From WXXI news.

This is connections co-hosting with my colleague Leah Stacey.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Well, the United States is in what some industry experts are referring to as a kind of alcohol recession.

Beer and wine sales have been hit the hardest, but even some premium spirit brands are seeing significant declines in the past year.

But an annual event, which I've worked on for a decade now, seeks to bring some light into the scene.

With that in mind, this week's final episode feels like happy hour.

It's all about the 12th annual Rochester Cocktail revival.

RCR, which returns June 2nd through eighth in RCR.

The only week long festival of its kind in New York state made possible by more than 30 Rochester bars and arts venues.

More than 70 events across downtown Rochester.

I've been a judge for the final bartender battle in years past, and many, many of the events and my co-host this hour, Leah Stacy, editor of City Magazine and producer of RCR, has a lot of experience with this.

So.

So that's the full disclosure part of it.

I mean, Leah has been intimately involved with this outstanding event for a long time, and that's why I'm just going to let Leah introduce the guest, and I'll come back in an hour.

Okay, great.

so we would like to welcome this our chucks.

Aaron Koski, director of Rochester Cocktail revival.

Thanks for having me.

Among many other things which we'll talk about.

Pat Stutz, the owner and operator of Ziggy's.

Hey.

Happy to be here.

Yeah.

Have you could join us this year?

Flo Cornella, head bartender at Linares High, high.

Your hair looks great.

I'm so glad we're on YouTube so people can see it.

And they're not like, oh, yeah.

For a second I was like, but now I'm like, no, no, we got that.

Yeah, you should be watching on YouTube on WXXI news is here on YouTube.

It is good.

and joining us at 130 via, video call is Kat Olson, who is the artistic director of Cat in the coyote, an immersive dance and theater company.

So, yeah, that's coming up here.

So.

Yeah.

so in many ways, Leah, this is your show here.

It's been your show for a long time, so the RTR.

Oh, not connections.

Well, can I that's a bummer.

No connections to.

And in so many ways here.

but what's the role of city mag here?

So for the past.

Well, this will be our third year partnering with city, I believe, as part of our ACR.

So I've been with RCR for about a decade, I think.

Does that sound right?

That sounds right.

Okay, yeah, that's a long time.

I haven't done a few things.

It's adult through it's adult phase.

It's adult phase.

It it.

Pupa.

Chrysalis stage.

That feels like a word we should not say.

And yet it's also 12.

That's not 12 yet.

Well, you know, it depends on who you ask.

But dog years.

Duck years.

There it is.

It's an old boy.

So this will be our our third year partnering with the city, for a city social during our siesta, which is always a lot of fun.

the past two years, we've done it on the promenade, which is that walkway that goes kind of between dinosaur barbecue and the skate park.

If you've not been down there, it's pretty cool.

It goes along the river.

we are changing the location this year, and on the Friday of June 6th, we're going to have a High Falls happy hour.

And we're going to do our little city social on the Ponta run because the city has finished it.

Maybe under Enbridge, the Ponte around my favorite place in Rochester.

Really?

You're so close every day.

I know, and so it's been tough because it's been closed for all these repairs.

So that's a great place.

And now we can go on our lake.

Little walks.

It's just dangerous because the brewhouse is at the other end.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but we are.

Yeah.

We're bringing it down to this.

neighborhood, and we have a sponsorship for that event.

Also from we the hobby, which is a very fun, gaming.

It's really like a gaming center.

They do all kinds of things down on, Arlington near.

Good luck, actually.

And, we also have Garber Automotive joining for us, joining us for that.

And then the Apex Way, which is also in the neighborhood.

So Moose and Breezy are going to be doing some fun things there.

it's going to be great.

We're having all New York vendors.

We'll have street fair.

What is that by the way?

That is Friday, June 6th from 5 to 8.

Yeah.

So that's that's our city social this month.

I know I get a lot of emails and social media asks about that.

So keep an eye for those details.

And that's only one of 70 events.

So we have a lot more to talk about.

and I am going to start with Pat actually, because last year you did not get to come on the show with us and you were so bummed, but you had like a pretty good reason for missing the show.

Yes.

over at Ziggy's next at Bitter Honey and Cinco de Mayo was a bit of a year.

Year, Super Bowl for us.

And my daughter decided to be born on Cinco de Mayo proper.

So when you had reached out to ask me to join you guys, I really wanted to, but I think I was 4 or 5 days without a shower at that point.

It was, it was grind and I knew that it was get as a new dad.

It's pretty YouTube though, you know, so you can't really gotten away with.

Yeah, just the voice aspect.

Not anymore.

Yeah.

That's true.

Hey what's that, beeping in the background, like.

Oh, sorry.

I got to go take a cab to go change my daughter for the first time.

I'll cut right back in there.

How's that going, by the way?

being a dad is probably one of the greatest joys I have going.

And I see, because Jack could have disabused you of that notion.

I'm kidding.

I mean, that's cool.

Chuck seems to be a pretty cool.

Your dad is the best.

Yeah, they're the dads of RCR.

So one of the reasons that we wanted Pat to come on the show is because you have stepped up to comic the barroom battle, which is our big closing climactic, which Flo has.

Then we'll talk about your role in our crew soon.

But, you know, it's it's, I would say our biggest event.

We have it at Radio Social.

It's about 600, 700 people every year.

And so you guys are seeing and you you also I want you to talk about just the what we're seeing in the cocktail culture here because I know we started with this, the sort of like depressing, like, oh, we're in a spirit recession.

But there are pop ups and competitions and things going on that the two of you are really a huge part of in the community.

And I know Flo, you love education, so we're going to talk about that too.

But what do you like?

How is craft cocktail going here and cocktail culture going here in Rochester right now?

the answer simply, I think it's continually growing, getting stronger with every new event and every new opportunity for a younger and younger demographic of bartenders coming up in our city.

you know, when I was coming up, there was the the early years of RCR, and there were opportunities, but very few.

And you had to travel very far to get to those tales of the cocktail, you know, bar Convent Brooklyn, Tiki Bar to see all these different opportunities that present themselves for bartenders on a national scale.

were the things that you had to go and travel and take advantage of relationships that you built online or by ordering product and, you know, I did as many of those things as I possibly could.

And what I was always most impressed with was the community and how you met one person at one event.

And then more than likely a year later, you'd run into him at a different conference in another part of the country.

And what's been really cool about Rochester, I would even say coming out of the pandemic, is that there's a lot of things that we miss about a pre-pandemic bar world, but a lot of things right now centered around connectivity and trying to, you know, promote everybody and grow together.

And cocktail competitions have helped a lot with that, as well as just trying to find out where everybody wants to go for a drink when they clock out of their shifts.

and last year we, we worked, we the team over at Ziggy's works very, very strongly with 10 to 1 to do his daiquiri contest once a month.

That ultimately culminated in this big event that we had last year at the launch of RCR.

And there were two people then who went down in New York City to compete against a team of, bartenders from New York City in this massive party down there with, quite a bit of some who's who and Rochester won and Rochester did, in fact win.

We brought down like 50 people knocked out in New York City.

We did.

Let's go.

We did our home turf.

Yes.

In Brooklyn.

They could have thrown it.

Yeah, they did it.

Rochester won it.

Yeah, yeah.

There was a there was a lot of emotion in the air and a lot of like, who are these cats to come out here and win this competition.

But that was really cool to get people 50, 60 people for Rochester down there when they didn't have to.

They weren't getting paid to really speaks to the community.

And, that's carrying very strongly into this RCR and what we've been doing so far this year, I'm going to put my nerd wine hat on, because that's it's almost exactly 50 years since the judgment of Paris, when the United States took their wines to Paris in a blind tasting against French wines.

And the French are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, come on over.

Come on over, suckers.

Go for it.

And then the French judges were like, what did I vote for?

I voted for the California wine, said, I really do them.

And, you know, it was a very big deal.

So Rochester knocking out New York City on their home turf kind of feels like a I'm just going to say it sort of feels like it.

Yeah.

Well and Chuck that was kind of the connectivity and the collaboration that that Patrick is referencing is really the what started RCR 12 years ago.

And can you just talk a little bit about how the from that point to now where we're in this post-pandemic still I would say upward slope?

can you talk about how craft code cocktail culture has changed here?

Sure.

I've been on that program promoting culture revival a few times.

So this story may have been heard by some listeners before, but when Cocktail Revival was kind of an epiphany because the first edition happened in 2014.

And so somewhere before that, I was behind one of my bars, I owned a few and around town, and there was this very young couple, and they were they were in cure, one of my bars, and they were I got to talking with them like, what are you guys doing tonight?

And they're like, oh, well, we just came from this place daily refresher.

And then we're, now we're here cure.

And then we're going to go to this place called Good Luck.

And then we're going to go to, the, the, the, the revelry and then maybe have time to go to one more.

And I like, was thinking like, these kids don't know what they're doing with their bar hopping, but they're doing a cocktail bars and with their looking for is the experience of the bars.

They're not like trying to do shots.

They want to try all these drinks in these nice environments and check it out.

And then, we got a whole group of bar owners and people together to say, is this a good idea?

And we had a bunch of meetings and tried to try to like to work it out.

And what we discovered is that the camaraderie in the community that Pat was talking about was pretty amazing.

Like, you know, we're all wet.

There's there's 32 bars, part of Cocktail Revival and actually, just if flow is representing Leonore is and Pat is representing Ziggy's and I'm representing Martine, we're all technically competitors like technically in the in the marketplace.

But we also know that rising tide lifts all boats.

And as as trite as that is what we learned from that 2014 all throughout is that the more that we reach out to each other and share bartenders for shifts and have competitions or events and invite everybody, if one bar gets the, if one bar gets the fortune to have like a speaker from out of town come to their bar like they blast it out there, like everybody come like they I don't know why they emailed us, but they did.

So check this out.

Do this event.

And it makes it makes the community stronger.

It makes the food and beverage beverage community stronger.

There's an artistic there's a create.

There's a creative, sort of payoff from that where we we make Rochester more vibrant and fun for people to go out in and then there's also a very not to be true, but there's a very, I don't know, career career minded or there's a very like lucrative, pathetic is established for those working in the industry because all of a sudden you're not just just working behind a bar, you're working behind a bar that, like Dale DeGraff came and gave a seminar and or you were about a bar and then like, because you work behind this bar, New York City recognizes you and you go down to 11 Madison Park two weeks ago and they show you the new cocktail bar upstairs, and they invite you behind it to make a drink.

And you're just a kid from Rochester, New York.

And it shows you that hospitality community and the restaurant industry here along with it is something that's like worth it.

That's something that can can support careers and support livelihoods and all the good things that should happen from a job.

Despite the fact that it's long nights and lots of work.

And I want to segue right over to flow after that, because I think you're in the thick of a lot of the things he mentioned.

For sure, the continuing education, you are traveling and taking notes on mixology when you're doing that.

I'm a big fan of your savory cocktails.

Yeah.

So talk a little bit about how how you look at this career.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I kind of lean on a lot of what both of you have said, so far, which is community.

I talk to people as much as I can, whether it's other bartenders, guests, they're like, oh, this one time I had this one drink at this one spot that I can't even remember the name of, but it gave me this feeling.

So for me, it's a lot about chasing not only flavor, but feeling and making somebody have a memorable experience telling a story, making like a punny name, you know, saying the proceeds from this drink are going to benefit this charity this month, stuff like that, which is I have great role models all around me.

The whole city is filled with folks doing all kinds of charitable work, which is the whole the whole thing of RCR.

Aside from celebrating cocktails and spirits and community, it's also giving back to Gilda's, which to me, like my first year when I was working a daily, I was like, whoa.

Like, I didn't know that that bartending could also be like a charitable activity.

I didn't know that that was an option.

So that for me, it was something that made me reevaluate my entire career path.

And now this is kind of what I want to do with the rest of my life.

I think maybe, maybe bartend, maybe open a place who says I, I love that, yeah.

And you have been one of the people throughout the year who will text me and say, hey, can we do a seminar on this thing?

Yeah.

can you talk about why continuing education is also so important?

Yeah, absolutely.

I think that the more that you know, and the more access to knowledge that you have, the farther it's going to take you, you know, the the more open your eyes are, the more that you can open the eyes of others.

I don't that sounds like a little bit cheesy, but it's really something I believe in.

and regards to setting up seminars, you know, I just love to learn.

I wanted to be a librarian and in a past life, so I think that's probably got something to do with it.

But the seminars that we have are so amazing.

I know, Sydney had a Di over wine seminar last year, and I think that just because this, this event or, you know, our careers are focused around serving drinks, and learning about spirits, it doesn't mean that we only have to talk about that, you know, like you can get down to the meat of something and kind of learn about a person and what's going on in their life and build community and connection that way.

So the more you can learn, the further you can, you know, take yourself and others.

Yeah.

And I will say it's because of flows, ideas and just energy around the seminars that we've planned.

Some of the ones we have, including basic ASL for bartenders, which, you know, we live in such a large per capita deaf and hard of hearing community, I think we're the second or third largest in the nation.

And so to have those basic science under your belt and to just get that refresher every year, that's something that we actually had our first sponsor ship of that event, right.

This year.

yeah.

That was a, we've, we've, we've done this program now that has been manifested in seminar and interpreting form, where we look to make sure that our, our events cater to the deaf community.

And, we kind of adopted that as a value a couple of years ago because we know that the population of the deaf population in Rochester is great enough that we should be able to serve them in the restaurants.

So we kind of use it as a refresher for bartender training.

But this year is cool.

Tito's Handmade Vodka stepped up and underwrote the the whole program.

So it gives us more, resources to put interpreters, at more events and to also to do a workshop on American Sign Language.

Yeah.

And that's cool to to see during the year when we are, you know, in a spirit recession.

And I have these numbers in front of me that there's a us per capita alcohol consumption is at its lowest since 1962.

I mean, to be honest, I didn't know this.

With a 10% drop from 2021.

I think there are some clear connections we can make there.

Not to get too topical.

but we all know what 2021 was.

I think people spent a long time drinking the year before that in alone in their houses or alcohol sales were up in 2020, right?

I mean, we all remember that.

Certainly none of the restaurants there was a different case.

Yeah.

but but I do think we're seeing this like, we're turned to maybe an awareness.

But I will say, and I want you all to weigh in because you're working actually on the floor at places you're seeing the data and the numbers from, guests.

It does not seem to be affecting RCR so far this year, maybe to the great degree that we thought it might.

and I'm curious.

do you see people coming in to the bars?

Are people still drinking?

Are you getting a lot of requests for.

And there may be some insulation like for RCR.

Yeah.

For, for establishments like Martine or or whatever.

Yeah.

That we may have an alcohol recession and yet there's some insulation in some places.

Yeah.

Maybe it's pretty cold here.

Oven.

That's there's the first slow kind of set in a minute ago.

And Ziggy's, Ziggy's and Leona's and all of the other friends that are part of Cox revival.

Again, they they don't they don't provide.

It's it's not a, it's not a, set of feedlot, for, for alcoholism.

It's a, it's an experience.

And cocktails by nature are meant to be, you know, you have 2 or 3 of them in a visit.

It's not something that you just trying to pound down and get inebriated when you're in a spot.

of course there's there's some fun exceptions to that, but, no, we're offering an experience and we I think that you see the the on premise established is quite busy.

It's never easy.

It's never easy.

There's lots of slow nights.

There's lots of lots of, like, difficulties getting people in.

the other part about it and I think, well, actually, you guys talk about your bars or do you think it's busy?

I think you get a lot of people and yeah, I mean, there definitely are nights that are much slower than others, but you you always take the highs with the lows and, you know, you do all you're from a business perspective.

All you're spending on the, the average of them.

Right.

I will make as a note that for the what, 12 years now I've been working professionally with food and beverage.

I have never had such, push from my guest base to offer such, an array of nonalcoholic options.

So just like people not drinking, I mean, two years ago, even three years ago, like pandemic aside, if you had said that I needed to have a fully fledged, like 3 or 4 cocktail, menu with no alcohol in there, I would have laughed.

I would have been like, no, not just like one Vito item, but like multiple but multiple offerings.

Like what?

Like the question, is posed regularly, like, what do you have for non alcoholics?

You know, and it's past just.

Oh, I have, you know, cold brew coffee or a kombucha, you know, it's like, oh, what what nonalcoholic beers do you have?

What nonalcoholic cocktails do you have on your menu?

I mean, Athletic Brewing is like TJ and a local distributor.

It's one of their number one selling products in stores like Wegmans.

That's just what people are drinking now.

And I don't know if our guests can also weigh in on some of the generational shift, because when you look at some of the decline in alcohol sales, some of it literally is for things like tariffs and inflation, some of it is government health labeling.

And there was a lot of buzz last year about that especially.

And but it's Gen Z too.

So Gen Z what I it's just what I was about to say as well.

So yeah, legalization of cannabis so hundred percent.

Okay.

So that's having an impact.

So if I were to put there like inflation, government health labeling cannabis and then Gen Z as a generic and by the way, I know there's people in Gen Z across I mean like across the spectrum some don't.

You get all some people go out and enjoy the cocktail scene, I get it.

But as a group as a whole, Gen Z is drinking less and what what are those options?

They're accounts most for a decline.

It sounds like Chuck, you jumped right on cannabis.

So you think that's the biggest impact?

It's got to be one of them.

I mean, dinner parties, things that I go to with friends, like people consume cannabis is legal and it's out in the open.

Instead of having a drink.

Yes, yes.

But but I think I think we're saying I mean Leonore is is has literally Liza is thriving.

It's busy every time I go right, I'm sometimes just busy every time I go.

We just expanded.

So we have like a lot more room for folks now.

But, there's definitely like one slow day a week, but mostly pretty busy.

The bar scene is healthy.

I think that it changes how people, when you look at the when you look at the large swath of how people are consuming alcohol, it is going to hit certain on premise locations harder.

It's going to change habits in the grocery store and getting an a beer.

But I think that the takeaway is that the bar culture is still very strong, because bars stay open and hire new people and business increases, and we do stuff and we're able to support this festival and the other side of it, because the way for those listening, the way the cocktail revival works, is that liquor brands, we have over 60 of them this year.

So still in this decline, we have over 60 liquor brands that are contributing something, anything from $500 to some over $10,000 to support the festival.

They make those payments to Gilda's Club and then the Gilda's Club then supports the parties and the events that we do.

They're not writing checks.

There's not a blank check culture that there was before the pandemic in 2018 and 2019.

Brands, I mean, they didn't even think about it.

And I'm not trying I'm not being presumptuous.

And we don't we don't like whatever you need, whenever you need.

And now it's a lot more work and meetings and talking.

Everyone's talking about budgets, everyone's talking about, you know, there's there's some companies that have just said we're not doing marketing this year, this quarter, there are harder conversations, but the the spirit is still there.

And we are really if we're looking at it as you know, from a very business perspective, Cocktail revival 2025 is on par to raise the same amount for Gilda's as it did last year, somehow.

So it's a lot more conversations.

And there's not there's not just seven big fish.

There's a lot of smaller brands putting, you know, putting in, but it's always been a competitive market.

Gin categories, tequila categories get increasingly competitive.

and again, whether it's marijuana weed, or gen Z or Ozempic, I've heard that rumor before.

Tariffs or you know, there's all of these things as epic apparently decreases your desire to drink alcohol.

Someone told me that that's on it, I don't know, they they work for a spiritual leader.

There's not any one thing, but there's a lot of there's a new one.

There's a lot of a lot of things.

But here's the other thing.

And Flo and Pat can jump back in here in a second, because actually, whenever it's relevant, we can talk about my friend Dale de Graaf.

But Dave de Graaf once someone was talking him I think was during the pandemic of like, is this the end of bars?

Like, are people going to stop going?

And he pointed out that human beings, having been going to drinking establishments for over a millennia, so like for a long time, it's not going to change overnight.

Athletic brewing is not going to change it.

There might be some trends, and I mean, even to those in Gen Z that are like, it's something like a third of Gen Z doesn't drink or never has or something like that.

Like.

Right.

It's a to some of you will some of you.

Well don't worry.

Well and we'll be here when you're ready to.

Yeah we're here I'm at.

And what's the oldest Gen Z right now.

Oldest Gen Z is.

Oh and I don't actually know.

It's like Jamie what's the oldest Gen Z?

2021 no, it's older than that.

Hey, Siri, what's the almighty look at you?

The oldest members of generation Z are around 27 years old, 20 years.

Gotcha.

I like that that the European ability that you're a competency.

Yeah.

So Gen Z is getting toward 30 years old.

Yeah.

I, I if I could jump in here for a second to, you know, thinking back and the things that I've learned like while traveling, as I mentioned earlier, one quote that really stuck with me for a while was is much as we work in the food and beverage industry, it's far more important to focus in on people in relationships, and that's a huge part of building a community.

If it's a Friday night and I'm behind the bar and I have a great interaction with some guests and they're out and about looking to go to the next spot, they're going to ask me, hey, where should I go?

And what I'm going to say is ask a couple of follow up questions.

But ultimately, like what I recommend to someone is based on the experience I had with the human behind that bar.

So if I say, hey, you definitely should go check out lianas.

What I'm specifically referring to is I hope Flo's behind the bar, and you get to have the experience that I had when I was there, sitting in front of Flo.

And as someone who is now a part of like the hiring and, you know, managing of humans, it's becoming increasingly more difficult to hire a younger generation of people who have an interest in making genuine human connections with guests.

It's getting harder.

Yeah, I would say so.

I mean, I was at I can find exceptions all over the place, but it's just like the basic social interaction of how to order at a bar or how to interact with someone when ordering a beverage or just having any sort of, you know, like transactional relationship.

It just seems like there's a couple of steps missing.

Whereas if I was to go to someone, I don't want to say necessarily more experience, but someone who's lived a little bit longer, it seems to be more casual.

I don't know if anybody else has the same feeling.

I think it might be getting a little bit better, like slowly but barely.

But it's, it's, it's tough.

I mean you, I think you had whatever it was a half, half a decade, a quarter of a generation or whatever.

We went through a pandemic and people were very inside.

They were very on their phones.

There's there's people that are coming of age now of, you know, drinking age that spent high school and zoom it it was a reality.

And those social skills are definitely not as vibrant.

I share your frustrations.

I think that that's happened.

I just I see glimmers of hope and I'm always like an optimistic guy, saying but yeah, I think like even and we can go off on this tangent if we want to, but I would blame exactly what you're talking about for the popularity of a horrible drink called the Espresso martini, because people don't know what it is.

And they instead of instead of a generation ago, walking to a bar and constantly going, I'll have an old fashioned people are going, have I haven't I have to press the martini.

I actually have seven.

There's three of you.

We want seven they don't like.

Why, what are you going to do with them?

And if and and why are you making an espresso martini?

What's that?

You own the place?

We do make a espresso martini.

Why?

Well, because you give people what they would like.

Yeah, and you can do it.

But again, it's not the.

It's not that the drink is wrong.

It's that there's there's this parable that I talked to my staff staffs about.

And when Good Luck opened in 2008, people, we put the cocktail menus down in the table and the those that are, older or of the, the, the age and clad the, the demographic they would come into.

Good luck.

When it first opened, some of them would look at the cocktail menu, throw it aside and say, I have a belvedere and cran.

And then I would be like confused, like, wait a minute, we put all this work into this thing, and you're here spending your time and your dollar.

You're out.

Don't you want to have like a when a flow is like, savory, like, what are you doing.

And and they're just like Belvedere and cran because they didn't trust it yet.

And then we got to the point where like now there's a now there's such a sad saturation and, and cool, clever cocktails are so ubiquitous and so universal and part of all the programs.

And then the pandemic happens and TikTok and screens and everything's like a micro trend and happening so fast.

So now for 24 year old girls come in to cure and they go, they we show them the nice trifold cocktail menu with a carbonated cocktail and they throw it aside.

I go, we have seven espresso martinis and it and it's just something's missing there.

So we're getting it.

We're going to get it.

We're gonna get that.

So you feel like you're back 20.

You're kind of re helping educate guests.

Yeah.

Which is really the point of Rochester cocktail revival.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like it's community.

It's education.

Right.

It's supporting Gilda's Club, which we have done for every year of the 12.

I think we have raised more than a quarter of $1 million at this point.

Net net.

That's how much they have now.

How much?

Yeah.

Yeah, they kept that much.

That's how much they kept.

Yeah.

That's that's phenomenal.

It's phenomenal.

Sorry I forgot a net I just I hear you I say we have these words like net.

We give each other notes when we need to.

That's how this works.

and we gotta get cat Olson into the conversation, and we have to get our only break.

So all I'm going to do as we pivot to the only break is remind you why we're here this hour.

My colleague Leah Stacey has been working for the past decade.

And the Rochester cocktail revival city.

Meg, big part of what's going on there and the Rochester cocktail revival.

The RCR is coming back here June 2nd through the eighth, so it's just a few weeks away.

More than 30 bars and organizations, more than 70 events coming up here.

We're talking to a lot of the people behind that.

Chuck's Aaron Caskey, director of the revival and the man behind a number of the most popular establishments in town, Pat Stetson, owner and operator of Ziggy's.

Flo Cardillo, who apparently and Leonore is doing some savory cocktails that I have not experienced.

And so.

Oh no, oh, I've done wrong by you, I know, and I yeah.

And I also want to just say, I want to clear my name.

And something I was not implying earlier that fatherhood is not the best thing.

It's the best thing.

It's the best thing.

It's just I would never have told you.

It's like unmitigated greatness all the time.

It's stressed for the rest of your life and a constant level.

That's all I was saying.

And check understands that too.

Just like Negronis.

Yes, I say that as a dad and a dad to be.

So, you know, there's a lot that's on my mind.

Let's take our only break of the hour and we're going to come back talk RCR and we're going to bring in Cat Olson, artistic director of Cat and coyote and a lot more to tell you about on the other side of this break.

I'm Evan Dawson Monday and the next connections.

One of our favorite regular guests, astrophysicist Adam Frank, is back in studio talking about news that we saw a biosignature in space, not deep space.

I mean, not next door, but the kind of Earth like planet and the signature that indicates something is alive on that planet.

And Adam and I will delve into it Monday.

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This is connections.

I still remember the first cocktail revival conversation back in 2014.

Chuck has been here since the start and I want to.

I will say this about the cocktail culture, to Chuck's point, about what's changed at a place like good Luck since the early days when you had to really persuade people to try these creative menus.

Those menus are ubiquitous and it is a credit to RCR.

It is a credit to the culture change that came about almost two decades ago.

Did not happen overnight.

You go to so many places and you can get outstanding stuff.

And it's not just in Rochester.

I went to California for the first time recently, had a great time there.

They are fantastic.

I mean, before like a 12 hour Sierra, a 12 mile trail race with a friend of mine was like, probably we probably shouldn't get a drink.

And then he's like, I should probably get a flight of whiskeys.

And I'm like, I think I know the friend.

Yeah.

Yes, you probably you do, you probably do.

The scene has really evolved and RCR has been at the heart of it.

And I just say that as someone who is not in it myself, but so appreciative of, what you've added to the culture.

So it's coming up June 2nd through the eighth online, where Leah, Stacy, Rochester cocktail revival, dot com and all of our social is the same at Rochester cocktail revival.

Very easy to find.

So we should bring in cat I think.

Yes.

And and so let me give you a little bit of context for cat's role.

And also, one of the things that I've really helped build, I mean, it was in place when I came on to the team, but one of the things that Chuck had a goal for was bringing in arts and culture as, as, an addendum to a highlight of craft cocktail culture, just because the two would very much go hand in hand.

And so bringing in music, bringing into theater.

and so now we have this roster of events that I produce.

our team produces, we have, production assistant Joe Morrell, who's up with us for the second year.

Some of you remember Joe it from his time as an intern at Citi.

there's a Gen Z here who really does the most and is the absolute anomaly and fantastic.

And I know he's listening right now.

but our feature events are technically like our headline events, right?

And so last year, we began partnering with Cat Wilson of Cat and coyote and her husband, Kyle Olson, who runs a mobile pop up called Rumble and Stir.

And Cat has experience, as a cast member, a former cast member of Sleep No More, which is one of the largest immersive theater productions in the world, ran for ten years in New York City in an old hotel.

If you don't know what it is, please go Google it.

and it just closed.

And so I have long been obsessed with immersive theater, and she DM'd me on Instagram last year, I think in March, maybe February.

She's going to correct me when she goes live here.

but we became fast friends and we are now on our third show for RCR, building it from the ground up with her company of dancers.

I will say they do the lion's share of the work here.

So I'm going to let her come on and talk about the concept, the crazy concept we came up with this year.

And, then we'll talk some more about the other future events.

So Cat.

Cat Olson, artist, director of Cat and coyote.

Hey, Cat.

Hi.

How are you doing?

I think we're good.

Stop.

Cat.

It's a good Friday.

How are you guys doing?

Yes.

It's beautiful.

And I'm so happy that you guys are having me on.

Thanks so much.

It's my second year.

Awesome.

So, Leah.

Stacy, do you want to.

You want to kind of take us through what people can expect here.

Yeah.

So I'm going to actually let Cat tell you about the show.

but I will say I, I pitched her a crazy concept that I thought she'd be like, absolutely not.

And now it's what we're doing because it's kind of.

Yeah, it's kind of cool.

It's so good.

so yeah.

So we are doing an immersive, cocktail presentation called Silver Screen.

It is based on The Twilight Zone.

and it's going to be kind of a mixture of a couple of different episodes.

We're kind of playing with, different dimensions and the idea of sort of like a cyborg take over.

yeah, it's really exciting.

The cocktails that Kyle is making are going to weave beautifully into the narrative, and I'm so excited for everyone to come see it.

Tickets are already selling.

and the idea for the show is that, the audience sort of walks around the space with the actors.

They can follow the narrative and follow whatever performer that they like, so that they get all these different types of storylines coming at them at once.

so it's a very interactive performance, and we're super excited for you to see it.

Yeah.

And in addition to the immersive theater production, which is happening in an undisclosed location, so you get that emailed to you if you buy a ticket.

and we have other a feature that is Saturday, June 7th, by the way.

I'm so distracted right now because Chuck is like rolling around to, you know, I'm like, what are you doing here?

He's going rogue.

I telephone has a camera in it, and I use it.

We love the documentation.

It's really helpful.

so we have throughout this week, on Monday, we have our launch pad, Genesee Valley Club that is with, John Speaker from Fee Brothers.

And that is a showcase of new to the market spirits.

So you can come through, you can taste those spirits.

We have bartenders making them into cocktails, and you get to vote for your favorite.

So there's a little fun competition Tuesday.

No feature event, lots of bar events every day, lots of dinners, all that.

Sort of our full schedule is live.

Our tickets are live on Rochester cocktail of rival.com.

Wednesday we have a garden party with Eastman, the George Eastman Museum, which we've been doing for how many years?

Like 8 or 9, 8 or 9.

And we love the team over there.

including the the new edition.

Danielle Raymo, who has been so helpful to work with but Eliza and Ellen and that is just a lovely time, I think.

So you've been to the garden party?

and that's another thing we do for our bartenders and our industry folk.

We take care of them, they get wristbands, and they can actually come to the events because we want them to also have a fun week, even though they are working so hard.

you know, we schedule the education for them, but then also it's like, hey, go out and be part of this community.

Like, see the joy that people feel this week too.

So, Thursday we have super sounds and that's happening at anthology this year with some of Pat's coworker collab creators.

Zach, Mikita and McCartan are working on those.

That and we'll have a couple bands over there.

Friday is the High Falls Happy Hour, which of course will be out because we're all going to be there.

And then Saturday we have our, spirit tasting spectacular in the morning at the Metropolitan.

That's a great chance for bartenders, consumers, anyone who really loves tastings to go through and taste 30 plus spirits, get a sandwich from band.

here's some DJ music.

It's just a fun little, like, way to kick off the day.

And then the theater performance will happen at night.

We have two shows actually this year because last year sold out so fast.

And, we want people to be able to enjoy that income.

And then Sunday is the bar room battle royale.

We years ago, we decided to as cocktail revival grew and our team grew, our friends Mike martinis and Justin just said, and Lee and I, and we said, how do are we going to make are we going to expand this so that we can grow the audience?

Besides just those that go to the bars?

Because go to the bars is is an awesome part of it in the core.

But there's always a in the emotion behind making experience for those that may need to access these events in a different way.

So from the East Museum to the spirit tasting at the lobby of the Metropolitan Building to especially this year's High Falls Happy Hour, which is done in collaboration with the City of Rochester on the Punch Events pedestrian bridge.

they carry a low ticket price and are the kind of things you can bring your bring your friends, family, neighbors to, because there's lots of activities and ways to enjoy the culture.

besides just having the drinks that come with them, you can see the full, roster of events at Rochester revival.com.

If you go to the schedule and click on feature, you can see all the off bar events.

I'm just going to say it again, I love that you're doing events on the bridge.

That's the where to.

That's a great place.

Yeah.

Hopefully it won't be windy or rainy.

Dustin are you kidding?

We get that all out of the way in the last month.

The worst spring ever.

I let's, let's grab a couple of phone calls.

John in Rochester.

Hey, John.

Go ahead.

Hi.

thanks for having me.

I want to, circle back to one of the comments made earlier before the break about, some of the the beauty and challenge of having, bartenders or having, you know, a staff in the bars that create that social experience and interaction.

And, a friend of mine, my best friend from college, is an owner of two bars in Lafayette, Indiana.

And both of them, I would say, are excellent places to visit.

And both of them are built on that idea that people who walk in belong.

And the only rule is, you know, just you know, just be a decent person.

and they're interesting, fun places you can form relationships.

And he was visiting, last fall.

He came to Rochester to visit and, I will say, this guy, you know, back in our earlier days, I would say we were just hedonists.

Now we're much more, controlled, hedonistic, but.

So he's now a connoisseur of rum, etc..

But anyway, we were we were talking and he was talking about the state of, one of his establishments and how challenging it is to get staff in there that, like, interact with the clientele in meaningful ways.

And he and I'm going to paraphrase what he said here for radio, but he said he said, you know, kids, they just don't know how to make romantic connections randomly anymore.

Basically, what he said, he was just lamenting that people just don't know how to randomly socialize, that people are just on the phones all the time.

Like.

And so I feel like this is a bit of a get off my lawn moment, but I just want to comment that, I'm certainly that's, an attitude that is, you know, situation that seem elsewhere.

So tough crowd, crowd.

John, first of all, thank you.

First of all, thanks for the phone call.

I don't here's why I don't think it's a get off my lawn moment.

I know plenty of people who are much, much older than me who can't get off their phones when they're around family, you know, I mean, certainly, you know, Gen-Z younger folks, maybe, kind of grown up at that kind of an addiction, but we all can be prone to it.

So I don't think it's just generational.

But having said that, I do want to add, I think it's important to ask our guests a little bit about what he's saying about the value of of having that kind of service and flow.

Pat, you know, when I, when I go to places just for a great experience with either their food or their drink menu, I used to want to just kind of get seated in a restaurant and then I started traveling with friends who are much smarter than me, and they're like, no, you always sit at the bar.

Always.

I mean, I've heard that from Stacy.

Yeah, you sit at the bar.

I actually get grumpy if I can't sit at the bar and then, you know, in my 20s into my 30s, I would think, well, I'll sit at the bar if I'm going in for drinks, but if I want to eat and there's like, no, you sit at the bar, you sit at the bar.

And that has been one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Going to Montreal and sitting at the bar at some of the really great historic places.

And so for me, thankfully, it's a long list because people steered me in the right direction.

What would you tell people about interacting?

Being willing to sit at the bar?

And do you agree with John that sometimes, you know, if you're going to go work in establishment like that, you know, you need to be able to engage people?

Yeah.

I'm going to touch on the second part of that first.

Actually, a lot of the folks that work at lianas actually have and grab that might get a little closer.

There.

a lot of folks that work at lianas actually have day jobs, and they kind of use that as their social reprieve.

So like, they're leaving their office, their little cubicle behind and, you know, making friends and making connections and talking to people.

And sometimes that means like spending extra time at a table even though you're totally swamped.

But it's definitely well worth it in the end.

And that's kind of how you create, like the coveted role of a regular, you know, like I think the regulars are really what is still upholding the industry.

I think that that's something we didn't really touch on earlier, but that's like an untapped demographic, almost of people that you're like, this is a real person that I made a connection with in a really human way, and they're coming back and they're telling their friends.

So I think that that kind of social interaction is something that's alive and well with that specific component of people.

You're their third place.

And yeah, really, really important for them, just as they are.

Their consistency is important to you.

Yeah.

And I consider my regulars like some of my greatest friends.

Some of them we like spend holidays together now, which is really, really cool.

and then kind of on that first point of that, I think that I would also always recommend setting in the bar or setting at the bar.

I would, I would always, you know, venture to do that myself when, when going out.

But I value that too.

When somebody chooses to sit with me, they're saying like, no, I want to pick that person to have a conversation with rather than, you know, just set it at a table, whether by yourself or with other people.

But I want to have like, somebody else to, like, bounce my ideas off of or ask advice from or or what have you.

Pat.

That's the least Stacy's told me for years.

Sit at the bar.

Yeah, yeah.

Dale, the gruff first year he was in Rochester, said people go to bars for the bar, but they always come back for the bartender.

That's just that's just that's how it goes, you know, I mean, I work in a bar for, you know, I was 21 for three years behind the bar.

And when I was back there, I had a couple of strong mentors that I got to witness.

Bartend.

And I was in college at the time and watching that.

I had never considered a career in hospitality, but watching him and them interact with their guests similarly made me believe, oh, this can be something more than just, something you do on the weekends.

This can be something that is a career driven industry, and there's magic in every moment.

We get to make people's lives better every single day.

So to the bar, Leah, you were right.

Yeah.

She's always right isn't she.

Always.

She's always even right now.

So let's say anything June 2nd through the eighth is the Rochester cocktail revival.

What have we missed.

What do we not cover this hour Leah.

Well I want Chuck to tell us about a phone call he got because it was very serendipitous this year I was I work for my household and I was doing my weekly grocery chores, and I was at Wegmans and my phone rang and I, I have his number on my phone, so I knew it was, but it was Dale DeGraff.

He called me out of the blue on a Tuesday.

Was it Wegmans?

And I think it's just so cool because again, we have this thing down.

The graph, if you don't know, is considered the godfather of the craft cocktail movement.

It's not it.

He called me because I'm the person to call if he wants to come to Rochester to do cocktail of.

I was like, he doesn't my number is exactly as number because then he would call and be like, yeah, you're always right.

Check size wrong.

Yeah.

But anyway, it's so cool because the, the culture, the value of the community is so great.

The Dow, the graph was written two cocktail books that almost every bartender has at least picked up, if not owned, and has inspired a generation of bartenders, especially on the East Coast, if not throughout the United States.

He has a museum of the cocktail in, in New Orleans, and, he's an amazing individual, but he's coming back this year.

He's coming back to do a seminar, to talk about, Italian, Italian aperitivo and Amari.

we're going to host that.

Good luck.

On Thursday the 5th of June.

It's a ticketed seminar.

so grab your grab your grab your tickets ahead of time.

But it was just a cool phone call because it's just so casual.

It's like.

Chuck, how are you doing?

Hey, you're doing the week again.

I saw it online.

Like I'd like to come up.

What's a good day?

And then we just have this conversation and Dale de Graaf is coming and Regan is come and Dave wonders has come.

And Robert Simonsson and Ivy mix, and we always got Karen Newman this year and we got to also tech.

These are luminaries discussing luminaries on the scene.

So if you're into restaurant culture, we got beat that got beat up a little bit during the pandemic.

And because some people that were supposed to be good or not good people in the restaurant business, but, we got there's a lot of heroes and a lot of inspirational figures and this community, this, this, this city is strong enough to attract them here for the week coming up June 2nd to raise.

There you go.

That's like mic drop.

That's really good.

and as we kind of get ready to wrap here, I'm thinking about John's call check.

And, you opened Good Luck in 2008, a year after the iPhone came out.

So I don't think people were addicted to their phones yet.

Right?

It wasn't even Instagram.

We didn't even make the first our first pay Facebook page was made by this guy Martin, who was a bar regular, and he made the Facebook page, which is called Good Luck Bistro.

We are not a bistro and it took like years to change it.

So yeah, oh my god.

But even there's another thing.

Bars are the original social media.

Think about it.

That's that's the that's the original way to do that.

I mean, it's so cheesy, but, during the pandemic, we watched every episode of cheers and watching 1980s bar culture.

I'm like, no, like, that's your social network.

That's it.

And people would come in and they would like announce things.

I'm like, well, you're posting like he's supposed to like it.

I mean, like, that's it.

And I, I don't know, I kind of, wish we could go back there, but but we have something pretty close here.

It's.

I really believe that that's it's pretty good spot talking about it.

Especially if you we put our phones down and talk to your bartender and talk to the people who run the establishment.

Chuck is somehow at every place he owns all at once.

Whatever, wherever you are.

If I'm ever in one of your establishments, you end up being there.

Like how?

How you get a location.

He also goes to almost every event, if not every event during or is there.

And it's a there's a map like we have it we we have a schedule and Chuck is not young, but there's a lot there's a lot of.

Right.

It's a lot of right turns.

And when it's not a right turn, we sometimes we put on the put on the flashers.

he still has such fabulous hair and it's just terrible.

Oh, boy.

It's really it's really.

It's a tragedy.

There's no justice.

but I want to say thanks to everyone for coming in and telling these stories.

Leah.

Stacey, this is a fun way to spend a Friday afternoon with you.

Yeah.

Two back to back hours about potential bad data and how our communities are going to rally around.

Okay.

Right.

Yeah.

A little common thread there.

Yeah.

June 2nd through June 8th, the Rochester cocktail revival.

One more time, the website.

Lee Stacy Rochester cocktail revival.com.

It's not a bistro on that website was not made by one of the regulars.

It was made by Joe Snell and Justin Doucette.

And they are fabulous members of our team.

so Kat Olson, Flo Colella, Pat stencil checks.

Aaron Koski, thank you all.

Thank you for having us.

Thanks for being here.

Have a wonderful revival coming up.

Coming up here live.

Stacy.

That was fun.

Pat, what time is Ziggy's open on Saturday?

230.

Thank you.

How about that?

Where is Ziggy?

How about that?

Oh, railroad street, 127, public market.

Baby, I know, I'm just saying, like, for the people who don't know, I feel like they all know where Leonard's is.

AKA and checks everywhere.

But there you go, guys.

And a half hour.

The bar, everybody that's.

We're going to go.

We're all going to go sit at the bar.

How's that?

Sit at the bar.

Sit at the bar.

Have a great weekend.

We're back with you next weekend.

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