature just as prominently as baijiu and shochu, demonstrating a versatility that defies easy labels. “While Firstborn’s menu is inspired by Asian flavors and ideology, it is not designed to be an ‘Asian-themed’ bar in a derivative way,” says Han. Instead, they aim to balance tradition and innovation in drinks that are as delicious as they are thought-provoking.
Get to know Kenzo
The drink that got you interested in bartending:
Sloe Gin Fizz. I was reading Cocktail Techniques by Kazuo Uyeda and I believe there was a classic Gin Fizz in it. I had just gotten into cocktails a little and it seemed so elegant. That night, Huy Pham, my bar director, took me to The Varnish in Downtown L.A. (RIP) and asked Miles Caballes to make me one. In typical Miles fashion, he asked if he could make me something slightly different, and that drink was a Sloe Gin Fizz. The texture and bold, complex berry flavors blew my mind at the time. It showed me both how delicious a cocktail could be, [and] also the hospitality magic of a bartender’s choice.
What part of your job do you like most?
I think my favorite part of bartending is simultaneously giving someone something that can be comforting but inspiring and delicious, all in one glass.
The one thing you wish would disappear from drink lists forever:
Cocktails in cans. Please don’t kill me.
What’s the most underrated cocktail?
I’d say a Bee’s Knees, but it could really apply to any three-ingredient shaken cocktail, maybe minus the Daiquiri—Gimlet, Gold Rush, Business, etc. I think people forget how delicious a simple cocktail can be if executed well.
Hometown: San Francisco, California
Favorite classic cocktail: Martini—4:1, olive, and twist discard.
Your approach to cocktails in one word:
Thoughtful
Years as a bartender:
2 1/2
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Fig & Raisins
“One of my recent focuses has been utilizing as many local, seasonal ingredients as possible,” says Han. For this highball, they infuse “rich and aromatic” fig leaves from northeastern Los Angeles into Cognac and garnish with a fig leaf stamped in the shape of a flower.
For Mak Kelly, bartending offered the chance to find community. “I had been living in Denver for years, but hadn’t felt like I had found my people here,” she recalls. “I was able to connect with a group of people who were artistic and queer, and welcoming and open.”
Kelly worked in visual merchandising before bartending. In 2023, they joined the team at Lady Jane and last year, became the bar manager. “It’s one of the most respected cocktail bars in the city, and I did not think I was going to get this job,” they say. After Kelly staged there, Stuart Weaver, partner and general manager of the bar, asked them what they felt they could bring to the team. “I was like, ‘I can tell’—Stuart is a gay man—‘that you want to curate a safe and welcoming queer space, but I feel like you need some fun, femme queer energy,’” they recall. Since getting the job, she’s gone on to deliver that energy through events like the recent queer bartender showcase Cocktails & Cvnt, which she created with fellow Denver bartender Sid Lewis. “It gave the community the opportunity to meet people from other bars and restaurants where they could feel safe in this very scary and unsure time.”
Kelly brings that same dynamism to her cocktails. “I’m really inspired by different cuisines and flavors from around the world. My drinks are nostalgia-based; I very rarely pull something out of thin air.” Take the Corsair Queen, a rum and rye Negroni inspired by an Indian summer stew. Kelly uses mango, mustard seeds, lentils, ghee and chiles to match the dish’s flavor profile. “Usually I am inspired by something really specific,” she says. “It becomes kind of like a science project to see how true to the original material I can be.”
Get to know Mak
Best piece of advice you got when starting out:
Stay humble and ask every question that comes to mind, no matter how stupid you think it is. Nothing kills inspiration faster than a lack of curiosity.
What part of your job do you like most?
The community. Hospitality is unlike any other industry I’ve ever worked in or been a part of. Everyone is committed to lifting each other up, learning from one another and inspiring each other. Even with all our competitions, everyone is passionate about creating a welcoming environment not just for our guests but for new members of the community as well.
What’s the most underrated cocktail?
The Painkiller. There are a lot of unsung heroes in the tiki world that get drowned out by classics like the Jungle Bird or Mai Tai. People think of the Painkiller as a sweet sugar bomb, but I could not disagree more. I make sure I constantly have the ingredients for it in my house. It’s such an easy, light, refreshing, fun drink that deserves its moment in the sun.
The one thing you wish would disappear from drink lists forever:
Super vague descriptions. I hate when people just put an idea that evokes a feeling on a menu—I want to know what is in it.
Hometown: Melbourne, Florida Favorite classic cocktail: Rum Negroni or a Martini with a funky gin
Your approach to cocktails in one word:
Overambitious
Years as a bartender:
3
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FAKE APOLOGIES
“Much of my excitement in creating cocktails comes from exploring global cuisines and flavor pairings,” says Kelly. This cocktail pays tribute to Palestine and Lebanon. “Honoring these vibrant, inspiring nations became as essential to me as the taste of the drink itself.”
Becca Petersen tends to gravitate toward bars with a specific focus. “I’ve worked at an agave bar and a rum bar, then I managed a gin bar for so long,” she says.
While living in Bellingham, Washington, Petersen got her industry start working first as a server then behind the stick at several bars, including Black Sheep and The Temple Bar. In 2021, she moved to Chicago, a city she had always been intrigued by—“I had a crush on the idea of Chicago, the way some people feel about New York”—and she became head bartender at the James Beard–nominated queer bar Nobody’s Darling. From there, she bartended at the gin-focused Scofflaw, where she worked her way up to bar manager. Two years later, she headed to Daisies, a restaurant that explores Italian and Midwestern cuisines with a focus on sustainability; the restaurant is one of only 35 in the country with a Michelin Green Star.
Petersen’s drinks pull together the influences she has picked up over the years, but some of her favorite cocktails reflect her start. Her Water Sign cocktail, for example, is an ode to where she grew up in Northern California. Above all, for her, “it’s important that drinks taste good,” she says. “When you’re making a cocktail, it’s easy to add and add, but it’s important to stop and take things out so it doesn’t become muddled.”
As for her approach to hospitality, it extends to both sides of the bar. “As a member of the LGTBQ+ community myself,” she says, “it has always been important to me to nurture environments where fellow queer service industry professionals feel safe, supported and celebrated.”
Get to know Becca
The drink that got you interested in bartending:
A mezcal Paper Plane piqued my interests on a lot of fronts. It was the first cool drink I actually liked. As a baby bartender, I could order it and signify I was in the know. Me and my friends, who were all getting into this bartending journey at the same time, had so many different variations. In that way, I learned a lot about amaro, too. My roommate and I have matching Amaro Nonino tattoos.
The one thing you wish would disappear from drink lists forever:
Cocktails that are more concerned with flashy techniques. I wish there would be more of an emphasis on asking, “Was that necessary? Does the end result taste balanced?” I love clarification, but a lot of people are taking a cocktail, clarifying it, and leaving it there rather than going the extra step to finish the cocktail. It’s the same thing with interesting garnishes or spherification—all of the trendy techniques.
What do you know now that you wish you’d known five years ago?
I wish I had known that nobody knows everything. It’s cool to ask about things you don’t know. When you’re first starting off, it’s so deeply embarrassing every time someone asks you something, and you don’t know what they’re talking about. Now, later in my career, it’s so much easier to be like, “Oh, awesome. What is that? What goes in that?” It comes with being a lot more confident in my knowledge base.
Hometown: Ukiah, California Favorite classic cocktail: The Daiquiri, [because of] the simplicity.
Your approach to cocktails in one word:
KISS—Keep it simple, stupid.
Years as a bartender:
5
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WATER SIGN
“A lot of my drinks are conceptual in terms of being inspired by memories or feelings from my past,” says Petersen. This cocktail is an ode to Northern California, with California gin and Douglas fir liqueur to “evoke that foggy, driving-through-the-redwoods feel.”
Awards, distinctions and glowing press coverage are so often concentrated in the same places—New York, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, Chicago. But as bar manager of Lita and La Otra, Ricardo Rodriguez has put Aberdeen Township, New Jersey, on the map.
As a child, Rodriguez grew up helping his mother cook, a passion that led him to restaurant work. But when toxic chef culture burnt him out, the kitchen’s loss was the bar’s gain. At Finka Table & Tap in Miami, Rodriguez quickly stood out by creating a drink menu that made the most of ingredients, and flavors, from the kitchen. After a strong showing at the Bacardí Legacy competition in 2016, Rodriguez went on to work at Broken Shaker in Miami before moving north to helm La Otra and Lita.
At Lita, Rodriguez designed a food-friendly cocktail menu meant to highlight the Portuguese- and Spanish-influenced fare with acidity and effervescence. As beverage director at La Otra, Lita’s companion bar next door, Rodriguez leans more into experimentation, with techniques like clarification and ingredients like achiote oil. There, the menu rotates, but there are permanent staples like the Tzatziki, with vodka, aquavit, cucumber, dill and yogurt.
But no matter how creative Rodriguez gets with his recipes, he prioritizes approachability, catering to a still-growing cocktail scene in New Jersey. Ultimately, it’s about guests having a good time. “There is nothing more rewarding than when guests leave smiling and thank you for a lovely evening,” he says. “Some of that has to do with the drinks, some has to do with the experience you curated for them.”
Get to know Ricardo
The drink that got you interested in bartending:
The Queen’s Park Swizzle. My background is Cuban, my mom is Cuban, the first bar I worked at was in a Cuban neighborhood. I was looking through The PDT Cocktail Book and found it; [it was] like an elevated Mojito but with no soda water, so it packs a little more of a punch. I tasted it and was amazed at how subtle changes could make big differences. It sparked my curiosity to try those experiments with other cocktails.
Best piece of advice you got when starting out:
You only learn so much at work and behind the bar. If you want to progress in the industry, it takes a lot of work at home, doing your own research and experimenting and really applying yourself. My first mentor said I’d learn more reading books and using my own time to expand my knowledge [than behind the bar].
What’s the most underrated cocktail?
My father’s background is Spanish and I’ve always liked fortified sherries and vermouth. The Bamboo is a cool low-ABV Martini I wish more people knew.
What do you know now that you wish you’d known five years ago?
Dialing back is important. In the beginning of my career, I was a maximalist and I tried to do too much; the ingredients in some of those drinks were getting overshadowed. You have to learn the fine balance between contrasting textures and flavors.
Hometown: Miami, Florida Favorite classic cocktail: Margarita
Your approach to cocktails in one word:
Purposeful
Years as a bartender:
9
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NUA HIGHBALL
Rodriguez employs modern techniques to use ingredients that would’ve otherwise gone to waste. Take, for example, this whiskey highball that bolsters banana liqueur with banana skin oleo saccharum, topped with soda made from spent coffee.
In just three years of bartending, Mel Tate has demonstrated a singular creativity and understanding of balance in his culinary-inspired cocktails. The New Orleans native learned to host, barback and bartend at The Chloe, where he was inspired by the deep ingredient knowledge and creativity of the bartenders around him. That influence grew by leaps and bounds when he landed at the coffee and cocktail venue Dovetail, in the French Quarter. For Tate, the bar became an encouraging setting to weave global references, stories and flavors into cocktails.
Tate’s Doo Wap (That Thing), currently on the Dovetail menu, draws on the flavors of a Mediterranean dessert with its combination of aquavit, gin, pistachio and tahini orgeat and lemon. He is intentional about layers in every drink, explaining, “There are so many sours out there that just end up tasting like lemonade with maybe one other ingredient. I like to use savoriness to bring in depth so the drink isn’t just a sweet thing, or a sour thing.” To bring heat, earthiness, spice and herbaceousness into the equation, Tate employs ingredients like jalapeño, fresh herbs, pandan and kümmel, a caraway- and cumin-infused liqueur. For greater control over these notes, he likes to make his own ingredients, each complex in and of themselves, like a roasted plantain oleo saccharum, a palo santo tincture or a shishito-infused tequila.
Tate is keen on introducing guests to new flavor profiles. But he’s careful to follow each guest’s lead, as he believes first and foremost in making sure everyone gets the drink they truly want—even if that means staying in their comfort zone with something familiar. “I’ll still make a Long Island Iced Tea all day, if that’s what makes them happy,” says Tate.
Get to know Mel
The drink that got you interested in bartending:
The Sidecar, because it just has the type of balance I like.
Best piece of advice you got when starting out:
You want to make the drink that people want. You want to be open and flexible, and not feel like you’re above making any cocktail. As long as you have the ingredients, you’ll have a happy guest; it works out.
What part of your job do you like most?
I really like engaging with people and making them happy. I want to meet them where they’re at. It goes back to making the drink they want. If they want something comforting, great. If they’re feeling more adventurous, I can take them on a journey. I just want them to have the experience they want; they’re the reason we’re here.
What’s the most underrated cocktail?
The classic New Orleans Daiquiri. It’s a really simple cocktail, but all the ingredients you use really matter, because the shorter the list of ingredients, the more important the quality is.
What do you know now that you wish you’d known five years ago?
Respect the prep time, when you get the bar ready, so you can give 100 percent of your energy and attention to your guests.
Hometown: New Orleans, Louisiana Favorite classic cocktail: Trinidad Sour
Your approach to cocktails in one word:
Balance
Years as a bartender:
3
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PORCH JAMMER
“What I look for in a Martini [is] less traditional and more playful,” says Tate. This wet Martini is built on agricole-style rum in addition to gin, and has a tropical twist by way of banana liqueur.
The drink that got you interested in bartending:
The Old-Fashioned. It’s all about simplicity, and how small details can transform into something big.
Best piece of advice you got when starting out:
Listen first. Also: Work the industry, don’t let the industry work you. It’s an amazing industry to be part of, but it has so many ups and downs. What part of your job do you like most?
Connecting with people and creating experiences. Making sure the customer remembers you—the experience they had with you, the conversation they had with you. Bartenders at any level meet so many people and things can come out of that. It’s all about building connections.
What’s the most underrated cocktail?
The Ramos Gin Fizz. It’s a show-stopper with that texture. It shows everyone what goes into making it... but everybody has this mentality of, “All that work? I don’t want to shake for 10 minutes.” You don’t have to. It’s 2025. You can create new methods; you can innovate on the classic. You can do it without that 10-minute shake and still get a drink that turns out beautifully.
Hometown: Toulouse, France Favorite classic cocktail: A very cold 2:1 gin Martini. Simple.
Your approach to cocktails in one word:
It’s technically three: Trial-and-error.
Years as a bartender:
6
