Shaken & stirred
Top bartenders from region share their finest, most creative cocktails at Thirst fest
It may be held in the Hub, but the multiday cocktail festival Thirst Boston, now in its fourth year, is increasingly tapping talent that spills across state borders — thereby giving guests a chance to sample the best of the bar scenes in several New England cities.
“As a growing company, we wanted to expand our scope,” said event producer Maureen Hautaniemi, who co-founded Thirst Boston in 2013. This year the festival will run Friday to Sunday, drawing some of the region's best bartenders for boozy parties, cocktail competitions, spirits-related seminars and other special events at venues across the city. Among the highlights is Saturday's State Lines, a new state fair-inspired bash at Boston's Innovation & Design Building, where, at pavilions representing each corner of New England (plus New York), teams of beverage industry gurus will shake up creative tonics that show off what's most special about their home state's cocktail culture. Think of it as an indoor Big E, but for alcohol. “We wanted to invite people to pop up a bar that is representative of their state's culture and the places where they work,” Hautaniemi said.
For instance, there's a lot to share about the Pine Tree State's bar scene, said Sylvi Roy, a bartender at Portland Hunt + Alpine Club, a chic, Scandinavian-inspired cocktail lounge previously nominated for Outstanding Bar Program in the James Beard awards, the Oscars of the food and beverage world.
Roy is lead bartender for the Maine contingent at Thirst, as Portland in particular has emerged in recent years as a nationally lauded, darling destination for top-notch dining and drinking. For State Lines, Roy has designed a spring-appropriate “botanical cocktail”: the gin-based West End Window Box, made with beet juice and a three-chili syrup from Brunswick, Maine-based company Royal Rose Simple Syrup.
The drink's name nods to Roy's Portland apartment, where she grows dill, rosemary, thyme and other herbs used for some of her cocktails. That casualness is in keeping with the local culture.
“Portland's scene is really laid-back,” Roy said. “Even for the highest-quality restaurant, you don't feel like you have to dress up. Every day at work, I'm wearing a plaid shirt. Classic Maine.”
On the other side of the style spectrum, the Rhode Island pavilion will feature a “1930s cabaret theme” inspired by the old-school haunts of Providence's Italian-American enclave Federal Hill, said Kayleigh Speck, who will lead the Ocean State's bar squad. She's a vet of The Grange, a trendy Providence vegetarian restaurant and cocktail bar, and vice-
president of the Rhode Island chapter of the U.S. Bartenders’ Guild, a 1948-founded national nonprofit that works to advance cocktail-making as a craft and a career. Her team is working on gin-based cocktails augmented with from-scratch elixirs such as a rosemary and blackberry cordials.
Speck said that in Providence, the cocktail culture benefits from being part of a “college city” that attracts international influences. It certainly helps that it is home to Johnson & Wales University, a leading hospitality and culinary arts school, she added, ensuring a steady influx of ambitious young talent in the food and beverage realms. Just prior to Thirst, Speck is participating in the women-helmed Dinner by Dames series at the Eat Drink RI Festival, which runs tomorrow through Saturday.
Though State Lines may emerge as a signature Thirst Boston event, the festival lineup covers much more ground. The seminars, geared toward bar pros and amateur imbibers alike, are diverse: Expect a historic walking tour covering legendary Combat Zone bars, a boozy dessert-making class and an ice carving course, among other clever sessions. Additional parties include a so-called Cocktail Atlas kick-off bash at Chinatown spot Shojo, where guests will sip from internationally inspired elixirs, and the Gender Bender Blender Bender, at Downtown club Whisky Saigon, where bartenders in drag will sling cocktails in a competition to benefit the Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Youth.
Hautaniemi said the Thirst team is also mulling plans for a new festival dedicated to oysters and spirits. First, sate your thirst; next, perhaps, slurp.