win a trip to the smokies find the rabbit

Win a trip to the smokies find the rabbit manuals#

What’s exciting to you about being a “modern moonshiner”? I identify very deeply with the idea that you don’t serve people to get them drunk you serve them because there is something special in every creation. The Drunken Botanist is a favorite of mine. I’m also a book nerd and that’s where a lot of my inspiration comes from. I just got to visit The Dead Rabbit for the first time and I literally cried when I walked through the door. They dug through the trenches of cocktailing, starting as Irish bar guys, and they just kept pushing until they became the best bar in the world-twice. Sean Muldoon and Jack McGarry of The Dead Rabbit are longtime influences of mine. What are your biggest influences behind the bar? For me, it’s not just about flavor science-it’s people science, which is an equal mix of creation and hospitality. I love to get to know my guests so I can pair them with drinks that match their souls. This is an old reference, but you know how in Chocolat, Juliette Binoche wins over the townspeople with the perfect chocolates for them? That’s my style behind the bar. How would you describe your style as a bartender?

I don’t have any plans to get back behind the line, but I don’t feel like I’ve lost anything culinarily because of the depth of creation that’s possible in modern cocktails. When I got into cocktailing, it felt like I’d found something that I didn’t know I had been missing.

Win a trip to the smokies find the rabbit manuals#

I read everything I could get my hands on: Jerry Thomas, Dave Wondrich, Jim Meehan, and the manuals from Death & Co. In my final section at the Culinary Institute of America, we went through front-of-house training where we touched on mixology and it sparked my interest. I got my start cocktailing in culinary school. Interview for Tasting Panel Magazine by Mara Marski / photos by Van Gallik