I started bartending nearly 24 years ago and these last few weeks have been the longest stretch I have ever gone without being behind the bar during my whole career.  As you can imagine, I’m pretty bored. I’m not used to sitting around my house for hours and hours without anything to do but watch | Read More

Like most of you, I’m currently locked up in my house alone. I’ve always wondered what this would be like, and, quite honestly, I always thought it sounded kind of great in a way. No responsibilities, no job, just forced to hang around the house all day. And when faced with the reality of the | Read More

I’ve never been shy about how much I love the people I work with behind the bar. And it’s no happy accident—I pick people to work at the two Portland, Oregon, bars I manage, Clyde Common and Pépé Le Moko, that I want to spend time with. Think about it: sometimes we spend more time | Read More

My world revolves around two bars in the same downtown Portland, Oregon, building: Clyde Common and Pépé Le Moko. Clyde Common is a European-style tavern, a place where the food and the drinks are co-stars, rather than one being the lead. Pépé Le Moko is more of what you’d think of when you think of | Read More

For the past year, I’ve been trying to teach myself photography. (What can I say, it’s hard for me to sit still and I need to learn new skills all the time – don’t judge.) So I’ve been reading, practicing, watching YouTube tutorials, and practicing some more. Anyway, my pal Noah Rothbaum over at Half | Read More

This cocktail is always served in an Irish coffee cup, which is clear to show off the light cream against the dark coffee and has a handle to prevent burns from a hot glass. Warm the glasses by filling them with hot water and letting them sit for a few minutes before pouring out the | Read More

Tiki has never been more popular than it is today. Thanks to the resurgence of lost ingredients, recipes, and bars like Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco, Tiki drinks have gone from niche to mainstream. These days, it’s not only expected that a standard cocktail bar or restaurant bar be able to execute a number of | Read More

My already vast home liquor collection gets a major boost in the tequila department every year around this time. It’s not that I don’t drink tequila the rest of the year, I do; it’s just that summer just screams for it even more to me. I’ve got everything from special bottles of extra añejo for | Read More

The other night, I made the big mistake on eavesdropping on a couple of young off-duty bartenders having a conversation about the state of cocktails today (don’t ask me why I felt the need to do so). These guys have probably been making drinks for about two years, yet one was consoling the other, who | Read More

As someone who works behind the bar, I know how controversial crafting a drink can be. Just look at the volumes compiled about the “proper” martini, a two-ingredient cocktail. And guests are constantly telling me about their interpretations of how to make an old fashioned. But few drinks elicit such passionate distrust as sangria, that lightly | Read More

Memorial Day is, for many of us, the unofficial start of summer. Here in Oregon, the weather is better than it’s been all year, the outdoor patios are open, and the festivals are beginning to line up for the season. This is always the time of year when a young(ish) man’s thoughts turn to fanciful | Read More

Classic cocktails can, for the most part, be grouped into just a few seminal families. Daiquiris, Sidecars, and Margaritas are just different types of Sours, and a Collins is just a Sour with some soda water to lengthen it. I’ve argued many times that a Negroni is nothing more than a twist on the original | Read More

Spring is the time of year that drink writers live for. Let’s face it, no matter what we try to tell you to the contrary, drinking in the winter months pretty much sucks. It’s dark, you’re either alone or surrounded by family or coworkers at some crappy holiday gathering, and whatever it is you’re drinking | Read More

In this day and age, it’s not uncommon for us to be concerned about what we put into our bodies. Let’s face it, what once seemed like a kale fad is now simply the way we live. We demand locally grown produce from our grocers. We want our meat to be treated respectfully, and our | Read More

For years now, I have been railing against the notion that men should be relegated to drinking one type of drink, while women should be drinking another. It’s silly to me, this idea that one type of flavored ethyl alcohol is somehow more masculine than another type of flavored ethyl alcohol. Because if you really, | Read More