“Now is the time to drink!” proclaimed antiquity’s Horace, commenting on Roman social life during the age of Augustus, first emperor of the Roman Empire.
But it may as well been about this weekend in The Hub.
Thirst Boston, the two-day New England cocktail commemoration, returns this weekend with new bells and whistles and big production, immersive spectacles for its fourth year. Hosted by Maureen Hautaniemi, who has produced summer bartending adult-camps in Kentucky and cocktail weeks in Oregon, and partner Nick Korn, a seasoned local bar industry vet and owner of OFFSITE, which has executed a seminar-meets-competition-meets-carnival party lineup for the April 28-30 boozy blowout. The main events go down Saturday and Sunday, with Friday night being all about opening night partying, after-parties, and after-after parties. It stops at after-after. Officially, anyway.
The previous years have laid a pretty solid foundation for the current inception to build upon, which is less about industry insider-baseball and spirit-nerds, and instead errs on the side of approachability without alienating either. And the new series of seminars all held at the BCAE have expanded to include international and national talent from Vancouver to Puerto Rico (part of the new “Thirst Scholars” work-study program for event talent hailing from outside of New England), but still lean heavy on the backyard collective. Rightly so, as the tapestry of lauded city experts and bars/restaurants participating stretches wide, and covers an equally wide patch of hospitality industry-land.
Between legacy titans of the Boston scene like Brother Cleve flexing his defined cocktail historian muscles on a walking tour of Boston’s wet-past (dead Chinatown bars, Combat Zone ghosts) before giving a Tiki Bar masterclass (which he is entirely qualified to do), and barkeep brothers Will and Moe Isaza from Tiger Mama leading a “functional flipping” bar flair how-to, there are plenty of “makes sense” kind of ticketed events.
But it’s the newer ideas, like having Formaggio Kitchen’s head cheesemonger team up with a serious sherry producer from Spain to let you eat a bunch of cheese with ample sherry and know what you’re actually talking about, that accents this year’s vibe; a sort of leg-stretching of overall ethos. An ethos that also includes a booze and pastries rundown with the rising talent Kate Holowchik, currently at the Townshend in the rapidly transforming Quincy Center, and a Boston pedigree thanks to time in the trenches at jm Curley and Yvonne’s.
And the annual liver-love jamboree will bring back their lauded Blender Bender event, only this year it’s the Gender Bender Blender Bender. Twelve teams stocked with talent from Hojoko, The Hawthorne, Uni, and the new A4Cade, will all be doing something with blenders that the crowd at Whiskey Saigon who will get to sample the goods and declare a champion. Some of the proceeds will go to BAGLY (Boston Alliance for Gay and Lesbian Youth).
They’re also transforming an entire floor of the Innovation & Design Building in the Seaport. Think: local craft distillers from New England, and bartenders from equally as diverse locales. Different states will be represented in immersive pavilions (read: NY “pizza dive bar," RI “cabaret”), with teams of four helmed by home-state heroes, bringing their own concoctions all while surrounded by a general state-fair-carnival games. Charity proceeds for this one go to the locally-beloved Lovin’ Spoonfuls non-profit.
Call it a weekend of drinking for charity.
If you go: Thirst Boston; April 28-30; schedule and tickets here.
