Park City will be well represented at the Tales of the Cocktail conference that will run from July 21-26 in New Orleans.
High West Saloon‘s Matthew Huntley and Nicole Kuo Stankovic from Szechwan Chinese Kitchen will be on site as Grey Coat mentors in the Cocktail Apprenticeship Program (CAP), while High West Saloon’s Arianna Hone will be there, fittingly, in spirit.
“Tales of the Cocktail is a bartending event where a lot of brands and people in the industry present their ideas,” Kuo Stankovic said. “And because the program is worldwide, you’re not just seeing what people are doing in the United States.”
Huntley said, “If there was a university for bartenders, this would be it. It’s a program that I feel is super prestigious in our industry.”
Hone, who was the first apprentice from Utah in 2019, decided to sit this year out.
“This is the first year I’m not going, but I’ve gone in 2022 and 2023, after Tales of the Cocktail took a hiatus during COVID in 2020 and 2021,” she said.
CAP is an exclusive mentorship program for up-and-coming bartenders to learn alongside some of the biggest names in the business, and since its inception in 2008, more than 540 apprentices have gained experience working and managing large-scale, high-volume events while providing an invaluable service to Tales of the Cocktail Foundation.
The foundation is a nonprofit that uses education to advance the hospitality industry, while advancing the industry’s leadership and the development of standards through making lasting impacts in communities through financial and promotional support of individuals and organizations, according to the Tales of the Cocktail website. Park Record reached out to the organization but hasn’t received a reply as of press deadline.
Kuo Stankovic and Huntley first served at Tales of the Cocktail last year as Red Coats, which are first-level apprentices.
“It was such a profound experience and extremely humbling to receive an email and read that I had been accepted as an apprentice,” Huntley said. “It was an honor to be named one of the 70 participants from all over the world, and that gives you confidence and reassurance that although our industry can vary in many ways, you get a sense that you are heading in the right direction.”
Kuo Stankovic had first attended Tales of the Cocktail two years ago as a registrant, and that experience inspired her to apply last year for an apprenticeship.
“I remember sitting in one of the seminars with my bar team and watching one of the apprentices serving cocktails, and I thought, ‘I want to be like that,'” she said. “So the next year, I applied. It was a shot in the dark. I was bartending in Seattle, and I felt incredibly lucky and honored to be there.”
Kuo Stankovic and Huntley were two of 70 selected to be Red Coats out of 500 applications, and although they hadn’t met before, they ended up sitting together at a dinner.
“I was born and raised in Park City, but representing Seattle, and Matt was from Park City, which was the connection to home that I needed,” Kuo Stankovic said. “So, this year, I’ll be representing Park City, my hometown, too, and that’s so meaningful to me.”
The role of Red Coat apprentices is to “learn and absorb,” according to Hone.
Under Grey Coat mentors, they create cocktales for seminars, tastings and other events such as the Tales Catalyst and Spirited Awards, she said.
“The next level is the Grey Coats, which I have done in the past two years,” Hone said. “As a Grey Coat, you actually run the Tales of the Cocktail seminars. And you are not only mentoring the Red Coat class, but also coordinating with presenters and making sure the seminars run smoothly and making sure presenters have all the special ingredients they need.”
There are only 20 Grey Coats selected each year, and Huntley and Kuo Stankovic are looking forward to their new roles as mentors.
“Going back to my experience as a Red Coat, I had the best experience because of my Grey Coat (mentor),” Huntley said. “I felt like her leadership style, attitude and personality was something I resonated with. And that was something I adopted within myself after my first year.”
So, as a Grey Coat, Huntley will reflect on what his mentor did.
“I hope that my leadership is as impactful as the one I experienced in my first year,” he said. “I hope to facilitate great times and a positive work environment because it can be stressful.”
Kuo Stankovic remembers watching Hone as a Grey Coat last year.
“Seeing how Arianna did things and how she made everything run so smoothly was amazing,” she said. “So, I hope being a Grey Coat this year gives me an opportunity to hopefully be like that.”
Unlike Huntley, Kuo Stankovic isn’t a full-time bartender.
“So I feel like the mentorship space is a little more comfortable for me,” she said. “But I remember what it was like to be a Red Coat, and I hopefully will help them feel comfortable.”
Kuo Stankovic and Huntley discovered bartending through different avenues.
“In a way I’ll never be able to leave service, because I was born into it,” she said. “My mom, Wendy, owned Szechwan from the time it was on Main Street to now, where it’s at Kimball Junction, and I remember watching her run around the restaurant while I was sitting in a fortune cookie box and playing with a spoon.”
The Main Street site had a full bar but stopped bar service after moving its Best of State Award-winning restaurant to Kimball Junction in the 1990s, Kuo Stankovic said.
“When I got older, Mom started thinking about adding a full bar, but she felt a little nervous bringing it back,” she said. “I was going to school in Seattle and decided to enroll in a basic bartending school. I fell in love with it immediately, and when I came back to Park City, I told my mom what we needed and all of that.”
Huntley found the hospitality community within the pre-pandemic barspace.
“Originally it was something to do while attending art school and it was nothing that I thought would impact me the way it did,” he said. “I went into it thinking it would be a temporary job and a stepping stool until I graduate, but it soon began to captivate me. I began to realize how essential the job is. Bartenders serve experiences, not just drinks. And I will forever be a catalyst for more conversation.”
Huntley never felt like he was a confident speaker growing up, but for some reason the conversations flow when he’s behind a bar in his uniform.
“I can bypass that insecurity,” he said. “I’m so passionate about bartending that I don’t think about public speaking. But you’re really on stage. This is bar theater.”
Hone was already a mixologist at High West Saloon when she discovered Tales of the Cocktail.
“Being in Utah the market is a little isolating, so I decided to Google social media pages of people I admired within the hospitality industry,” she said. “I came across the Cocktail Apprenticeship Program, and I applied.”
Hone remembers the naysayers.
“They would tell me things like, ‘You’re from Utah, and no one knows Utah’ or ‘You’re not going to get in,'” she said. “But I felt like Utah was starting to make its mark. So, one part of me was wanting to show people what was going on in Utah and put us out there and another part of me was wanting to progress personally.”
Hone is reaping the benefits of participating in the Tales of the Cocktail programming.
“Tales runs their programs efficiently and ergonomically,” she said. “Matt and I run the bar at High West, and being able to run a bar with someone who has been through the same programming has helped things flow better. We have designated prep shifts for the bar team, so we’re not ’86ing’ cocktails and ingredients.”
Hone also has learned how to analyze her staff.
“I work on figuring out how I can better help people with their personal and professional goals,” she said.
Participating in Tales of the Cocktail apprenticeships has also upped Kuo Stankovic’s enjoyment of being a bartender.
“I love combining the technical aspects of bartending and the creative side,” said Kuo Stankovic, who has a masters in chemistry and piano. “The other thing I love is the people you get to meet within the industry and the people who just stop by. When I bartended corporate events or weddings and things like that, people are usually at their happiest. And giving someone something to relax with so they don’t have to think about what’s happening in our world right now is amazing.”