Several local bartenders attended and worked behind the scenes to help all the events go. For instance, almost every seminar included multiple samples of various cocktails. They had to be made by someone, and at this seminar you can see that the drinks were mixed by Ryan Fitzgerald of Beretta and Thomas Waugh of Alembic.



Let me just say that these guys worked hard all week long. It wasn't all smiles either, as Ryan, embittered by the amazing amounts of juicing, mixing, fetching and prepping he did all week, demonstrated with the T-shirt he wore quite confrontationally at the awards ceremony on the conference's second-to-last day. It was all in good humor, but I think Ryan could have done with fewer mornings with 8 a.m. call times.



Thanks, guys. Your hard work made my (and everyone else's) experience of Tales quite wonderful. And, see, it evens out. You're home and resting now, while I'm glued to my computer blogging about what you did. Cheers.