E184 Elissa Dunn

This week we are joined by the turning guest, Elissa Dunn, who joins us from Sunnion warm Phoenix, Arizona. We talk about Elissa's transition to her new social media handle, Hell Queen Cocktails. We cover the industry event Arizona cocktail weekend. We discuss the bar scene in Phoenix and surrounding areas.

We also talk about the infamous waste management golf tournament plus a host of other topics. We had a great time as always talking with Elissa and you'll like listening to make sure you check out Elissa's online social media presence at Hell Queen cocktails on all the major platforms. Enjoy the show. OK, welcome back to another episode of the industry podcast Keep with you as always and as always with me as Dan.

How are you? I'm doing well today. Thanks. Good.

Yeah. We're putting this couple of days after the Super Bowl. Yes. We took a break from Monday.

Yeah. It was probably a good thing. Yeah. I think there's some snowboarding in the well hungover.

I'm going to face back in off the chair. That was good. Hey, the work all day. So yeah.

Yeah. But yeah, so we're recording on a Tuesday instead because he has Super Bowl got a little bit of a hint. Yeah. But again, I was over here.

Every year. Just seems like I showed up to the bar. I had a beer and then. Right.

No, no, no, no, no. It was 11 o'clock and you were rolling home. That's correct. I'm like games over.

Yeah. I have one of the best things that happened to me where I woke up on. I thought I like I placed about a thousand bets and I thought I after it was all settled. I had maybe one about $10, which is basically the disappointment.

And then I had the best thing ever happened waking up hungover on Monday checking my fan tool account and realizing I had one way more bets than I thought I had. I was way up. So it was great. Yeah.

Nice. I think I think I think I have to say that's and I wound up losing $3 until. So that's too bad. Yeah.

You can live with it. Yeah. Totally. I think it's amazing.

Eliza done is back with us again. So we're excited for that before we get to her. We should mention that if you want to be a guest on the show, you should email us info at the industry podcast club or DM us at the industry podcast. Tell your service industry story right here on the industry podcast.

If you're just listening, helping us a great way to help us out would be to subscribe, rate, review, follow, do all those things and help us tremendously and the incident. The industry podcast all the time out worked there is done by Zach Hannah at zachana.co as we always say. And if you're in the kitchen and Waterloo region, come check out my bars should run at sugar and bar on Instagram Babylon sisters at Babylon sisters bar on Instagram dot by this and check out those pages while we have lots of interesting stuff going on at both bars, live events, damn comedy, live music, or less. Check it all out on my Instagram pages and come visit.

Come see us. That's it? No more preamble? I know I think that's enough for today.

Okay, great. That's awesome already. We would love to welcome back Elisa Dunn. Thanks for coming back on the show, Elisa.

How are you? Hi, absolutely. I'm very well. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, of course. Thanks for coming on the show. Yeah, one of our amazing recurring guests. I'm always happy to hang out with you guys.

Yeah, and us too. So, I'm trying to think about the last time we talked to you. It's been a while now. Yeah, because we got caught up in the whole holiday shit and then we had a bunch of scheduling issues.

So, it's good to have you back on. But I'm trying to think about where we were at last time we talked to you. Was that right after your Instagram disaster? I think it was actually.

I think it was right after I had the rebrand and I had Instagram telling you I couldn't monetize. Yeah, that whole disaster. Perfect word. Yes, I think it was right after that and I was fumbling a recovery.

Yes. And I am now finally feeling like I have gotten back up and starting to walk forward a little bit faster. And hopefully we can just keep on going. Yeah, well, I was love watching all your videos, whatever.

I'm really shitty at social media and you're really awesome at it. So, if I'm not using the right terminology, just correct me as I'm talking. But always great content on your Instagram page, which is now reminder listeners. Hell queen cocktails.

Okay. Yeah, and I was definitely after that rebrand because I like nobody can this is an audio format. But behind Lisa's, she has a sort of wall art with the hell queen cocktails on there. And I remember that being there last time.

So, yeah, we definitely was definitely after the rebrand. So, tell us how that's going. How are you? Have you built up the followers?

I'm sure that was a painstaking process. I've been very annoying for you. It was it was more I think it was more anxiety just about not knowing what I was going to have to do was I got to have to start from scratch. So, just so the followers have a little context, I used to go by the bad ass bartender.

I decided, finally, it was time to monetize, start making some money. And I had to trademark my name and someone already owned the trademark for bad ass bartender and said, no, we're not going to let you use it. So, I had to come up with a full another kind of like catch name or something like that to move forward and help queen cocktails is what we landed on. So, yeah, I didn't know, you know, I had a snafu with Instagram that was completely separate from the name whole thing that was kind of just going to happen to be going on at the same time where I had a video taken down because someone got offended at a joke that I made and Instagram having a side with that person who got offended by the joke and said, you can't post anymore for a little while or whatever.

So, I didn't know what was going to happen. Luckily, I am now allowed to post freely Instagram has taken me out of jail. I didn't have to start completely over. So, everyone's been really supportive with, you know, the new name.

Most people don't even notice that it's a new name. I'm fine with that. That's good with me. I'm good.

I'll figure it out eventually. But yeah, I didn't really lose too many followers or anything like that. So, we've luckily been able to stumble but not have to start completely over. That's good.

What was the joke? It was so it was a video from like two years ago. So, it wasn't even a recent video that I posted when all of this was happening. But it was me making a TikTok, you know, used to be all about sounds and everything like that.

It was me poking fun at men who come to the bar and order and sometimes because this has happened to me and I know it's happened to other women bartenders where they will kind of look past me in order from my male bar back. Like, bro, he can't even make you a drink. And you know, unfortunately, someone didn't like that joke or wanted wanted to go out of their way to kind of take me down or whatever. You know, give me a nudge or a peg or whatever.

And went through my videos, went through down to a year past, found a video that they felt could cause some disruption and go ahead and they decided to report it and Instagram sided with them unfortunately. And you know, it just caused a little fumble. But that's okay. Because you get up, you get stronger and you move forward and it's on a bigger and better things.

Well, that's crazy. You know, what's what's fucked about that too is that do you think that like Instagram just automatically will side with anyone who reports anybody just because they don't want to be on the wrong side of of like any kind of social issue like that? You know what I mean? Like, it's way easier for them to just go take that specific thing offended whoever.

So we should just take it down rather than citing with you when you're like, it's just a reasonable joke. I mean, I have to, I mean, I'm sure they get millions and millions and millions of these reports daily. So they're not sitting there like really contemplating. I think that for sure, I don't know if you guys heard about Instagram just put out like a news that they're not going to support any like political posts anymore.

Yeah. Your stuff is political at all. You're not going to get views. I will say the posts that did get reported technically did go against their guidelines in the delivery of the joke.

It did go against their guidelines. It made sense of why it got taken down. It was a Christopher Walk-in sound. I don't know the movie, but he says like, you talk to my guy like that again, I'm going to beat you in the head with a soldering iron or something like that.

Okay. So it's me saying that to the male customer. So it was like I get where they were coming from. Whatever.

It was obviously a harmless joke. And that's, you know, that's just the world we live in right now. Especially if you're going to do the social media thing. If you're going to put stuff up, that's going to be controversial.

You have to be willing to take that. The platforms are not going to be on your side about it. And if, you know, that's just the way it is. It's a crazy world that we live in that you can't like just people can't fucking take a joke anymore, though.

Like it's crazy. Like nothing. But I also, I'm very concerned about this no more political content because my viewing of Instagram over like the last few months, I don't know how we're going to solve this problem between Israel and Palestine. If people aren't posting about it, nonstop, like that was going to end the war no matter what.

All these people posting their thoughts on either Israel or Palestine. I just see it on side. That way it's going to be crazy because it's like, okay, I'm going to a protest or something. Hey, but just posting about it in your story is not solving this issue.

Yeah, I don't, you know, I just, I just hope that I can walk the line, because I love to throw my little, my little jams in there, feminism and things like that. So I'm just hoping that I can walk the line a little bit better because at the end of the day, I have to think about, does that, did that post and everything I went through, was it really worth what I lost? And it really wasn't. So like, you know, in my opinion, it wasn't worth like, making that joke wasn't necessarily worth everything that I had to, because the person who reported it didn't suffer.

That's right. And then that's what it sucks for you. But yeah, I was obviously just joking about that. I just don't make me laugh about podcast.

Can we take it off now? Yeah. You talked about it? You guys are about it.

I just make a lot of people think that they're going to solve any of these problems just by posting like shit in their stories on Instagram. Like, yeah, go do something about it. Anyway, that's just on the side. Right up there with my hardest with you.

Yeah, that's not a prayer. That's right. All right, well, I'm glad that everything's worked out for that. And everybody should be following Elisa on Instagram because there's awesome content, lots of, lots of humor that she's allowed to use, the stuff that she's actually allowed to use.

But also, but also great talk to making tips. So the other thing that's happened in your license, we last spoke is you got a new job. So talk to us about the new bar you're working on. I did.

I've been at my old bar for about three years and every industry person knows what it's like. It just comes down to a time where it's like, okay, it's time to move on. And I took about six months for me to find a good place that I really wanted to work. I'm happy to say that I have found that place.

It's called the Beverly. It's right on Main Street in Old Town Scottsdale. And I really love working there. We do mostly high volume.

I'm kind of taking a step back from doing the really heavy craft cocktail stuff. We still do craft cocktails, but it's definitely more in a nightlife, high volume sort of atmosphere. So I kind of like that just because it's a little bit less stressful for me. And it's a little bit more like, you get in there and the next thing you look at your clock and you're done.

And we're just a little bit, a lot of fun. We're really cheeky. We name all of our cocktails like really funny names and we like to have a lot of fun there. But it's almost more night clubby?

It's more like high volume cocktail lounge. But again, we don't jigger. We don't like, we're not double straining our cocktails. We are like balls to the wall every night.

So we don't we don't follow necessarily like the most important cocktail rules. We're worried more about volume getting people in and getting them out then if our martinis are double strained. But we're good and bad. It is what it is.

I'm happy there. That's all I care. Yeah, exactly. And it's probably sometimes it's nice to go to like, if you've been in a high spot, we've been doing lots of craft cocktail.

It's like very brain draining that kind of that kind of bartending. So it's kind of nice sometimes to go to the next spot and be like, can you kind of shut your brain off and just make drinks fast? Yeah. And it's just a nice, you know, it's I've just been in the like, very craft cocktail for so long that it's just kind of nice to change things up.

And like you said, really feel like I can shut my brain off when I go in there and just have fun and kind of get back to just why I fell in love with bartending in general, which is just entertaining people, fast paced environment, nightlife, fun listening to good music, kind of thing, you know? Yeah. And if you already had that outlet from all your social media stuff for the craft cocktail, like anyway, right? So yeah, you can get that creative.

I feed that creative part of me through my social media, creating cocktails for that. And I still do like tons of events and different things like that. So I definitely get to feed that part of me. Nice.

And okay, so we were talking before we started recording, you mentioned to me when I was speaking to you earlier in the week that it is Arizona cocktail weekend. Is that right? Yes, Arizona cocktail weekend. I'm sure most people have never even heard of it.

I had never heard of it until I moved to Phoenix, but they're on their 12th year. They start on a Tuesday, they end on they actually end technically on the month the next Monday. So there are events all week, there's some main events on Saturday, they do a cocktail carnival. So it's all circus themed.

And it's just tons of brands coming out and they have, the brands are pulling out all the stops. They have like ice lusages and it's in a big warehouse, they big DJs and bands and different things like that. It's awesome. And then on Sunday is top bars, which is 40 of the best bars from all over the world.

And when I say world, I mean literal world. And it's like I said, it's crazy that these bars will come to Phoenix, but you have like Holly Graham from Tokyo Confidential, you have Double Chicken Please, all of these bars coming to Phoenix to serve a couple cocktails for us. And it's absolutely fantastic. I mean, it's my favorite event of the year.

And then on Monday, we do a giant cocktail competition put on by R&DC called LastSlinger. So bartenders from all over the valley come and compete and someone gets named LastSlinger. And it's the huge cocktail competition. We have so much one.

Are you in it? I am not. I mean, cocktail, I've done my little stand up cocktail competition. They are my least favorite thing to do.

I vomit at least once. I'm very different. I'm very different. I get so nervous.

I think they are important for bartenders to do. But if they're not your thing, they're not your thing. And that's okay. I that's exactly what I feel about them.

I think that they are important. And especially through the course of our time doing the show, we've talked to so many people who have done these competitions and like listened to their stories of like the camaraderie and all the people they meet. And that's why I think it is like they're great at bringing people from all over the world together who are in the service. And it's just so great for that.

But I'm like, I'm like you, I can't do them. Like no, I didn't even mean to start doing them. I got asked by a brand when I participated in had been a brand that I had done some work with. So I really was like, I need to do this for them.

You know, I feel like our partnership is important to me. I want to do something for them. And then I kind of did, you know, one, and I was like, Oh, you know, it got me really good feedback. It got me really good exposure.

I had a good time. And so I started, you know, I did one or two or three more. And now I do them almost within the mind. Like I only want to make it to a certain level because I don't want to have to go and like present in person.

If the entries are like send a cocktail in or send a video in, I'm like, sweet, no problem. But once it gets down to like, we have to fly you somewhere and you have to stand in front of judges and I'm like, please don't bring me. Don't let me know. I guess don't nervous.

I get to get causing me. So how does this work? Like you're saying like, there's different things going on every day, obviously with the top 50 and then carnival thing. Like if you obviously have to buy a ticket to go to these things, you have to buy a ticket for every single day or is it like their past I guess through the week?

So they, it depends on the events. Most of the events during the week, there are a lot of brand events, a lot of like teaching, you know, classes that they do or host kind of seminars and things like that. It really just depends on the event or the seminar, whether they decide to ask for an RSVP or a ticket or you just get to show up for the three main events, the cocktail carnival, the top bars and the last slinger you do have to buy tickets and they are all individual tickets. I gotcha.

Yeah, interesting. And where do they hold all this stuff? It's at different venues or? They're different venues, but they're like, basically just giant warehouses that they build out and then have everyone come and like throw a huge party.

Nice. That's amazing. We should go to this next year. You should have your bar.

You should have your bar come and do one of the top 40, have a little booth there and then make some cocktails for it. Yeah, that's not a bad idea. Yeah, give me a reason to get the fuck out of it. Don't tear you in February.

Yeah, I mean, it's just so cool to have like collection of so many amazing people in industry, such major people in like our tiny town. Like the fact that they've like had, did you even hear about their willingness to come all that way to like our tiny little town? I'm so happy. It's so exciting.

And so I know we've talked about this before. Remind me, like Phoenix and Scottsdale are basically the same thing, right? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Scottsdale is like the golf really like expensive area and then Scottsdale is more like the downtown cool part, you know, younger crowd kind of thing, young professional, I guess I would say. And what is the like, what's the bar scene like there in general now? Like, is it building up with a lot more cocktail type bars?

Is that why you're getting like these events? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Phoenix right now is probably, I mean, I personally think probably the fastest growing city when it comes to craft cocktail bars. We have some of the, I mean, century grand was just named Best Bar in the Country at Tales of the Cocktail.

That's here. Little Rich Roles, which is a hotel bar, I think was either nominated. We have like five bars nominated at Tales of the Cocktail this year, I want to say five or six in Phoenix. And there's just another bar, another bar, and they're just doing such amazing things.

So I was shocked at the amount of talent that we have here in Phoenix being such a, you know, secondary city. And is that like an influx of bartenders from around the country? Or is it just people like you're just developing this sort of scene out there? So people are kind of learning their crafts there.

I think it's a little bit of both. Most of the bartenders that I know are transplants, just like me, have a lot of people from the East Coast or Midwest that want to come to like a more secondary city, or, you know, a more major metropolitan city, but that's affordable somewhat. And, you know, Phoenix is a great place to go. We have good, you know, good weather.

There's that inflexive people every winter. And then you have these major cocktail bars here that are, I would say that are probably a little bit more willing to train people up because you don't have, you know, it's not a New York, or a la where you have just thousands of people to pick from. To put in your bar, you have to basically develop all everyone who comes here. So I think that that's definitely a benefit to anyone who wants to get more into the serious bar scene coming to a secondary city like Phoenix and having a little bit more opportunity to learn.

So usually with these sort of, as you mentioned, like you call them secondary city or whatever, like when it's seen like that starts and takes off, there's like some sort of, you can almost point to like the bars or bartenders that kind of started the movement. Do you have a pinpoint on who that would be in Phoenix, I feel there? I mean, I would definitely say Jason Asher and Sam Ross. So Jason Asher is one of the owners developers like head guy at Century Grand, which again, just won by Cottobar at Tails.

Thank you. Have you guys ever been there, by the way? Yeah, I went. I don't know what you're talking about, but I was at Tails not this past one, but the one before and I went down, we did actually a bunch of live interviews.

That's all you do. Yeah, that's all you do. Yeah, yeah. So it's that bar with the train where it looks like a train.

I mean, when you walk in there, it's a Disney, it is Disney World. It is that serious. And it's three bars within their whole building. And the main one that everyone knows is platform 18, which is their train themed bar.

So it literally looks like you're getting on a train in a train car. They have TVs that go all the way down the sides that make it look like you're on a moving train. All the bartenders are wearing like perfectly curated, perfectly fitted train uniforms. Their menu reads like a storybook, like everything.

The level of detail that they go to is crazy. And then you have Sam Ross who owns Bittern twisted Little Rituals, which I think just either was definitely nominated and maybe one for Best Hotel Bar. He also is the one who has developed Arizona cocktail weekend. So he's the head honcho for Arizona cocktail weekend.

So he's definitely between him and Jason Asher have definitely brought up the scene in Phoenix or definitely the two major players here. That's a crazy amount of kind of sort of famous cocktail bars for like what you would call secondary cities. So that's like, you would almost say like concentration wise, like you guys are killing it. Absolutely killing it.

I mean, so underrated. You would just would never think I think of Phoenix as like a cocktail city, especially because Phoenix is just now in my opinion, kind of starting to become a little bit more of a food city, food kind of foodie city. And so I think that the cocktail scene has actually developed is more ahead than the food scene. Really?

Yeah, yeah, for sure. It goes the other way, right? Like you start getting to restaurants and then people are like, oh, people like to drink while they eat. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Cocktails are always the second thought here, but it's really been more of the cocktails that have really found an identity here in Phoenix. And now I think the food is just starting to come along. More chefs are starting to come into Phoenix and being like, oh, this isn't, this isn't, this is a place that you can take seriously and there's no reason to not have a place here.

It's kind of surprising in a way when you think about it, because like, I mean, I've never been to Arizona, but everything I know about it is that like the weather is awesome all the time and it's like, you know, like it's beautiful. Like that in the whole, your whole landscape situation is amazing. And like, so it seems like a place that people would migrate to and be like, let's, let's build something up here. But when people don't think about Arizona that way, like when you, when you talk to people, but Arizona is like retirement community and golf.

Yeah, exactly. It's not like, oh, yeah, there's foodie stuff to do in like coffee, like you was doing every secondary city has something. Sure, something. But it's definitely not a city that you would like, you know, between LA, Chicago, you know, Portland, Seattle, you know, Phoenix might might not be in that mix of those major cities you think of when it comes to coffee.

It's like a Portland, that's a secondary city, right? Like Chicago and LA obviously those are what you would call like big city, huge cities, right? But like, somewhere like Portland is known and Seattle, like you mentioned, those places are known for their barn restaurant scene. And they're definitely secondary cities.

So it's weird. And Phoenix is just not something you think about, but I definitely think people should start thinking about it up there just with all those other cities because we have some major players here. Yeah, it sounds like for per capita, you guys are really doing it right. So we're talking about before we start recording was this was a waste management.

I just want to talk to another recording because you're like, I don't know if you're not up on sports news or whatever. And you listen to the show, there was quite a gong show at this golf tournament. I'll just give a little background, this golf tournament is very famous for what is it, the 15th or 16th hole or something where like it's just a massive party hole, everybody goes at a bunch of college students mostly. And now it's become a big tourist thing as well.

If you're in the golf where people just get like flat out wasted and like hang out at that hole. And so it's like crazy rowdy. And it's I think it went from this point where it's like, oh, this is one of the things if you like sports, you should do because it's a fun time to now it's being like, this is a fucking gong show. And so basically what happened this weekend, we're recording just after this tournament happened.

And there was bad weather. So there was a bunch of like crazy rain there. So there was a bunch of mud everywhere. And then a bunch of people descended on the tournament and the usual fashion and I'll let you take it from there.

Yeah, so the tournament goes from Tuesday to Sunday or Saturday, Saturday or Sunday. I'm not sure. But leading all up to Saturday was horrible rain. I mean, it's Arizona at the desert.

We don't get rain. So but it rained. Every single day was cold. It was windy.

It was rainy. People were not happy. So on Saturday, when everything was finally nice out, I mean, all hell just broke loose. And they were not checking tickets.

Apparently this is something they do every year, not they at a certain point, they just stopped checking tickets. And they ended up with like 20,000 or something crazy, an extra amount of people and people were just going balls to wall and they had to stop alcohol sales. No one could move because there were certain parts of the tournament or that where people would normally stand were so muddy that people couldn't stand. So they were having to direct more traffic on to foot, paths and everything like that.

And it just became absolutely crazy. And I guess really out of control. And so they had it shut it down. Yeah, there were like a bunch of stories about the golfers having competitions with some of the spectators.

I thought some of the videos about that. And honestly, like as far as I know, Scott's Dale and the people in Scott's Dale and the people who come into town for tournaments like that, things like that, it doesn't surprise me at all. But the one thing you were mentioning is that I didn't realize it, but makes sense as soon as you said it is that this is a massive gig for a bartender and people are signing up for what you say months or years in advance. Absolutely.

I mean, people, people love to work that event. They make thousands and thousands of dollars. So if you're a bartender, and I mean, I would have been pissed if I had been called halfway through my Saturday, which was the biggest day and you still made plenty of money during the week. But maybe it wasn't as much as you thought you were going to make.

Okay, now we're canceling alcohol sales. And I think they stopped serving food, they stopped serving water, they stopped serving everything. So it wasn't even like, okay, here's a bottle of water so they can tell me they stopped doing everything. And I think that the bartenders from what I understand, they had to stay there.

They didn't get to just leave. They had to wait hours and hours to even find out, oh, we're not going to serve alcohol period. Because that person was just suspended. Right.

So they're hoping it's coming back. Yeah. Yeah. And then they were like, okay, you guys just don't serve anyone but stay at your places until I tell you.

And then finally, hours later, it was like, oh yeah, hey, we're not going to turn alcohol sales back on. We're done. That's crazy. Yeah.

What a waste of your time. Now, obviously, you're probably making some sort of an hourly waste for that. But that's not what you're there for. Right?

So yeah. So do you know, like, I know you, before we start recording, you're like, I would never fucking work that. But but do you know, like, what the process is to get that gig if all these people want it? Like, how do you get selected?

I do not know. As far as I am aware, just for a few little like, hing rings around me, it's more of like a most people have already worked their many years. So it's just they just call the same ones or it's like a referral or that's really more the only thing that I'm aware of how to get a game to doing that. Right.

Yeah. Because it sounds like under normal. I mean, I'm sure you're dealing with an unbelievable amount of due specs. But like, it sounds like, like if you can put up with that for a week, like you must be just making a fortune.

So much money. So my tolerance, unfortunately, is not that high for that. I have other good qualities. That is not one of them.

I definitely would try it for a week just to see how bad it was because it would definitely be good for stories. Yeah. Yeah. That's, uh, I said, we should fucking go to that thing and do interviews just with the bartenders after the after the.

Yeah. They must have some crazy stories. Oh, I can't even imagine because like, I mean, I worked in nightclubs and like, those are some of the best stories of all time, obviously. But like, I've never done the golf tournament.

We've had people on the show before who was the guy who worked at, um, he worked at, uh, TPC soccer. Oh, yeah. We're just on and forth there. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a pretty good story about some entitled dishes. Yeah.

But this one, this is the tournament for a douche bags. I mean, the videos that I saw, those people like running in, I just couldn't believe it. It was crazy. That's crazy too.

Like the other thing I think it would be pissed off about is if you bought a fucking ticket for it. Yeah. There were definitely people that I saw videos of people like having to sneak in, even though they had tickets because they just stopped letting people in. Yeah.

I mean, I'd be upset. They said that I guess they do that every year that like, because it takes, uh, as far as like, you have to park like a certain amount away and then you have to take a shuttle to get there. So it's already like, it takes an hour just to get into the menu. And then they would say like, it would take another two hours to check all the tickets.

And I'm like, well, just hire more people. Like you guys are the freaking PGA. You're telling the guy to hire more people to take tickets or something like that. But see, I'm not on those experiences.

Now when I was younger, I would be like, oh, yeah, I would go to like crazy sporting events that were super inconvenient. Like all this shit. And I was like, when you just described that, it sounds like an nightmare. Now we're just like, I have a television.

Even like, you know, the VIP tickets, which, you know, brands are like, if you want to go, well, you know, we'll give you, we have our box level. I'm like, it's, it's still too much. It can be. Yeah.

And Leslie can get like teleported from my couch to the VIP. And even then, like, people are going to bother me. So I don't want to. Yeah, they really fucked us on this teleportation thing, right?

That should be here by now. Yeah. Flying skateboards next to the future. Like this.

Exactly. Right. And the flying cars. Yeah.

Like, none of that's what's happened, but we got Elon Musk. What's up? Can you remember specifically like a specific bartender in gig that you worked that you were like, that was the worst fucking one? The okay, when I worked in Idaho for, and it was a golf resort for sure.

I mean, I'm really happy that I did it. Great experience. Great for the stories. I would never do it again.

Why? How did you end up doing that? So I worked, I was living in Florida at the time. And I was working as a traveling bartender.

So I would stay in Florida for the winter when season was happening. And then when it was dead during the summer, I would go somewhere else. I remember this now. This is, I'm sorry.

I don't mean to interrupt you, but this is so funny, because it's so long ago, the very first time that we interviewed you. It was like a couple years ago now, right? Yeah. We talked about that.

Yeah. We talked about that then and I was like, you used to do this traveling bartending thing. Right. Okay.

Sorry. I just, I just sparked my memory. Yeah. And so I got this offer to go and work as a bartender in Northern Idaho at this private, it's basically a community where people buy homes and you have rest, you have two restaurants, you have a lake, like house thing that they can rent stuff and they put their boats there.

And, you know, it's expensive. We're talking about big people here. Like it's celebrity sports athletes, which I wasn't really aware of. I just was like, you're going to pay me how much to come to Bart's time.

Sure. And you know, all that. So I didn't ask a lot of questions. And then when I get there, I find out the first thing I have to do the first day, I hadn't even uncapped my bags.

I had a sign an NDA. That's always a good sign, right? The very first thing you do is I decided to sign an NDA. You're like, Oh, I had to put my bag down.

How did you go on the keep the carpet that you were renting for the hair sign an NDA? I'm like, okay, I've never had to do this before. But it was, you know, it was you stay as late as they want. Even though the restaurant was technically open from this time to this time, if one person wanted to stay at your bar, you didn't tell them no.

There was no such thing as over serving. There was barely there too young to drink. There is yes. And that was crazy to me.

And there was, you know, there was no saying no to the people who owned in that community. So that was it was very interesting. I'll say that to say Elise. And there was no typing.

Oh, that sounds like that. But it didn't make up for the shenanigans that we had to put up with. Yeah, how long did you do that again? For like when the whole traveling during the winter or whatever?

It was about the career four years that I did that. And it was a blast. I tell every bartender, if you have the opportunity to do stuff like that and get to travel and bartend at the same time, do it because it's such a good experience, good, you know, just going to different cultures, but you know, different places. I didn't get to go out of the country.

So cultures may be a big word. But hey, in America, one of those places where there's lots of cultures. So the country or the world and just learning, you know, go to work at different types of bars, you know, not all Croc cocktail bars. I didn't work out.

I worked at some sports bars. I worked at some dive bars. I worked at some golf places. So I really got to see all aspects of the, you know, industry and what can be or is.

Yeah. And what like we probably talked about this on the original episode, but like what was your process of doing that? You just like randomly put out an application. Like would you take some extra help for a couple months or whatever?

At first it was, I had a, I had some friend of mine who had moved to California. He had said like, Oh, if you ever want to come out here for a little while, I got to couch you can sleep on. And I was like, Okay, I'm going to come for the summer. And I figured I just find a job when I was there.

And that's what happened. I drove from Florida to California. And within the next day I was on, I was in Santa Barbara. And I was walking up and down State Street, handing out my resume who wants to give me a job.

I ended up with like three jobs. And the rest is just I was like, Oh, this is something I can do. I'm going to keep, I like it. So I'm going to keep doing it.

Yeah, when the stuff her ended there, I just went back to Florida, worked at the same, the same bar. And then I was like, Oh, I would like to do that again. I'm sick of Florida. I want to go somewhere else.

And then I miss home. I'll go back and then back and forth. It just worked out really well. So I know that one was the worst job.

What was the sort of weirdest city that you feel like you visited? Still Idaho. Like you have, like, have you ever heard of court Elaine? I don't have you.

So it's this little town. I mean, you'd never know it existed. And you're talking about, you know, the most major people in the world that you can think of, have a house there or have been there are walking through my doors. And I'm just like, what the fuck?

I didn't know I was going to see Kim Kardashian, like that was because I got four, but I'm here. Though it's very interesting because those people obviously never caused any problems. It was the other people who were not as well known who always seemed to cause a problem. Yeah, of course.

Yeah. Those people are professional and being professional. I think they've learned by now like they kind of have to be. Yeah, they're always under microscope, right?

So yeah. Yeah, I heard about places from like snowboarding stuff and I'm looking around what's close by and like, fuck is this place? And I actually got a very good quality of life living. So beautiful.

It's on this giant lake. And so there's water sports all during the summertime and then you get the winter, you know, the mountains and everything. I mean, it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. But definitely like just the weirdest because you're in Northern Idaho, like what the hell and it's literally like you drive out of court of lane and there's nothing there.

Right. So it's like, it's just this drop of the place that you would never guess existed. And tons of celebrities go there. What was your favorite spot?

Oh, Santa Barbara was a blast. Yeah, it was pretty nice. And I had a really good mix of places I was working. I worked at a gay club and I worked at a like Irish or English pub.

And then I worked at a like Steve food restaurant right in the like Bay or the docks or whatever the house. So and I, you know, it was just kind of one of those situational things I had some really fun people I was living with. We ended up renting this was it was four guys and me. I was the oldest like four guys in their twenties and then me in my thirties in this giant mansion that is under construction on top of a like cliff looking over the Pacific Ocean.

Oh, well, and then I'm working. We're all restaurant workers and we just put our money together. And this guy was like, yeah, I'm waiting for permits and stuff. This house is like halfway done.

So you guys can live there for cheap. And so it just became like a really cool experience. Yeah, that is cool. Yeah.

It was it was a super weird, super fun summer. And yeah, I'm I could only be there for so long before I was like, okay, but it was a blast. And I, you know, you've ever been to Santa Barbara, it's fucking beautiful. Yeah, that's right here.

I want to go. So do you feel like you're grounded? And like this is Phoenix is your home now? I don't know that Phoenix is my home now, but I definitely feel very grounded.

I really only plan on being in Phoenix for like two or three years. I'm now I just finished my third year. I don't have any plans on moving yet. It's really had to do with me wanting to stay has really had to do with the cocktail community here.

They've been really supportive, like just right away. I've never been used to that Florida is not like that. It's a little bit more caddy in Florida. I don't know if it's where I'm at, but or where I was at, but Phoenix has like a really great cocktail community where I really feel like we're, you know, kind of a big family, whether you're like really in the cocktail scene or not in the cocktail scene, everyone's been really supportive and welcoming.

And like I said, with the bars the way that they are popping up and popping off, it doesn't seem like there's any reason to go. So why, why, why leave? Right. What I'm going to do is for you is like because of Halloween cocktails, like you can do what you do wherever and obviously you have proven that you can work wherever.

So yeah, you're never, you're never stuck, but it's always great to see you. It's so great to have you on the show always. We love you and you're basically a pseudo member of the show now. So thanks again for coming on.

We remind our listeners where they can follow all your amazing stuff online. Yeah, I'm on TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, it's all going to be hell queen cocktails, all one word. Awesome. Okay.

Well, thanks again. Great to see you and we won't be long before we have you back on. Awesome. Thanks guys.

Thanks again.