Today on the Industry Podcast, we're going by Dylan Noo from Toronto. Someone who's path into hospitality is a little different than most. Dylan didn't come up the traditional way behind the bar. Instead, he found his way into the industry through brand work, events, and sales, and from there developed a real passion for cocktails, bartending culture, and learning the craft from the ground up.
In this episode, we talk about what it's like to break into the drinks world from the outside, how work it has a rep shaped his perspective on hospitality, and why he's now chasing bartending experience in reverse, going from industry rep back towards the bar. We also get into cocktail experimentation at home, the support he's found in the Toronto bartending community, and his experience making it all the way to the National Finals of a Multidangirl Cocktail Competition. It's a fun conversation about Curiosity, Community, and Posture Syndrome, and what it looks like to build your place in the industry one step at a time. You can follow Dylan on Instagram at Mr.
Underscore Noo, or check the show notes for all the links. And now, here's our conversation with Dylan Noo. And we're back with another episode of the Industry Podcast. My name is Kit, and this is Dan.
Hey, Dan, that's me. How's it going? Great buddy. How are you doing?
Still awesome. Yep, yeah, I thought that coming. Yeah, still awesome. Here, I record this in early March.
Pretty cool today. But you should be pretty mild by the way. I'm pretty sure this winter's never ending. We're going to be shoveling snow in July this year.
Perfect. Thanks for everybody. Oh, yeah. Well, good use of it when you're snowing it that way.
It's pretty great. Yeah, that's good season. Terrific. Terrific to hear.
Yeah, nothing too exciting since last week's spoke. So I guess we should just get to it and mention that if you are in the Kitchener Waterloo area, and you're freezing cold, it's pretty warm. It should have run. So stop by my bar.
That's at Sugar Run Bar on Instagram to figure out everything that's going on there. We've had an excellent burlesque show on the weekend. We do that last Friday of every month. So check that out.
And then we also, of course, have live music DJs. And book a private event. We love that. We love it open for private events.
You can just email info at sugarrun.ca for those. And if you are interested in wine or spirits, it's kipsonders.com. For wine from Alvar Winery or spirits from Allure Distillery. That's for bars, restaurants, or for your home drinking pleasure.
Once again, kipsonders.gmail.com. And if you like what we're doing here on the show, you can help us by subscribing, following, rating, and reviewing. Or just tell somebody about it. Tell somebody to give it a listen.
Yeah, totally. Because that's the easiest thing to do. It takes about a minute. It's an easy way to spread the word.
And we would definitely appreciate it. Yeah. And get those downloads up. We did more the better for us.
And for all of our guests, we did there out here to be heard as well. And we have another great one coming your way in just a second. Before we get to our guests this evening, we should also mention that if you'd like to be a guest on the show yourself, you can email us info at theindustrypodcast.club. Or DM us at the industry podcast on Instagram.
Where you'll find the amazing artwork from the Supinitown to Zakhana. at zakhana.co for all of your graphic arts needs. That's Zakhana, Z-A-K-H-A-N-A-H. Zakhana.
And if you're a bartender, a working bartender, or a home bartender, and you just need an extra resource for making all those classic cocktails, what would you recommend them? My recommendation would be in Biblioth. Because today's episode is in partnership with the Biblioth, the visual cocktail app built by bartenders for bartenders. Your Biblioth profile isn't just recipes.
It's your professional portfolio with a built-in resume. It's your highlight reel with receipts, showcasing your creations, flavor preferences, and specialties. Looking for work? Send prospective managers your entire profile.
They can view it on the web without downloading anything. They'll see your cocktail creations, your palette analysis, showing preferred style and range as a bartender, and get an intimate view of what you're actually capable of behind the bar. It's your skills made visible, not just another list of where you've worked. Here are all the details on episode 216 of the Industry Podcast.
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You'll love it too. Sometimes I just look around my home bar and be like, what the fuck am I going to do with this bottle I've had for a decade and a half? Dick bottles of blue curacao? Yes.
Maybe not blue curacao, but yeah, some old bottles there. I'm just like, I'll just plug it into a bibbly and see what comes up and make myself a cocktail from the 1930s. Nice. Good plan.
Good plan. That's probably what Tuesday morning around 8.15 a.m. Well, I'll start today. Yeah, that's true.
I don't think I've been sober for a work day in a couple of months. It shows. Okay, enough about us and our unhealthy drinking habits. Let's get to someone else who may have one.
Our guest today is Dylan Noo coming to us from Toronto. How are you? Yeah, I'm doing all right. Thanks so much for having me.
Yeah, thanks very much for joining us. Appreciate it. So you've got a more unusual background than most of the people we have on the show. So I'm just going to let you get into it straight off.
How did you get involved in the hospitality service industry and just give us a brief rundown of like your first sort of entry into the field and then where you are now? So my entry, I want to go way back. Well, started when I was 16. I worked in a movie theater, but I worked as a brand ambassador kind of events support staff in 2021 just as like COVID was in a weird awkward phase where you could do things, but you couldn't.
And I worked at the Toronto Craft Festival of beer where I was basically running kegs and cases to all of the different breweries that were there from the reefer. I'm starting making some friends. I think three or four days there got my first taste of drinking on the job, which was exciting. It hasn't ended since.
Yeah. So what were you doing if you don't mind when you were in Vancouver? Like what sort of what kind of career were you involved in there? Yeah, so I followed the thread from 2021 to 2024 of working as a brand ambassador for events.
And I was working with a few different agencies to go and give out all the free stuff that you get outside of the baseball game and you go to the Roger Stadium and you get a free shirt or sign up for TD Bank and you get whatever that was me. Yeah. Okay. Do you have a job?
Do you have a free ticket for yourself? Those events? I did. Yeah.
We were fortunate to have like friends be able to, we're giving away prizes every now and then. Oh, my friends here. Oh, okay. I get to give away a pair of tickets.
Hey, do you need to go show me? Yeah. No, I definitely saw my fair share of shows and we also would finish when the headliner started. So if you like the band, we can just stay and watch the show.
Oh, that's all right. I can see why you stuck with it for a while. But it also kind of preps you for doing a sales rep job as well because you're basically it is selling to a certain extent. I mean, I know you're giving away free shit, but you're also like, you have to get people to stop and talk to you.
So yeah, you know, it definitely taught me a lot of the core roots. I remember one time we were outside of a J's game giving out alcohol free beers. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And your reaction was to say that everyone else had was all of this.
Yeah. But I started realizing, you know, like we had three or four palettes worth of alcohol free beer that we had to give away. And so I just started saying, oh, like free beer, who wants a free beer? I was like, technically still a beer.
Yeah. And then often someone would like get the candy like, oh, zero alcohol and they like give it back to me. Yeah. I think they saw the cost of a bottle of water and I'm sure they probably came back.
Well, the worst part was I was after the game ended. So they were already drunk and they're like, yeah, no alcohol. That's funny. That's definitely the way to describe it.
Most people aren't even going to read the cans. So yeah, yeah. Yeah. They worked out in the most recent event that I was working before working for cider who's actually giving away samples of apples.
Yeah. So really? It tied me into that. Yeah.
It was working for this brand of apple called Cosmic Criss, which is at the time I think they told it was a blend between a gala and a honey criss. Massive think like the size of your face apples that were really sweet, but just as acidic as you needed them to be however many years later, I'm still like the biggest advocate for them because they're so delicious. Really interesting. I never even heard of it.
So where are they selling their products? They're, I mean, you can find the grocery stores. Yeah. At the time we were at like the Vancouver Women's Expo.
Yeah, okay. We had this big booth and we were just cutting up slices of apples. I think we went through close to like 25 bushels of apples. Cool.
Wow. And just giving away samples and they were, I took home probably about a bushel and a half myself. And then just had a house party for Halloween and everyone got an apple this great. That's the other thing about doing those jobs is like, you do get to take home about the product.
Like you said, you get to see some shows. It's like, it's pretty good gig. There's a lot of extra perks. I mean, they don't pay the best necessarily, but there's lots of extra perks that go with them.
Yeah, it depends on the agencies you work with and the brands you get to work with. You know, I've that same beer festival that I worked. I wasn't giving anything away, but I made friends with all the breweries. And at the end of that festival, I went home with 200 beers.
Yeah. That sounds like an exaggeration. Like we found how many cans it was 210 beers. Yeah.
And we threw a massive house party with my roommates and I just after we got them and it was incredible. Yeah, that's funny, right? Well, I mean, I guess they'll just keep giving them to you. And like however, like however many you can physically bring home, then that's the only limit to your how many that you can take.
So it's funny you mentioned that the way that I got them home was the guys that are hiring me, they had a branded tricycle with a cooler up front. And so it we I was like, hey, like, how are you getting that home? Are you gonna like put it in a truck? Whatever.
Like, well, no, we have to drop all our stuff and bring it back and then pick up the thing. Well, if you lend it to me, I will get it back to your house. So you don't have to do that. The years in there.
And I think it was the heaviest thing I've ever pushed. But I biked it from Ron DeViews, if you're familiar with Ron Oates, like as John and Adelaide, I want to say, she was Lawrence Badina. Oh my God. Basically all the way uphill.
Oh, wow. You don't have to work out for a month after that. So it's crazy. The beers paid for themselves in terms of my weight gain and exercise.
Yeah, I was just gonna say, you know, you've probably lost like 20 pounds and then 200 beers later. Okay, but it's been really cool to kind of get to know a little bit about every kind of side of the industry, whether it's through cider and making friends with beer reps or through wine, getting some wine reps now. I think that spending most of my time on it outside of work is making cocktails at home because that's the part of the industry I've really walked in on. So talk to us a little bit about that.
Like what sparked that and then what happened, what you got to talk to? Yeah, I mean, it started because I was selling spirits to bar managers, bartenders, and I realized I don't know or didn't know really much of anything about making a cocktail. Right. We have some really interesting spirits that I wanted to share with folks, but I couldn't tell them to put it in a cocktail that might not make sense.
And I also started making friends in the industry from, you know, meeting people just throughout that were making some really cool things. And I wanted to learn all about it. A lot of the things that I do for myself in the free time right now are just learning and trying to get as much knowledge as I can because I'm so new to the space that I want to learn as much as every nitty gritty little thing that there is. So I started making cocktails at home and making videos about it mainly because I don't drink all that much at home and I was like, okay, if I'm gonna make a drink to spell it out, if I'm not finishing it, I need to make a video, I need to get something out of it.
And I've started making friends with some really supportive mentors, most notably Sally Jalesby, who used to be at Lisbon Hotel, or Revau, and then Kat, who is now the Noah rep and is super helpful, both of them, even some other friends that just respond to my Instagram stories and like, hey, how do I get my coffee filter to pour faster and some really great bartenders just hitting up for support? Yeah, it's a good community that way, especially. I don't know, it seems like, based on our experience, at least from the show, it seems like it's a globally close community, especially when people start traveling around to do contests and that seems to be what's grown the reach and like the community, but specifically in Toronto as well, there's a very close in the community, I think of bartenders who are willing to help each other out. Yeah, I mean, I love the community that's here.
I find as a rep, there isn't much of a rep community. There's in a group chat where reps can hang out and talk, that's something that I find is kind of lacking at times. So when I found out about the bartending side of things and that community, it's been really cool. And that's why I'm trying, like I said, trying to do the reverse and work behind a bar so I can actually be more a part of that world.
And I often feel like I'm taking someone's seat at the table if I'm not working at a bar and I'm just parked on a home. So wanting to support the community in any way I can is always the top of my mind. So you did at some point enter a cocktail competition, it did pretty well. Tell us about that experience.
Yeah, that was last week. Oh, last week, okay. So fortunately, the timing lines up really well. Remember, he's pretty fresh and I haven't drank my way through it.
I, with Sally's help and some other friends, they mentioned this cocktail competition called the Barro Bar Tender for a Marmont-Enegro. And I was still in the infancy of me trying to learn how to make cocktails at home and was thinking about what it's to take to build a recipe. Some really great folks on Instagram from the flavor camp, Instagram, I believe it's Reese Sims posted a guide about the competition and I thought, okay, let me see how I can make my own custom cocktail. My wife was like, hey, can you make me a cocktail?
I surprised me, make me something custom. I'm like, I don't know what that looks like. So the competition gave me some perspective on the hard work that goes into making custom cocktails and what that can entail. So I submitted an application.
I didn't think anything of it. My cocktail was kind of a riff on a classic Tom Collins was the Marmont-Enegro-Haimo. I saw that Reese had posted that the spec that typically does really well in those competitions or something like bright, simple, but easy, interesting acidity. So I had two ounces of Marmont-Enegro, one ounce of a London Dry Gin and then it was an ounce of this lemon and honey shrub that I made with lemon peels, balsamie, honey and water and then half an ounce of lemon juice to kind of balance it all out.
And so I submitted it and all the while still working at home, making cocktails, I would go to bars that I had friends working at and after work, I would just get a Diet Coke because I'm always driving when I do my visits. So I can't really drink as much as I would want to. I'd get a Diet Coke and just watch my friends, how they shake their cocktail or how they, what ingredients kind of being someone to ask a lot of questions, as much as I can while they're still in service. But then I found out in, I want to say like mid-January that my cocktail got selected for the top 10 National Finals in Canada.
That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
It was really exciting to see that. I mean, to see something that I made get selected was like crazy. I can believe it. I thought, maybe somebody knows me, maybe it was some kind of like favor to me, but the judges said that it was a blind kind of judging.
So it was just on the console alone. That's awesome. So and have you had to go and present it or how does it work from here? Yeah.
So that was last week. The presentation was last week where they flew in all the competitors from all over Canada. It was a few folks from Calgary, a few folks from Montreal, some from Toronto and then some of the outskirts of Toronto. And I had to, I had seven minutes to make my cocktail or three minutes to prepare and seven minutes to make my cocktail for three judges.
I had to make four cocktails. And that was super daunting because for me bartending at home, making cocktails for my friends, I have all the time in the world. I never think putting myself in a service mindset how quickly we expect to get our drinks. And how impressive is that these bartenders are like, I'm here about all these like speed columns, like making these factories in less than a minute and we're all like, oh, you know, just going to a restaurant.
I don't think about how long it takes for a drink to hit the table. It was incredible because I was making a cocktail for someone else that wasn't my friends or family outside of the house the first time. Natural finals for the competition. It's quite the step up.
Yeah. It's something to that. Yeah. Most people don't think about it.
Like, especially during COVID when everybody was like, became a home bartender and was like posting all these beautiful cocktails on Instagram and stuff. And there became almost a backlash from people in the industry was like, yeah, try making that when you're three deep on a Saturday night or whatever. You know what I mean? Because it's the other thing, you know, get like it's one thing to create a beautiful cocktail that takes an amazing picture.
But it's another thing to recreate that 100 times a night under like stressful conditions. So yeah, crazy like to jump into that having only home bartender experiences. So yeah. So but you pulled it off and then how did you do?
So I think I did really well. The feedback that I got from the judges was that my cocktail was delicious, well balanced, but it wasn't as advanced as I needed it to be to make it to the next step. I got to give an incredible shout out to all of my other competitors. They made some delicious cocktails and the techniques that they had about building them was next level.
For me being a home bartender, having just started is something that I need to continue to learn because I, you know, made a shrub and made a recipe. But some of these were so these mixed-allages bartenders were putting things together that I would have never thought of. And that's where my presentation was lacking, which is the technique that you learned by being three deep out of our and like knowing that how to make things properly and cleanly, but then also making a recipe that stands out on a menu. Have you delved in any of the classic books like the Death and Go, the Liquid Intelligence, like those types of things in your own home journey?
Yeah, they're on my shelf right now for my mom to let me them or I'm going to say it went, but I've had them for three months for my now. And that's where I've actually gone a lot of my knowledge from for where I'm making some recipes now. Like I'm making a cocktail for my wife, for my custom recipe and doing like infusions and making syrups and shongs. Like I'm getting that from I think I was the Liquid Intelligence book about changing syrup.
Yeah, I think like I remember back in the day when I was still like doing like I'm out of the loop now for a long time now, but like back when I first was getting really into it and not liquid intelligence book just blew my mind because it was like a science manual as opposed to how you normally think about if you grow up in the industry of just like slamming some ingredients together and there's a drink, right? Yeah, it's mind blowing. Well, for me when I was I look at it a lot like when I was younger and I used to be the kid that would love to go and make potions in the shower and in the bathtub to all the ingredients together. Now I wanted when I was growing up, I wanted to be a chemist and I ended up doing really, really poorly in high school chemistry and decided that business and marketing was more my style.
Yeah, yeah, sometimes your job chooses you. You're not the other way around. Okay, so I mean obviously you must feel even though like once you got there like to the competition, you got some feedback from the judges, but that's all good. It's your first thing.
First competition ever. It's like you must be on Bolden by being selected and getting going through the experience to first see yourself entering more contests in the future. Yeah, I definitely want to continue entering contests when I can, but there's a few that I've seen, but rather than I think what I'm going to be doing entering them now while I'm still trying to get more experience is actually going through previous years contests and trying to build a cocktail to those themes where the stakes aren't as high and I want to get that behind the bar experience. I mentioned before, like I get a lot of imposter syndrome taking a spot from a bartender.
Some of these people work so hard to make into these competitions and I want to get that experience that they have to be alongside them. I don't want to just feel like I did earn the spots, you know? That's a good attitude. Did you?
So are you actively applying for bar jobs around time? Obviously you must have a lot of connections to your rep work. So yeah, I mean, it's tough because I still want to be a rep full time. I want to continue when I do nine to five, but then I want to find some work on weekends and being somebody with no experience behind the bar on a Friday rush when you're in the week 60, you don't want me there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Try to see if I can bar back somewhere to start as like a part time and go from there. Yeah, that's the way to do it. I mean, everybody I know and most of the people we talked to on this show got who made a career out of it.
They've done kind of all the jobs, right? Like you skipping the steps is usually a good way to be done in this job early. Yeah, starting as a bar back is great. And is that even like, I would even recommend go work at like a dive bar or a club or something like that, where it's just based on speed for a little bit as well, right?
And that's also a valuable experience. You won't always love it, but yeah, it's a weird spot because I also have so many friends now that are like cocktail bartenders, mixologist, and I'm getting into that side of the world. So it's a balance of my desire to make interesting cocktails that have a convenience, but also needing that experience and that you really can't get that until you're working somewhere like a dive bar, like a club. So yeah, it's just like they're all valuable.
And like I get it like especially if you're specifically interested in making cocktails and yeah, you would like gravitate towards the high and cocktail bars and like trying to learn on the job there. But the one thing you get for those other jobs that you can't get anywhere else is the level of urgency to like run to run a service for an evening and make sure that everyone's getting their drinks on time. That's where clubs and like busy, even like a busy sports bar can teach you that, you know? Yeah.
But I mean, it's a stock because you're coming at it in the exact reverse. So it's hard to like and having already connections in the industry helps because you can probably skip a step or two and get into like a cocktail lounge and learn on the job there. So yeah, like I saw there's an Instagram post like industry names and they posted like a slide but it like drops off a cliff and it goes like, you know, going down the slide for bartenders like you start as a bar back, you go to be a bartender and then you become a bar manager and then you become a real estate agent and then become a rep. Yeah.
And then you become a rep. Yeah. And I'm trying to do the reverse. I'm trying to climb the impossible slot.
Yeah. Well, just skip real estate agent. There's enough of them. But it's so true.
It's funny. I joke about this all the time. So I've all done it in the industry for a long time. And there's always the job that the bartender server who wanted to get a quote unquote real job left the service industry to go do.
And I usually ended up back in the industry of in some way, shape or form. But there was like, when I was in my twenties, it was everyone wanted to be a teacher. Like, oh, yeah. So they went with the teacher's college and then either didn't make it all the way through college or worked one year and the schools and then came back.
And there was like pharmaceutical rep for a little bit. That was a big one. And now it's 100% realtor. Like everyone, everyone's trying to be a realtor.
And then, yeah, like unless I see your face on the back of a bus. Yeah. Then I just went up and that's career. Yeah.
Well, it's also, I always wondered, like how many realters do we need? I was just gonna say the same thing. I don't really understand, like, how much I know there's a lot of houses out there and there's a lot of commercial spaces as well. But the top realters are doing most of that business.
Yeah. And Toronto's a little different, I guess, but like here in Kitchener Waterloo, like there's thousands of realters and like, there's no way there's that much to sell. Yeah. Well, we need a bar that's like something, the realtor's house and they're just making like houses, but a cocktail forum.
Yeah. Well, this is the two bedroom. Yeah. That's right.
Yeah. We're a bar specifically designed to appeal to realters because there's so many of them. So that's a game. Every bar.
Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah.
All right. There's yeah. So, okay. So now you're like, you're out there actually trying to look for a job, but it is kind of a difficult situation that you're in because you don't want to fuck with your full time day job.
So what's the plan of attack would you say? Yeah. And right now I'm trying to learn as much as I can at home. I'm, like I said, going to friends bars and just sitting and watching them make cocktails and get that info.
But then also listening to like every book under the sun that I can get my hands on, I listen to it in vibe all about it here. Thomas is old cocktails and listening to you right now, an audio book on the history of salt. And it's a history of the world through the lens of salt and trade and all that. But also trying to find a bar back job where I can or something in the industry Toronto.
The one thing about being a rep is that I can attest to as well, is that you're in your car so much that it's like podcast audio books. That's the way of the world there for the for the rep these days because you just get tired listening to music after a while too. And it's like, well, if I'm gonna be in my car for however many X and many hours, it means we'll learn something while I'm doing it. That's how I go about it.
Yeah. I mean, it really just makes sense to me for like, I love music. I do a lot of my life through the lens of music, but I think that it is such valuable time to be using to learn a skill or to fresh up on some knowledge, even listening to a comedy podcast every now and then just to like have your brain thinking about something more than just music. It's definitely very helpful.
Yeah, sometimes every now and then I have to just like try and totally shut my brain off. And that's when I just like jam out to some tunes for sure. But yeah, I do find like I like it once you get used to the driving as long as the conditions aren't terrible, then you're just driving around. You got a podcast going.
It's like pretty enjoyable way to spend your day, honestly, if you don't mind driving. Yeah, and that's how I came across this podcast too. I was looking up different, looking at different spirits, because I wanted to see if there's any audio books or podcasts on them. And there was one, I forget what it was, but one connected me to this podcast and I started listening to different episodes and different folks that were on this, I recognize the names and I was like, okay, this is pretty cool.
So I'll go ahead and I'm working. I was like, yeah, well, we're glad we've found this. But yeah, so I'm excited to see what's going on. Are there any specific spirits or styles of cocktails that you're really excited about at the moment that you're trying at home?
Yeah, I had a friend post about the book all about the history of a lord. Oh, Lord. I'm a lord from Colorado. That's right.
Yeah, she calls us up alert, Mammy. Yeah, she works at the pony something. Yeah, anyway, but look, I have had so many funny conversations about my lord because we I have a friend who lives in Chicago and a bunch of common friends who go there all the time and they were like, who are not in the industry. And they talk about drinking my lord all the time when they get there.
It's like, this is the most disgusting thing ever. I'm like, you're not even close to the most disgusting spirit in the world. Have you think my lord's that bad? I have a soft spot from a lord.
I will always do a one shot of my lord minimum if I go to Chicago and I fucking love Chicago. But yeah, continue about my lord. Sorry, before you do that, Yasmine Colleen episode 257. Okay.
She was at my lord, Mammy. And it's at Pony Up in Denver. Pony Up in Denver. I knew it was pony related.
Yeah, I had to give her some shout out for that. So she didn't think you're a total thing. That's yeah. Yeah, I love like, well, I mean, it's hard to say you love my lord, but like, because it's such a unique distinct flavor of a spirit.
I've never tried to describe that. Well, it's most people don't. It's warm with or something. Yeah, it's becoming more common now, but it used to be a strictly Chicago thing.
So it's like you go to Chicago, you drink your my lord. But yeah, if you're not in, you have to be sort of versity in like your palate has to be ready for my lord. Let me just say that. Right.
To try to get my mom to do a shot of my lord, but my mom doesn't drink really shots of anything ever. And so it was a tough sell. And I filled her shot glasses. She goes to the bar, she goes, can you give me water?
And we're like, Oh, yeah, she's gonna do like a half half more water. She's like, no, no, no, no, just a shot of water. Yeah, I know, I like, again, like it's, it's not like I'm gonna be sitting around, slipping on my lord too often, but it's the worst where in the world. I mean, Rocky exists.
There's a there's way worse prayers in the world than my lord. But Dylan tell us, sorry, I interrupted you tell us about your lord cocktails that you're thinking about. No, so I'm just trying to use it in cocktails, because I find that it's such a strong ingredient that I need to learn how to use it enough or not too much. So it's a good example of something that you can then hide or elevate in a cocktail.
I made a, I made a riff on a piece that I saw the recipe a few weeks ago for the Cupid cup, which is a piece of sour riff. And I then made a riff on that using the lord and some rum. And it was really, really good. Yeah, I riffs and doing that.
Well, they have that competition. So it'd be cool for you to enter that one, because very few people even fuck with my lord. So but Jasmine from Pony Up, she I remember talking her a little bit about this as well. But it's like the key is almost like like using the smallest amount possible and then trying to build a drink around how tiny amount of my lord you can actually use in the beverage and still say you use it almost.
Well, you know, for me, I think that if you want to be true to my lord, you like still want to be using as much of it as you can in the book, they talk so much about how the history of it was like, it takes a strong man to have a second shot on the lord. That's true. That's true. So leaning into that and making something that's still like punchy but refreshing and interesting.
Well, and to have the flavor because it's a very unique flavor. It's just so strong. It's just hard for it not to overwhelm the entire concept of the cocktail, right? Which is I think why most people just do shots of it.
So I know for Nat is way back for like cocktails as well now and like for net and coke is a big deal or whatever, but in Argentina, but like the but for Nat itself is like, yeah, you want to change your life and have an even better for net and coke bronco manta and coke. Oh, yeah, brocka. That was delicious. Yeah.
Yeah. What's that? It's an even minty version of it for that. Yeah.
I mean, I'm a traditionalist, so I still prefer for the broke up but but yeah, there's a actually the company out of Toronto that's doing some riffs on for net and a bunch of different amaros and they had like a really minty version when I actually got to remember now. But yeah, like, once you I think once your palate develops and you get some people are just never gonna like flavors like that and not get it. They could taste like gasoline or whatever. But if once you get your palate around it, it's like you start to crave those kind of funkier, weirder flavors, not only on their own, but in cocktails and also if you drink a lot and have tried a lot of different cocktails, wine, spirits, after a while, your palate demands something different because you're just used to the rest of the shit, right?
Yeah, it's a bit of a horseshoe theory where it's like it starts where you really crave it and then you go and you don't crave it as much and you only want it was like Guinness or a Miller High Life and then you go to the Christian. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you finally just get to a point where it's like, I think it's and some of this is age, some of this is drinking a lot and developing a palate. It's probably a combination of all these things.
But you sort of settle into what you drink on a regular basis, whether that's like a spirit, a wine, a beer, whatever it is, but then you're still open to all the other things. Like if you're out for a night, you're gonna be like, Oh, that looks cool on a menu. I will try it, right? Yeah, like even though when you're at home, you probably mostly drink the same shit all the time.
Yeah, one of the things I wanted to do was kind of learn the ABCs or HZ of cocktails and thinking of like a, I was thinking of doing Will It Sauer, where it's picking a letter for every spirit or picking a spirit for every letter, sorry, and then making a sour out of it and looking at it like, I made opera all hours and those are delightful, but then like a butter scotch whiskey sour, like, well, that'd be good. Mm hmm. That's a good idea. Yeah.
One, one trend and go through it, because eventually even you get to the daiquiris, which are a riff on sour with tequila or no sorry, daiquiris rum. Yeah. And then I think like margaritas are kind of like, sour with tequila and there's a lot of options there. Yeah, it's cool to be like a good like sort of Instagram series that you could do like on your Instagram site where it's like, yeah, do this the whole sour experience for however many months or weeks or whatever and do a different one.
This is one night doing a special one night. One night. Even better Tuesday morning. Yeah, Tuesday morning.
Am I just to bring it all back. Okay, well, Dylan has been super fun speaking of your Instagram. I tell all the listeners where they can follow you and see what you're up to because I think it's really cool. Like, you're going about this in such a different way, but it's always cool to hear a different story.
We talked to the industry professionals for a living on this podcast and like, it's always cool to talk to somebody who's done it in a completely sort of back-asswards way and still kind of falling into like, still being able to be successful. And like, if you get selected for Montenegro competition, you did something right. Right. So yeah.
Yeah, my Instagram is Mr. Underscore and O.W.O. So Mr. No-O.
That's my last time. And yeah, you can find me there. I'm making cocktail videos, making, you know, daily kind of stuff. For me, that is just my personal Instagram.
So you might see some, you might see me post about my cats. I post about my other day in my life and how things are going. But if anyone is ever seeing any videos and wants to tell me what I'm doing wrong in a cocktail, I actually encourage it because that's how I'm learning grow and I can't just have my friends follow me and kind of puff air up my ass. So please give me all the feedback.
That's all I need. Well, I think it's awesome. And like, it's not only that you're open to criticism because you're right. It is the only way that we learn, but also that you've received so much support from like bartenders in your community to help you out.
Like, what a great story, right? Like, I think most people wouldn't expect sort of quote unquote celebrity bartenders to be helping out some guy who just decided to start making cocktails in his apartment. I'm very fortunate that I have such a great core group of friends that are in the bartending space, but also I've been able to meet people that are so helpful everywhere I go. I didn't expect that kind of community to exist.
I went out to Philly a couple weeks ago and went on a bit of a tear and all the bartenders that I followed from there responding to my Instagram stories and like, Hey, you should do this or try this or when I posted a filter and use a cheat squad, like everyone in this community so helpful. And I wouldn't be where I am today without the support of the bartenders that I have met and gotten to. That's awesome. It's basically what this entire podcast is a benefit.
So you're the perfect guest for it. So thanks again for giving us your time tonight, Don. And yeah, good luck with everything going forward. Keep us posted on everything.
So yeah, stay in touch. Well, dude, I gotta reach out and trust with the allure spirits. Like, keep on coming. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm happy to swing some by for you.
So. Okay. Cool. Thanks very much.
Thanks.