Tales to Inspire
highlights from a week of covering the world's leading cocktail conference
When I visited New Orleans for the first time this past spring, I was absolutely enchanted. There’s a sense of joie de vivre around every corner, and the southern hospitality I experienced was unparalleled. I left eager to return in the winter and not a second before: I had heard about the legendary heat and humidity that descends upon this once-swamp in the summertime. So what was I doing here in the middle of July?
I had heard of Tales of the Cocktail years ago, and having met the threshold of 10K followers on Instagram days before the applications closed, I applied to be a social media influencer for this year’s conference. Shortly thereafter, I happily learned that my job for this week would be to attend the world’s leading cocktail conference, to start drinking before noon, sipping on world class liquors, straight and mixed, night after night.
I have always been transfixed by the alchemistic quality of cocktails – how by combining the right balance of flavors in the right proportions one could create a sum that is much greater than its parts. More abstractly, cocktails can enhance a moment, heightening our senses while dispelling us of our inhibitions. Cocktails are romantic, luxurious, intoxicating. I was about to learn that they can represent so much more than sheer pleasure.
On this fifth day of Tales, what I’ll take away from this week, beyond the endless drinks and the extravagant parties, are the stories. People from all over the world shared stories that extended beyond mixology to touch on culture, community, and nature. Below are three of my favorite stories I heard from the various seminars that I attended in the past week.
Seminar 1 – Olives: A symbol of peace and cocktails
While the speared olive in a frosty martini glass is one of the most iconic representations of a cocktail, I was most interested in learning about the origins of the fruit before it arrives in your glass. In my first seminar at Tales, I met Paolo Scialpi (@paolo__scialpi), former bar supervisor at The Connaught Bar and a veritable olive aficionado. He spoke beautifully and effusively about the significance of the olive tree in his hometown of Puglia.
In the south of Italy, olive trees play many roles: their fruit are a source of economic prosperity, their branches a shady respite from the glaring sun. They even serve as the altars at which locals get married, bearing quiet witness to both the day-to-day as well as some of the most important events in the lives of those who tend to them. For Paolo, olive trees are like members of his family.
Here in New Orleans, dressed in a dapper suit and gesticulating dynamically, Paolo shared that one of his earliest memories was the autumn olive harvest when he was four years old. He remembers the people in his community gathering at the crack of dawn to begin the harvest, running in circles around them as they separated the succulent fruit from the trees. After a long morning of gathering olives, everybody shared a big lunch under the trees, cementing in his young brain the idea that olive trees represent community and a sense of belonging.
Seminar 2 – In The Weeds: Wild Flavors Behind the Bar
I was eager to attend this seminar, because I am a huge fan of panelist and cocktail artisan Ektoras Binikos. I was first introduced to Ektoras through my partner Kyle at his Harlem speakeasy Sugar Monk. He has always been an extremely gracious host, and I was awestruck by the various ways that he weaved art, history, and culture into his beverage program, such as with “Thelonious” (named for the Monk). Most recently, we had the pleasure of visiting him at Bitter Monk, his new bar and distillery located in Industry City.
In almost all of our visits, one name kept coming up: Tama Matsuoka Wong. Tama (@meadowsandmore) is a renowned wild food forager and the author of the book Into The Weeds: How to Garden Like a Forager. As Ektoras explained drink after drink to us, we learned that Tama is responsible for some of the more unconventional ingredients used in his layered cocktails. It was such a pleasure to meet Tama at this seminar and hear her absolutely nerd out over weeds.
Tama started out by exploring the host of native and invasive species growing in her own backyard in New Jersey, explaining how despite there being thousands of plant varieties, the human diet is limited to about 25. She spoke of foraging sustainably, and being a steward of the land by taking indigenous species sparingly while freely extracting invasive species. The seminar came full circle when we tried a nuanced amaro crafted by Ektoras using “Sweet Annie”, an invasive weed supplied to him by Tama.
Listening to Tama speak, I was reminded of the book Braiding Sweetgrass by Indigenous botanist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer, and her beautiful messages of communion and reciprocity with nature. I was also particularly inspired by Tama’s exploration of and homage to her own roots, through her explorations of plants used in traditional eastern medicine such as Sweet Annie.
Seminar 3 – Flavors of Immigration
This seminar, highlighting how immigrants shape the hospitality world, was the most personally meaningful to me. It was introduced at Tales with the goal of educating, inspiring, and building community through the sharing of immigrant stories. The panelists hailed from Mexico, Taiwan, Zimbabwe, and the Netherlands, and included renowned bartenders from Handshake Speakeasy, Double Chicken Please, and Superbueno. Each speaker shared their own immigrant story using the “PechaKucha” storytelling format: display 20 photos and provide a 30-second commentary of each.
I was struck by a few common themes that arose. Our speakers had left behind everything they knew for a foreign land where they didn’t speak the language, all in the hopes of a better life or a greater adventure. They had struggled to find work in this new and sometimes unwelcoming land and often had to engage in unauthorized work in order to establish a foothold in this country. They felt a sense of belonging within the hospitality industry, where presently over 30% of employees are immigrants
.The energy in the seminar hall felt like a warm embrace – the majority of people in that room were immigrants, myself included. When I was three years old, my parents moved from China to Canada, where they had nothing and knew nobody. They worked tirelessly to create a better future for me in our new home. I hope to share their story in greater depth one day.
Sitting there in that room, I felt a similar sense of belonging. I am an immigrant to the US, and after living here for five years have not yet managed to feel rooted in my existence in this country. At the same time, I was acutely aware of my privilege. I have never performed unauthorized work here and I never had to, largely because my parents paved an easier path for me. In the same way that many of the people in that room, and behind bars and counters across America, are aiming to do for their children.
When I hear of the negative narrative around immigrants in the American media, my blood boils at the xenophobic fearmongering. Who in this country would truly be better off if we lost one third of the wildly underappreciated people who take care of us everyday? When I see the family from South America huddled on a corner in my neighborhood, waving their tattered sheets of cardboard imploring passersby for an ounce of compassion, my heart aches. In them, I see my parents fleeing an oppressive government and struggling to make ends meet.
As the speakers continued to share their personal tales, I felt awestruck, inspired, and grateful in equal parts. Awestruck by their courage, their grit, their determination. Inspired by their relentless pursuits to provide more opportunities for new waves of immigrants. Grateful that they worked so hard to gain a voice in this country so that they could represent their own, that despite proving themselves many times over, they are still striving to share their culture with us one cocktail at a time.
Thank you so much to the team at Tales for organizing such a wonderful conference, and for inviting me to be a part of it! I was incredibly inspired by the artistry and the passion on full display from the cocktail community. If you are interested in participating in next year’s conference, make sure to give them a follow on Instagram.
I loved the mini stories in here, Angela! Super excited that you went to this conference