Veronica Saye and Josh Lindley mix the “Heather Jean” at Monday’s MadeWithLove Toronto Finals. Image via MadeWithLove
In January, I attended the preliminary round of the annual MadeWithLove Toronto cocktail competition. I watched Toronto’s top bartenders flambé, grate, twist and strain their way to cocktails so innovative I marveled at the depths of their alcohol-hazed minds. The clarity of the pairings! The purity of the tastes! The cocktail encased in smoke filled bell-jar! But there was something noticeably lacking from the pool of 27 competitors: Women.
Of the group, only three were women, and of those, only one, Veronica Saye of The Harbord Room made it through to the final round of competition held this past Monday at the Distillery District’s Fermenting Cellar. I couldn’t help but wonder why there aren’t more women at an elite level of bartending in our cocktail-hungry city. So, in the lead up to Monday’s competition, I met up with Saye herself to get an insider’s opinion on why more women aren’t stepping up behind the bar.
Saye has been bartending for just over nine years, but only really started learning about spirits seriously about four years ago when she started managing Queen West’s Savoy. Brining on friend Josh Lindley (now of Rock Lobster) to bartend, Saye took advantage of Lindley’s coaching (he had trained under Mike Webster at the Drake) to start seriously learning the craft. “I’m still so new at it,” says Saye of her tenure in bartending. “There’s still so much to know and…I would just kind of hate to be the person that thinks that they know everything when they don’t.” But with a spot in the MadeWithLove finals this year, she is clearly doing something right.
Though she got into the business to make money, Saye stayed for the social atmosphere she felt she fit into. Throughout our meeting, she is emphatic about how comraderous she finds the industry to be and how willing fellow bartenders are to “bring you up and share recipes.” Her experience with the industry’s openness is precisely why she didn’t even notice she was the only female to make it to the MadeWithLove finals. “I guess I was surprised at first because I haven’t …experienced the feeling [that] it’s a boy’s club,” she says of her short tenure in cocktail bartending. “I’m just surrounded by all these wonderful women in this industry that [the lack of women in this competition wasn’t] something that I had really thought of until it was brought to my attention.”
But to examine it more critically, Say doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that she’s the only female bartender in the finals. “I would say that yes, there are fewer bartenders at that sort of level that are female… but I don’t think that people view that as a stigma that we have. I think it’s just kind of [the state of] this city right now in general.” The way she sees it, a lot of women have already “made it” and paved the route for people like herself to feel at ease and to “not be concerned about the fact that [they’re] a female.” She looks to people like Sandy De Almedia and Christina Kypers, and Harbord Room colleague Liz Campbell as pioneers who broke through the boy’s club and paved a path for Saye to feel confident as a woman in a male dominated industry. “It’s not intimidating,” she says of the prospect of being the only female in the competition. “I think it’s kind of fun. I’d love to be the girl that beats out all the boys…why not, right?”
At the event qualifiers back in January, I couldn’thelp but notice how the male competitors had more showmanship when it came to making and presenting their cocktails. The women, not quite so in your face, let the drinks do most of the talking. I asked Saye if she thought a natural proclivity for competition was part of the reason you find more men at an elite level of bartending, and in these competitions. As someone who grew up in a house of mostly boys, she agrees that that could be a contributing factor, “but women that want to be part of it will know how to step up…and compete on an even playing field,” she counters.
For her sake, she knows bartending is where she wants to be. “This is my career for sure” she says when I ask her about whether she sees herself doing this long term. She also has advice for other women trying to break in–sit on the other side of the bar as much as possible. “[Be] a part of the industry as a bartender and as a guest because it help you to understand what the person who’s sitting on the other side of the wood wants from you…that’s really how I did a lot of my learning and where a lot of my inspiration comes from.”
As for the competition, despite her excitement, Saye acknowledges that she will be out of her element. “My focus right now is learning classic cocktails and with the knowledge of classic cocktails then comes being able to create your own…[so] I’m outside of my box right now.” Nevertheless, going into to the night, she is excited about serving the 600-odd people due to be in attendance her “Heather Jean” cocktail, named for her best friend and reminiscent of Cherry Coke. “I wanted to challenge myself, so I did and we’ll see how it goes. I think it’s going to be a crowd pleaser.”
Veronica Saye’s “Heather Jean” cocktail at Monday’s MadeWithLove Toronto Finals. Image via MadeWithLoveMake your very own Heather Jean:
1 oz Hornitos Reposado Tequila
3/4 oz Smoked Lemon Juice
3/4 oz Cherry Liqueur (Herring Cherry)
3/4 oz Homemade Cola/Chili Syrup (reduce cola with chili flakes)
3 other ingredients Saye is excited about at the moment:
Green Chartreuse – A French Liqueur with a bitter/sweet herbal flavor
Scotch – “It’s almost like wine where the terroir is so important to the flavor and even just a couple of miles can completely change what a Scotch tastes like” says Saye
Mezcal – New and growing in popularity with a lot of bartneders in Ontario, Saye likes how its smokiness and complexity are comparable to those traits in Scotch.
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Eva Voinigescu is an intern at Toronto Standard. Follow her on Twitter @EvaVoinigescu.
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