These are blog posts that didn’t fit into one of the three categories I typically write about: Recipes, Ingredients, and Techniques. Let me know if you think something’s wrong with this.
November 12, 2023
My first real fancy bar job was at a French restaurant. I’d been working for like six years in dive bars and clubs already but this was like, black tie, crisp white shirt, starched bistro apron, the whole thing. Pouring wine and TONS of Martinis. At least once a night someone would order a Martini | Read More
August 14, 2023
This is super cool. Friend of the site and all-around rockstar Richard Lindsay turned my Universal Syrup Calculator into an easy-to-use webapp, so those of you who aren’t super comfortable with spreadsheets (and I don’t blame you) have a much easier solution. Just plug two numbers into Richard’s app and it spits out all the | Read More
Okay, so I grew up eating artichokes – my family lived not far from Castroville, California, and they were a regular part of dinner for me. So when we opened Pacific Standard in Portland, with a food menu that serves as a tribute to West Coast cooking, I knew I had to put a steamed, | Read More
March 23, 2023
Yesterday I bought a new hand juicer that someone shared with me, and I bought it because it was something I’d never seen before! (To be fair I do believe it was just released this year – someone let me know if this is incorrect) It’s a hard plastic, flat hand juicer. That’s right, it | Read More
February 8, 2023
The Keoke Coffee is one of those drinks that I got a lot of orders for back in the late 90s and early 2000s when I was first starting out making cocktails. And I never really gave it much thought back then, because it seemed like there were a hundred coffee drinks that all seemed | Read More
October 12, 2022
This post is long overdue, but I’ve been very, very, very busy these past four months. In case you haven’t heard, I’ve finally opened my own bar – with my good friend, business partner, and former lead bartender at Clyde Common, Benjamin Amberg. And now that I’m finally able to come up for air a | Read More
April 25, 2022
Greetings! Today, April 25th, is the 26th anniversary of the day I started my bartending career. A couple of years ago during the height of the pandemic I decided to celebrate by sharing my chocolate chip cookie recipe online. And this year I thought I would just make that a tradition by sharing something I | Read More
February 4, 2022
I started tending bar when I was in school, back in 1996, at a corner bar called The Tiny Tavern, located in the Whitaker district of Eugene, Oregon. It was (and still is) kind of a rough-and-tumble part of town, full of working class people, families, musicians, artists, you name it. I met a lot | Read More
January 11, 2022
Something occurred to me recently: Why are we still banishing low-alcohol and no-alcohol drinks to their own dumb section of the menu, like they’re sitting at the kids’ table at dinner? Think about it for a second, doesn’t it seem a little barbaric in this day and age – when we’re all consuming more low-proof | Read More
I love being pleasantly surprised by bar-related knowledge, and this is the most recent surprise I learned while doing a staff training last week here in Portland. Head bartender Jared Miller shocked me by telling me that he cuts his citrus peels with one of the cheese slicers they use at the wine bar he | Read More
August 12, 2021
Back in 2019, I wrote a little piece about how liquor companies could be better about supporting the next generation of working bartenders. It was really well-received by both the bartending community and by the brands who truly care about the people who are on the front lines, selling their products. Dozens of brands reached | Read More
June 30, 2021
With the loss of both my bartending/bar management jobs due to the pandemic, I just wrote my first resume (curriculum vitae or CV for my international and academic friends) in nearly fifteen years. To say I was a little rusty at putting together a resume would be putting it mildly. I haven’t had a need | Read More
April 17, 2021
I’m copying this over from Instagram, which I never do, However, it was one of the rare Instagram posts of mine that actually has to do with hospitality, so I felt it was important to share here. The State of Oregon approved restaurant workers for COVID-19 vaccination on April 5th, and after spending many mornings | Read More
February 8, 2021
This experiment was inspired by a guest we had at the bar a few years ago, it was one of those experiences that sticks with you. We had a relatively new bartender – new to us, and new to bartending that we were so happy to have. I was working with her one night when | Read More
February 4, 2021
For over a decade now, I have been a judge at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition. It has been an incredible honor for my professional career to be part of the world’s most prestigious spirits competition, and one of the oldest, for half of its life. The Competition is run by Anthony Dias Blue, | Read More
These are the books and tools I use every single day to make drinks at home and behind the bar. Clicking on a product takes you to Amazon, which helps me keep this site running, so thank you in advance!
