On this week's episode of the industry podcast, we are joined by Jasmine Colleen, a Denver-based bartender and self-proclaimed bar activist. In our conversation with Jasmine, she shared her journey from growing up in Colorado to becoming a prominent figure in the bartending world, including her experiences in cocktail competitions and organizing pop-up events. Jasmine talks about her work in various bars and her involvement in competitions like Speedrack and Alert. She highlights the importance of community building and skill development in the industry.
Jasmine also discussed her role as a bartender activist and her efforts to support the community through various initiatives while emphasizing the vibrant and inclusive environment of the Denver bar scene. Currently, you can find Jasmine working at Pody Up in Denver, Colorado. Make sure you check her out online on Instagram at MallertsUnderScoreMandy and that is spelled M-A-L-O-R-T underscore M-A-I. Or check the show notes for all the links.
Enjoy the show. And we are back with another episode of the industry podcast. My name is Kip and this is Dan. Hey, how's it going?
Good man. How are you? Doing well. Doing well.
Yeah, more or less. More or less. Rough weekend for you. I figured I'd make it my Christmas going out weekend.
Yeah, well, you nailed it. Sure did. Yeah, it was fun weekend. Thanks to the big shout-out to the top of the world wrestling for another good show.
Yeah, then I got away from it. Yeah, yeah. Fun time up to our Waterloo. Yeah, I'm already tired of winter and we've just hit December 1st so that's not a good sign for me.
Yeah, as we record this is a couple of weeks before, this gets released. We got a while up to the snow early in the season this year. We don't usually have this much but it was over a foot. Yeah, good times.
Yeah, good night. Yeah, it's going to be a long winter. I got you snowboards. I'm looking forward to it.
Yeah, good for you. If you are in the Kitzelwara-Loo area, you should come check out my bar. It's Sugar Run, that's Sugar Run bar. I'm going to figure out everything that's going on there.
Lots of activities. By the time you hear this, this will probably be January. So if you're still having booked your Christmas party, we are still accepting bookouts in January. We'll take them in February.
Whenever you want to book them, staff parties always welcome info at SugarRun.ca to discuss that. Also, if you need booze for the holidays, then you should check me out Kipsonders at gmail.com for wine from Alvar Winery and liquor from Alora Distillery where they have just won the Gold and the Silver Medal at the World Spirits Award. So pick up the Alora Distillery, hit me up at my at Kipsonders at gmail.com and I can tell you all about it. We can do it tasting whatever you want.
I like what we're doing here on the show. The best way to help us out is to subscribe, rate, follow, review. All that stuff helps out a great deal. So you can just tell a friend to listen.
That helps. That's all he does is the easiest thing to do. It takes about a minute and it's going to be spread the word. Yeah.
And if you'd like to be a guest on the show or provide support for the show, info at the industrypodcast.club is email address or you can DM us on Instagram at the industry podcast. And that's where you'll find the amazing artwork from Zach Hanna at Zach Hanna.co for all of your graphic arts needs. And you know, if you're still hosting a holiday party at your own house or your bartender getting in the weeds during the holiday season and you forget a cocktail, what would you do then? I'd probably bring up one of my favorite apps in Biblioth.
Today's episode is a partnership with in Biblioth, a visual cocktail app built by bartenders for bartenders with a Biblioth, your house made or is yet doesn't just get a fancy visual recipe card that's easier to read than a highway billboard. No, it also gets a built in batch calculator making Tuesday mornings a cinch, a flavor map analyzing 12 dimensions of taste. So you know how exactly how much almond and vanilla you're bringing in the party, sharable QR codes for guests and coworkers who don't even have the app, process photos for that crucial blanching step and detailed notes for all those techniques you never read on a bottle label. Inside your my Thai recipe card where it belongs.
One Boston bar has recipes with custom ingredients nested seven levels deep. Here are the details in episode 216 of the industry podcast. See why it was featured by Bon Appetit, the number one in the app store, what it launched. The free download gets you 500 plus recipes and all core features with subscription options for individuals and businesses to unlock advanced tools and connect entire teams.
Visit www.mbiblioth.com for more or check the show notes for the links as always. Yeah, and Billy, I check it out, like I said, if you're a home bartender or a professional bartender, it's a great resource either way in Biblioth. Yeah, and that's about all we got to say about that. So let's talk to our guests who's joining us here from Denver, Colorado.
It is Jasmine Colleen. How are you? I'm doing so great. Jealous, I got so much snow.
We haven't gotten yet. You can have ours. It was a lot. It's been going on for a couple of days.
Yeah. Yeah, we got a dusting a couple of days ago. And that's it, which is super uncommon for us. Right.
Yeah, a lot of skiing in your area, I guess. So kind of needed it. Yeah. You do the winter sports yourself?
No, I don't. So yeah, you don't need it. You don't need it. You don't need to snuff.
No. Personally, I don't know, but I know a lot of people who do and they're a little disappointed right now. So probably good for tourism too. Yeah.
I'm from Colorado originally. I'm from Colorado originally. I'm from a town called Greeley. It's about an hour north of Denver, a little cow town.
It's a lot bigger now than it used to be. But yeah, we always joke that if you just smells like shit outside, it's because of Greeley and it's about to sail in a couple of days. That's just the running joke for everybody in Colorado. Yeah.
No, I'm from Greeley and then I went to school at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I got my degree there and I lived and worked there for a couple of years, like three or four years. And then I moved to Denver back in 2023. I've been here ever since.
When I was first taking out your Instagram profile, which is, you should tell us. It's my lord, mommy. Yeah. So I was, I just assumed you were from Chicago originally because anybody who's fucked with my lord usually lives there.
Yeah. You have a different reason. You want to talk to competition for my lord? I can't even imagine drinking my lord in a cocktail.
So I'm very curious to hear what your cocktail was that won. Yeah. Well, actually the name I changed before I won the competition. So I think that a little bit of a manifestation of winning it.
It was a running joke amongst me and my friend that we would give people shots of my lord and like we would always be there for the first time than for people who are in Colorado. And like, so I'll be for the first time. You're like a weed grandmother if you're there for their first time and it was kind of the same thing for my lord. Or just joking back and forth.
And I was like, oh my god, I should change my name to that. Yeah. So I changed it. And it was funny enough earlier this year I was going to change it to something else.
It's like, okay, jigs up. It's been fun. Kind of give it up. And then I won the competition.
So that's a good thing. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
Yeah. But the cocktail I ended up winning with was my type more or less, but I used them alert with pineapple skin, cinnamon and clothes. So it's kind of like a topage style just without the fermentation. And then I made a Pepsi board shot.
Um, lime juice, grammarnier, very classic style high-five. And the whole theme was kind of looks for us. That's kind of what it was worn out of. So very weed-centric and all about the theatrics about the competition.
One part cocktail obviously needs to not taste like shit, but also like what kind of performance are you giving? And I rolled a joint on stage and very nonchalant. Nice. That's amazing.
But it's funny that you say like not taste like shit because most people think molour tastes like shit. But yeah, like I don't, it's not the worst thing I've ever drank, but like it's an acquired taste for sure. Most of my friends who have tried it are like who are not in the service industry are absolutely think it's disgusting. A lot of people feel like I'm up for that too.
Yeah, yeah. I feel like it's one or the other. Just they're so bitter. I brought it to Thanksgiving last year for my family just to kind of lean into it a little bit more and they really hated it.
It was fun to watch. Yeah, but I've come to love it. Especially with the competition. You have to taste it over and over and try to pull out some tasting notes to make a good cocktail with.
It saved me some from really shitty bitters that I've had. Give me a ton of work to get this out of my mouth. I just have to love it. You almost have to infuse it to put in a cocktail because it's such an overpowering flavor.
Yeah. I think most people kind of try to throw it in a teepee. I mean, I did, but tee-style drink and cover it up completely. But if you treat it like what it is, it is a bitter then you can kind of work it a little bit more.
And yeah, I do think infusing it really helps though. Yeah, for sure. So was your first service oriented job when you were in school in Boulder? Yeah, I was the barista at Starbucks for three years.
I did that. That was kind of my first real industry oriented job. And I had quit my job in there because I was looking to get this job with a nonprofit. But I had already worked with them in the past and I really found that nonprofit and I did my degree in political science and I didn't end up getting a job.
And I kind of panicked and I had a new job I could see because I worked full time all around my time at school. And my friend was working at a restaurant in Louisville, not Louisville, Louisville. And I was asking if they were hiring. And she said they were.
So I went down interview, got hired on the spot with zero experience, which is great, I guess. But I think they were just desperate for people because they hired a bunch of people and not for the restaurant, they were running like an 80s theme schema for the winter. They had just a miracle, which is like a national franchise for Christmas and holidays. And they saw a lot of success with that.
So they decided to just kind of keep the pop up clean running. So I was a cocktail waitress at this 80 same C bar headwear neon sea suit. And I was like, I hair in like a high ponytail and say like rad and all that fun stuff. Yeah, that was my first real like industry service oriented job.
And I kind of just worked my way up from there. Yeah. So what was your first job where you were like when you got behind the bar and like also your first time fucking around with like making actual practice? Yeah.
So I always wanted to bartend because it's like the barista bartender pipeline. It's very similar, but very different at the same time. I was like, no, I got to get behind the bar. So I started out that C bar in like February of 2021.
I was 21 years old and I'd like just turned 21 and went through that was just talked to a later scene and then come summer time, they flip it for the T.C. bar and the GM like two weeks into the T.C. bar quit. And I got it in my head somehow that, you know what?
I could get him. I've been doing this for a couple months. And so I convinced not only myself, but the owner, we were at like a wine tasting at his house. Like, Hey, let me do it.
And he was like, okay. So I was a GM for the summer at this brand T.C. bar in the middle of Colorado. So that was where I really jumped behind the bar and kind of taught myself a lot because I had to.
And I was like, I'm going to be managing these people that have been doing this for years beyond me. Like, I know what I'm doing a little bit. So I really huck her down. I read a bunch of books like what I'd tell her to do.
It's the death of co-book and everything I put my hands on. I leaned a lot on the people around me and just any time I could, I would give on a bar and make cocktails. And then obviously being a manager anytime people are out or quit, you kind of have to step in. So that's what I did.
And yeah, it's over the summer. I kind of did that very like closet there just kind of know what the hell I'm doing. And really hated jamming as a 22 year old. That sucked.
Yeah, it's not the best job. No, but I've been telling the owners that I didn't want to be up for them anymore. And so I went back to, or went to serving at the restaurant that they had right down the street and got formal training for the bartender there and finally really set the bar and held it in my skills there. And this is all still in like when you were in school?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, this was like over the summer between junior and senior year of college, which was also obviously when COVID was still happening. And so I was doing everything online from home and everything. But yeah, I was like, college. Yeah.
So now you've got sort of a taste for cocktailing and what point do you move to Denver? Yeah. So I left the job in Melissa and went to Boulder and I was in Boulder working at a food hall there, bartending and I ran into the old bartender that had trained me for the very first time. And he was managing this bar in Denver called Deviation.
It's a gym, a deviation gym, but they had a takes in room in downtown. And he needed some of the pick up Mondays and I was like, sure. So I came over and I was working, sweating my time between Denver and Boulder. How far away are Denver and Boulder?
Like I know good. Yeah. On a good day, probably like 30 minutes. Oh, yeah.
It's not terrible. And I lived right in between Boulder and Denver. So it was maybe like a 20 minute commute for me. Okay.
But yeah, that was the first time I moved or was in Denver working. It was only one day a week at the bar and finally enough it's across the street from Pony Up and I was a regular at Pony Up. Every Monday after my shift there I was kind of Pony and take a shot of their Ajiu shot and was like, I gotta get here somehow. Yeah, I'm glad I moved to Denver maybe a couple months after that.
I was like, there's never been a reason to be a closer to Boulder anymore. I'm getting out of here. Right. Yeah.
So at some point, obviously you'd start delving into the competitions. What made you decide to do that? Because you did Speedwreck as well, right? Yeah.
Speedwreck was the first kind of cocktail competition I did that was maybe about a year or so after I started at Pony Up and I had seen Pony Up is really industry oriented and the past Speedback winner, Krista. She had just won right when I started at Pony Up and she really inspired me to seek out those sort of things. Because why not? It was one of those things where I'm like, yeah, I think I could do it.
And I didn't make it past the first round, which is so fine. But it was so much more about the community building and you have something in your skills as a bartender. But just with the women in and around Denver and just being within that community and later that year I competed in the first more competition where again I didn't make it past the first round. I did that for the first time and it's just been kind of everything I can get my hands on.
I want to because it's fun and I love the community aspect that it brings. And I think that's a really cool part is really cool. But it's more so about the friends that make along the way and how you can handle failure and learning all in one person. Yeah, that's what we've had several people obviously on here have competed in these and they're all the same thing.
It's mostly just about the connections you make while you're doing the contest. That's the most important thing. Yeah, well, I think doing the competition especially Speedback, it starts for me anyways. I still by all the time, it's a very new ish to the industry when I first applied and started opening doors and entryways to meeting more people within the Denver community and beyond.
I met Kate from Pickerwind who's the owner of I'd say the main name of that bar near is one of those really fucking cool. Yeah, I can't remember either. She was on the show so we don't have that. Yeah, we don't have that.
I guess I never remember either. Sorry Kate. Sorry Kate. Yeah, but I've heard for the first time it was very fleeting but it was just like seeing some of these really awesome people within the industry at this event.
It's so much more accessible than you think it is. And the door is just never really stopped opening once you started putting your foot into different things. Yeah, that's the thing. It opens a lot.
It's not just you meet a bunch of people but then you make connections with them and then all of a sudden this is how so many people in our industry have moved into consulting roles and guest bartending shifts here and there and getting to travel and maybe doing ambassadors for brands. This is how it all starts. So what specifically has there been any specific things that opportunities have opened up for you through the competitions? I would say through the competitions directly.
I mean, I'm a lot you just get the second edition of Titanic. The VHS are not really cool but it's just I guess bartending shifts and you get a little bit more well known around the community. I think for me specifically doing the first speed rack competition I just became more involved in a community and more in the bar industry. I was like the entirety and I got to know things like campground and my family and Portland cocktail week and bartenders weekend at San Diego and started really figuring out how to get myself there into those opportunities and those spaces and once I entered those spaces that's when the doors really started opening up.
I've done campground method of past years. I was a counselor this past year. Portland cocktail week I was on varsity in this past year. But the biggest thing that I just did and kind of circling back to your question before kind of the opportunities and doors that have opened my friend Robinson from Puerto Rico and I we did this giant Latinx pop-up party to open up Portland cocktail week.
We did it in connection with Jose Garbo and it was a whole big party. It was really more so about the broader Latino community in the States and beyond. I think sometimes when you go to events it's very location centric so it's either all about Mexico because you're delving into a body product or around because you're delving into other different locales but the Latino diaspora is so vast and there wasn't ever anything that either of us attended that really celebrated that and made it a point to celebrate it. We were able to do that but I can't even.
I'm still on high and it's been two months but it was one of the best things and coolest things I've ever done. I don't know if I would have done that but had the opportunity to send down the people I know now because of stepping down the other opportunities. I don't know if I would have been able to do that. Those opened the door so how did you feel that you knew how to set up an event like that?
How did you trust that you know how to do it? How did you never do it? How did you never do it? That's a big undertaking.
There's bartending. There's going to these competitions and running them. Doing a massive pop-up at a cargo week is a huge difference. Yeah, it wasn't saying.
There was a lot of tears involved in figuring it out. I think I've had a lot of great mentors along the way and I specifically knew more about the inter-workings and the mechanics of the pop-up and setting up budgets and talking to brands and being the main communicator because of the mentorship I've gotten from my bar manager and my owner. We this past year did pop-ups in San Diego. We went to New York and we've also hosted stuff here.
They're just kind of seeing and taking in how they coordinated those. It was kind of how I learned to do it up on a hot-field week and it was still very difficult and very hard. I was a Lindsay and Brittany. They were amazing from Lush Life.
They really helped us make those connections and guide us in the right direction when we were kind of wavering off. I think there were so many times who we started planning it maybe in July and the pop-up was in October. There were so many times throughout those months where I was on the call with Robinson and we had a set back where we had a venue to drop out last minute or brands that weren't answering and why are we doing this? Is it worth it?
Is it worth all the trust? We really just kind of had to center ourselves and center why we were doing it and what the point was. We weren't making money off of it. We weren't asking for money.
We didn't ask to be paid what a lot of people thought we were crazy for that. We were so passionate about the message of what we wanted to bring to Portland Conquefill Week that it was always just a leading thing that we all deserved. After that everything else fell into place. Now we know.
Every time you do something like that you learn so many lessons but there's always no matter how many times you do it. There's always going to be setbacks. There's always going to be something you didn't foresee. There's going to be something that goes awry.
But with every experience you learn a little bit better how to deal with it and what I think the most valuable thing. I've never done pop it or anything like that but I've opened several bars and it's very similar. For me it's like I learn not to get so. The real lesson is to not get so stressed out about it because there's nothing you can do about it.
You just got to learn to adjust on the fly and that's what this whole business is about. Yeah 100%. Like I said, there's so many moments where there's just another wrench thrown in. The day of the pop-up 30 minutes before we opened the doors I was talking to the coordinator for Firebow for their agency team.
We were like, we were in the menu and I sent you a design. She was like, I thought you printed them. I was like, why the hell did I send you a design if you weren't going to print them? That's like 30 minutes before and we scrambled thankfully.
We were able to get the print and then drove down to the venue last minute. But it was like even something like that, we're going to have 30 minutes before. It's always something. It's always something.
It's always something. It's always something. But it's still ended up being amazing and we are packed the entire time. That's what you think you'll do with another one?
I think so. I know there are talks about doing it in other markets and bringing the same style party and featuring other bartenders around the country. I know we had wanted to do Portland Cocktail Week but it just schedules didn't super line up. It's a very busy sense.
It came back in Portland. But yeah, for sure Portland Cocktail Week next year, I think it's going to be a long-standing feature hopefully. Amazing. That's great.
Congratulations. Those things aren't easy to do. So talking about the message you wanted to portray and you weren't looking to get paid. You were bleeding the concept and what you were trying to get.
The message you were trying to get out there. What is the message? You mentioned that you like to think of yourself as a bartender activist. Let's talk about the message you're trying to get across with the pop-ups and what you mean by that in general.
Yeah. So bartender activists, like I mentioned, I got my degree in political science and ethnic studies. And I really focused my studies in Mexican American culture. I'm Mexican American.
My family's from Mexico. And that's always a very centered issue for me when it comes to the things that I care about. And as far as the pop-ups in the message that we were trying to get across, it really was burned out of Camp Renamoc. We did our first little random pop-up there.
We didn't have any brand associated. We didn't have any real banning outside of when we were there. And if you know anything about Camp Renamoc here in the middle of Bumpfock's coffee, you have nothing but what's at camp. And so we had noticed that there wasn't really anything celebrating.
Like I said, the broader Latino diaspora that was more than just the Mexican community. There were so many other communities that felt like they weren't represented as people who have connections within lush life. And we were both counselors at the time. We were like, you know what?
Let's just do it. Let's just do it. And so we kind of got everybody together. We pulled all our resources.
We all brought bottles from our rooms. And he had a bunch of stuff from Puerto Rico with speakers and lights and all this crazy shit. And we just threw the biggest party. And what we saw from that was just so much joy and happiness and togetherness and inclusion representation.
And I've always been a big proponent of saying that joy is a part of resistance and that in dark times when we feel like nothing's working, we just want to give up because the world and government is just against us. The biggest form of resistance we had is not really the charge away. And I think that was the center for going into the pop up in Portland was joy. Swammer business and also we all belong here.
It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from. You belong in this space and you deserve to be in this space. And there's a lot to be said about letting us not having the best representation in the bar in the tree and behind the bar. And there's so many others, right in back of house, especially back of house in the states, where so many people are either undocumented or at the table or whatnot.
You know, there's so much, so many more of us than I think people realize and to have and give people the platform and space to celebrate that part was the message and the point of it. And I think that point got across. Everybody was super excited. I had people days after coming up and saying that it was not only the best part of what they went to, which of course, I'm Mexican, I'm going to throw a good party.
The broader point and message that we're trying to send was that you belong and you deserve to be centered in these conversations and in this industry. And that will always be what it is moving forward. As far as the bar activist part of it's something relatively new for me. I've always been an activist when I was in, honestly, since I've been in high school.
I've always been super passionate about social issues and social justice. And when I first started bartending, I was obviously finishing my degree and I never saw something that I was going to continue to do. I made a part of my career. I had plans to go to law school.
I was going to go to law for civil rights law. Eventually, I was on to international law. And that was kind of my trajectory. And then as I got deeper involved in the bar community and the industry, I realized that it was something I really loved.
But I always held on to that part of me and I was passionate about all of these other issues. So within the past year or so, I have tried to find ways to meld those worlds together because they're not mutually explosive and the personal is the political. And things that we face as far as the people of the industry, I think that people in real life are facing as well. But about the food insecurity or racism or sexism, those are still issues that you face, not just because you're not excluded from it, just because you're buying bars or what not.
And as an ex-American and obviously everything going on for faith has attained the ice and deportations and whatnot. It became very prudent and urgent for me to feel like I'm doing something to help in that capacity. So we have only up top two, a couple of different brands and got a partnership with Real De La to Bila. And they donated a piece of tequila to us every month.
We have a cocktail on our menu that uses a tequila and every purchase made of the cocktail donates to an immigration fund. At first we were donating to our MIM with a direct amount of immigration advocacy at work. And then over the summer we launched basically and re-upped our partnership with Real De La and chose another non-profit to donate to to spread the love. And we're now working with the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition and donating the profit top of that cocktail to them.
And that's something that seemingly as simple as donating a little bit off the top of that cocktail has made, she's such a difference. And obviously the donations that they're receiving but in maintaining my own integrity, that I believe I'm doing something to benefit the broader community and making sure what I'm doing doesn't feel like list or soulless. And sometimes it can feel like that in this industry and especially when you get alcohol involved and obviously that's our full job, right? And it's fun and it's beautiful and there's so many amazing things but there's a really dark sides of it too that you can get lost in.
So if I don't keep that part of me and center that activist part of me then it feels like what I'm doing is meaningless. You know? Yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense considering that you are Mexican American and while everything is going on down there is obviously absolutely out of control. And to feel like you can use your platform to do something with it, that's very impressive.
Like honestly, because most people would hear, oh, bartender activists and just be like, well, that sounds like bullshit, but you're actually doing something. Yeah, so that's, I give you mad kudos for that because that's like, because a lot of people just put a title on themselves and be like, oh, well, I'm an activist or I'm trying to bring attention to this. But what are you doing? It's actually helping.
And so it must feel good to be actually doing something that shows like some financial help. Yeah, 100%. I think outside of me personally doing something that matters to me, I think it also shows other people in our industry that you can also do something like obviously there's only so much we can do and there's a very fine line that you walk between what you care about professionalism and obviously it never, I'm not going to get into fights with people behind the bar because of what they believe in because at the end of the day, people can are allowed to believe in what they believe in. And that's what makes our industry so beautiful as you run into so many people from so many different walks of life.
But there are small things that we can do and we can contribute to and whether or not it's putting a donation cocktail on or running a food drive out of your bar or setting up trainings for people within the industry or within your bar just to like, you know, give yourself all the information. There are things that we can't do. You know, that's part of it too. It's just showing everybody else that there is a way and there is a path and I'm really, really proud of the Denver community as it's grown and as part of it.
There's when the government shut down and staff benefits were to be paused for the month of November. There was so many different restaurants and bars that stepped in and ran food drives and collected donations or were providing meals for people who were facing food insecurity. We just wrapped up hours here. We were collecting food donations for people in the industry who are facing food insecurity.
We collected a bunch of food and we just launched our signups now for people to come pick those up next week. And there's so many other people in the industry that are doing amazing things here. It's really cool to see and it's inspiring to see and I hope that inspires more people within our industry that you can do something. Obviously this is a show where we talk about the service industry mostly but it's hard not to discuss the political situations that you brought it up.
And I'm curious, do you find that like Mexican Americans or Latino service industry workers in your area, is there like a growing fear or unease in the community? Yes, obviously. And I think as things escalate, there's this fear that whether or not you're documented or in the country legally that you can be targeted. I don't think they give a fuck right?
No, no, and that's a thing. They don't care. It's just because of the color of your skin or the language that you're speaking. And obviously I have family that are scared.
I have friends and coworkers and people in the industry that are scared. And you see it, you know, people on the street vendors who have been here for years to start on the streets anymore. And I think it's really scary and disheartening. But there are so many of us that are doing what we can to educate people.
Education is the biggest tool against fascism and what's going on right now. As long as you know your rights and you know what's going on, you can do what you need to do to protect yourself. We have a member of our Denver community here. Her name is Stephanie.
You're doing a lot of know your rights classes for different bars and restaurants and Denver and she's traveled to different markets to do those and links up with local and great rights lawyers to teach people about what your rights are as it is in the restaurants and plans. We created these little information packets that I passed out at the pop up in Portland. And they just had the same information what to do with I shows up at your restaurant. And those are created by a couple of friends.
And the other things that we're doing and that gives us hope that it's not like throwing the towel and hide and never come out because you might get picked up off the street. That's really goes like worry. Because people are doing that. Yeah.
I mean, especially if you look at Chicago and what they're dealing with there, people getting picked up in the middle of alleys and while they're throwing out the trash, which is something you just do in this job, it's really, really scary. And it's a scary time for sure. But like I said, there's people out there that are doing the work to make sure you know when the time comes, if the time comes, what your rights aren't, how to come back to that. So as long as I kind of keep holding onto that and holding onto teaching people as much as I possibly can and seeking out resources and trying to connect as much as possible that we can do and obviously vote and get out there.
Well, I think it's good that like it's like this is the reason to feel positive about the future as opposed to like just feeling like we're all going down this dark path that we're not coming back from is like, because you always hear about or I always read about the apathy of young people these days. And for someone of your age to be disinvolved and organized and making a difference, I think that's like something that we can all feel positive about. So thank you and congratulations. Thank you for having me.
So yeah, we'll end on our lighter note now. Just do like I'm interested in like sort of what, if you describe the vibe of pony up for our listeners, the people that have been in the Denver area, why they should come there and then maybe talk us a little bit about the cocktail scene in Denver in general. Yeah. Yeah, it's one of the best bars in Denver and I'm obviously biased, but I think a lot of people could say that about us.
We're women owned and operated, the majority of our staff and especially management. We're all women and queer, which is really awesome. We're in the part of downtown Denver, maybe a block or two from course field, which is the baseball field out here. Like I said earlier, when I was working across the street IDD, I was a regular here.
And the first thing I ever had was, I was called a pony upshot to Sean, George Pickle Whisky, within Faujou back, where apprentices place right now for apprenticeships. We have a bunch of varieties. So when you chase the shot of Whisky with the audio, I took it, I have the video of it. We just passed our free anniversary from the first time I ever had that.
And it was the craziest that best thing I ever had. And that would like, sent so many tingles through my brain and it's like, what the hell is going on? And then the next thing I know, I looked up and there's these super hot chicks like climbing into the bar because our ladders are built into the bar and they're all across the bar and they're climbing up on top of the bar and grab bottles and they're singing the Britney stairs and it's very coyote ugly and it was like, what's that? What's that?
What's going on in here? But as far as what we are, we're in the street though this bar. We circle into one of them every single night and that's really to make sure that people in the restaurant industry, then they get off the work they have the hot meal that's not at Donald's to eat. We do industry discounts for, excuse me, everyone in the industry and we're just super focused on the restaurant communities and the Denver community as a whole where we do as many community events as we possibly can in order to provide educational events to people in the industry and resources and that's really who we are, what we're focused about.
We're focused on what we really are the five volume cocktail bar in downtown Denver. And we never tried to sacrifice quality or the uniqueness of our cocktails or the bar as a whole, just for the sake of seat or service. It's really this beautiful mesh between seat service and quality. Menu is completely made up by the bartenders.
We each have a couple cocktails on there and we develop them together throughout the season, which is really amazing. And yeah, we're just, I mean, I hate to use the work ethic because it's very cold to you, but we are. You know, we love each other and we're supportive of each other. I've been here for going on three years now and when you're here, you just say it's one of the best jobs to work.
I love it so much. As far as the Denver bar scene as a whole in general, it's fucking incredible. Like I said, I love so many people here. So many different bars run for the roses across the street.
Peach Peach just opened out of Champs and Stuart, either the owners over there, they just opened maybe a week ago and they're already getting amazing hype. It's super fucking cool. And there's just so many more cool things around town and different neighborhoods have their different pockets of amazing bars and bar trampers. It's a really full community to be a part of.
I can't say enough good things about it. There's so many talented people out here. Yeah, I'm constantly on everybody here and everybody that works here. And now all the people I get to meet have yet to meet such a cool industry to be in, especially in Denver.
Well, it sounds amazing. And honestly, I can't be more impressed with all the shit you're doing for the community through the bar and through your own personal projects. So thanks so much for giving me a good time tonight. And like it's afternoon for you.
It's evening for us. But yeah, there you go. Yeah, tell all our listeners where they can follow you and figure out what you're up to. Yeah, so Instagram is mostly where I'm at.
I don't do the TikTok these days, but my lord underscore mommy is me. I'm AMI. That's my Instagram. You can also follow Tony up Denver.
I'm a social media manager over there. It's anything you can do. So that's me as well. Outside of that, yeah, those are the socials.
Awesome. Well, it's something you got enough on the go. So I think we really appreciate your take some time to talk to us today. And best of luck with everything going forward.
Thank you. Thank you so much for this amazing and I really appreciate you all having me. Thanks very much. Thanks very much.
I'll put the links in the show notes. Yeah, thank you so much.