Score another compliment for Columbia’s most reputable bartender.
Bourbon’s chief bartender, Kat Hunter, won the South Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association’s Bartender of the Year award. Hunter was the only Columbia restaurant employee nominated for an award at the statewide awards ceremony on February 1.
“I like to think that it shows the impact that Bourbon has on cocktail culture here,” said Hunter. “For me it is a sign that Columbia deserves recognition for all the work it does.”
The award goes to bartenders who “show total breadth and aptitude in their skills”, as described. The candidates were nominated and analyzed by a SCRLA committee, said the organization’s communications manager, Lenza Jolley, by email.
Hunter’s appointment detailed that she “works to present an innovative yet affordable cocktail program” and noted her propensity to peruse antique stores for inspiration for cocktails in books.
Kristian Niemi, co-owner of Bourbon, agrees with this assessment and shares that Hunter almost weekly delivers a new old cocktail book to the restaurant.
“Kat has been at the forefront of the Columbia cocktail scene since we opened Bourbon,” he said.
In recent years, Hunter has won several awards, performed well in competitions and has been featured in several major publications. She won the Woodford Manhattan challenge, was featured on Imbibe Magazine and ran a cocktail service for one night at the James Beard Foundation in New York, among others.
It has become an excellent career for someone who is basically self-taught.
She explained that when Bourbon opened in 2014, she spent hours after work studying cocktail books.
“There were not many people (in Colombia) familiar with the art of cocktailing. I built myself, ”she said.
Hunter now attributes his success to his fusion of artisanal cocktails and quick bartending – his time before Bourbon was spent in places like the Art Bar and the so-called Goatfeathers. Hunter shared that sometimes his ‘duct tape method’ was met with mockery.
“Although I respect many of the old methods, sometimes you can’t use these same methods effectively at high volume, so I found shortcuts for some things,” she explained. “If my drink is still good, then I don’t think there’s really a problem with that.”
Niemi stressed that Hunter’s shortcuts are few and instead emphasized his speed.
To illustrate, he said at a New Year’s Eve event in Bourbon, he combed through the security footage to control her pace and found that she made about 45 cocktails in an hour. This is one every minute and 33 seconds.
He stressed the importance of speed in artisanal cocktail bars, saying that lack of speed was a frequent problem when he explored others before opening Bourbon.
“She doesn’t invent many shortcuts, she just developed remarkable speed,” he said. “That has always been our mandate too … you must be able to work very quickly or it will not last.”
Hunter’s method for creating drinks is more like chaos than any defined strategy, she explained. Often, it is a random breath of inspiration, like a certain spirit, smell or desire that she builds around a cocktail.
“Sometimes I am more prolific than others. Sometimes I created eight cocktails in one day, but other times I work in one for two weeks and that may never happen, ”she said.
Hunter won the award over the other finalist, Michael Wade, from Rick Erwin’s Clemson. University of South Carolina professor Robin DiPietro was named the organization’s hospitality educator of the year.