With two other partners, is the way that you like coffee also the way that they like coffee?
It is. We definitely are fortunate in that we line up in our vision of things. That helps us move together as a unit, and they put a lot of faith and trust in me to execute the program, do a good job, and they’ll handle the other aspects of it. Not to say that don’t have say. We obviously all cup together, but ultimately the QC, the green buying and roasting all fall to me. They have great faith in me, so that’s great.
At what point did you know that you’d work with coffee for a living?
I think when I started at Gimme!, that first few months at Gimme! – Kevin Cuddeback, the owner, and Mike White, they gave me – something changed for me. Coffee has that interesting ability to grab people, there were people who were architects who wanted to do coffee, there’s a woman here who was a lawyer who wanted to do coffee. Coffee has this interesting way of grabbing people. It definitely did that to me.
What is it about coffee that inspires you?
From a beverage standpoint, it’s such a complex beverage. There can be so much in flavor and aromatics. It can be a really interesting beverage to explore on a number of levels, on variety and roast and preparation, and all of that stuff, but then on working with coffee, coffee has that interesting way of letting you be the artist, sort of the craftsperson, a teacher, sort of the educator of coffee, the showman or the actor, because you get to perform. You are the face that everyone sees every day, and you get to sort of be that joy for them that day, and that’s great too. You get all these aspects of personality, and whatever it is that your personality is good at, there’s a place for you in coffee. That’s what it is. There’s always a place, whether you’re analytical, science, technical minded, or you’re the people person that wants to provide a great experience for another person, or anywhere in between, there’s something for you, which I don’t know is true for every industry.
What aspect appeals to you about bartending?
I’m not good at the self description stuff, but if I had to pin myself down, I’m a craftsperson, so I like the idea of how you build something, how you pull a great espresso and texture a great milk for a great cappuccino, or how you mix ingredients in a cocktail scenario and create some other flavor. I like really nerding out on creating the thing that the customer’s going to enjoy. I love providing that experience for a customer on the beverage side of things.
Did you ever compete in a barista competition?
I never competed. I’ve judged a few of them. I actually judged Mike once, and I gave him his lowest scores. He’ll never let me live it down, either. I gave him his lowest scores.
In which competition?
I think that was Minneapolis. I could be wrong. It’s been awhile. I’ve judged a few rounds. I judged Kyle Glanville, the year he won. That was pretty fun.
What’s a typical coffee consumption day like for you?
I’ll usually come in and have a couple espressos, and then we’ll do a QC cupping where I cup all the roast batches. Then I’ll usually have another coffee or two somewhere in the day. I guess it would be about four or five coffees a day, ish.
Not at night, though?
I usually don’t do a lot of coffee at night, unless – my schedule’s a little erratic right now, because I’m bartending at The Varnish – those days I’ll probably have coffee at night – and these days because we’re roasting at LAMILL’s roasting facility, afterwards at night, those days I shift and drink coffee later, but in a normal scenario, I don’t drink coffee in the evening that often, maybe at a nice dinner I’ll have coffee, but usually not, because usually the coffee’s not very good at restaurants, unfortunately. Hopefully we can change that.
What makes the L.A. coffee scene unique?
One, it’s relatively new, but it’s kind of exciting. I think every market has a bit of preconceived notions, but L.A. is just more receptive, it seems like, to whatever. “Okay, that’s how that goes. Sure, let’s try it.” I’ve said this before, but I think it’s really true. L.A. is populated with craftspeople, in general. They’re either writers trying to perfect their writing, whether that be screenplays or novels or short stories, or they’re actors trying to get better at their craft, or they’re directors trying to get better at their craft, or they’re photographers, or printmakers. So much creative is happening here, and everyone kind of understands that that’s what we do, that we’re trying to make our craft better, and we’re being very specific about how that craft should be executed, and they’re sort of open to that idea. “I get that, because I do that same thing.” I just don’t know a lot of other populations have that. We love it here. L.A.’s been awesome to us.
What does the L.A. coffee scene need to become great, if it isn’t already?
More. We just need more people. More companies. We just want to get more people drinking better coffee. It’s like our relationship with LAMILL – for us it’s not competition – I mean there’s always competition with wholesale accounts – but whatever. If there are more companies actually doing good work, that’s more opportunities to educate the consumer, and you create more coffee drinkers that appreciate great coffee.
Who would pull your last shot of espresso?
Who would pull my last shot of espresso? Like if I never drank espresso again in my life?! Oh man, that’s tough. There are so many. All my friends would be upset. There are so many people I would let pull me espresso. I’m not that specific. I would probably just – I don’t know. I don’t know what I would do. I don’t know how to answer that question. So many of my mentors and friends and teachers, I would love to make me my last espresso. I don’t think I could answer that fairly.
Where does bartending fit into your life as Handsome becomes a bigger part of it?
Handsome is definitely the lion’s share of my time, and I really only do one shift a week at The Varnish, but it’s such an important thing to me, and like I said, they’re kind of like my family. I want to do that as long as it makes sense for them. If I start to travel more and have to trade away all those shifts, eventually it’s going to not be a good idea for them, but I’d like to keep doing it. I’d like to stay part of the family as long as possible, and it’s something that’s fun for me, and again, it appeals to that craftsman side of me. I really like figuring out and creating beverages, and all those different flavor combinations.
Do you feel like working as a bartender at The Varnish has helped you in your duties in the coffee world?
Well, there’s so much overlap in the two worlds. It’s crazy. The way we tend bar at The Varnish, and the way we work a bar in a coffee program like this has a lot of parallels. The whole industry has a lot of parallels, the way we think about water and TDS extraction in coffee, and there’s the idea of how much you’re diluting the coffee and the ice, and ice program, and why you would serve one big cube versus crushed ice and all of these ideas about how of these effects create a perfect beverage, a better beverage. And then there are home coffee enthusiasts and there are home cocktail enthusiasts. Everything is very similar, very, very similar.
Have you combined the two before, alcohol and coffee?
I have. When I was still with Intelligentsia, there was a coffee dinner. Kyle asked me to do cocktails for it, so I created a coffee infusion with Camilo Merizalde’s – one of Camilo’s coffees, it was a dinner for all of his varietals…I just did a simple cocktail, but it was really nice. It turned out really well, and it was a fun experiment, because usually you get coffee and cocktails and it’s already like a coffee liqueur or something, or even if it’s fresh, it’s made with not so great coffee. It was really interesting to see what could be pulled out of the coffee.
What was the infusion?
What spirit did I use? It was vodka, a neutral spirit, so that I could really highlight the coffee, and I could portion it out in a cocktail the way I wanted instead of making it a much larger component. It’s a strong flavor, so I wanted to balance it.
What else went into the cocktail?
It was a lemon honey soju cocktail, because we had to use soju. No full liquor license there. So we did a soju infusion, so it’s basically like a neutral spirit infusion, and soju as the base spirit. That was it. So it was like a quarter ounce of coffee in there.
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