EAT Magazine May_June 2014_Victoria_48_Layout 1 4/28/14 9:03 AM Page 24
VICTORIA’S CLASSIC COCKTAIL SCENE IS MORE THAN A TREND, IT’S A SMALL AND INTENSELY CREATIVE COMMUNITY By Megan Cole
Meet The New Breed of Bartenders
Rebecca Wellman
left to right: Nate Caudle (Little Jumbo), JJ Skidmore (Café Brio), Emily Henderson (The Tapa Bar), Cyle Serra (Be Love), Katie McDonald (Clives), Simon Ogden (Veneto), Solomon Siegel (Pagliacci's), Shawn Soole (Little Jumbo), Brooke Levie (The Marina).
Rows of glassware glisten in front of bottles of gin, vodka, bourbon, whiskey and tequila. At a long, clean, classic bar, customers sit perched on stools holding a variety of elegant drinks in their hands. It would be the perfect spot for Mad Men’s Don Draper or Boardwalk Empire’s Nucky Thompson, but this is Victoria, where bars with a classic nod are now part of the growing cocktail culture. An increasing number of bars are popping up with a focus on quality cocktails, places like Little Jumbo, Clive’s and Veneto. And while Victoria’s food and beverage scene often runs under the radar, over the past five years this small but creative cocktail community has been gaining international attention. Simon Ogden, bar manager at Veneto, says the trend towards vintage or classic cocktails, however, is true in only a small percentage of bars. Having worked in bars since he was 18, Ogden has seen trends come and go and says the recent revival of classic cocktails began in New York following the food and restaurant industry’s evolution towards homemade, locally sourced and artisan-inspired products. “It sort of gave latent cocktail nerds permission to make a home in the newly emerging scene,” says Ogden. “Certainly for my entire career and for the
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EAT MAGAZINE MAY | JUNE 2014