Originally from: New York City
Profession: Bartender, educator and consultant
At: New York City
Andy Seymour counts over 20 years’ experience in the bar, restaurant and hospitality industry, and has emerged as one of the leading educators and consultants on all matters of beverages. His company, Liquid Productions, is devoted to the understanding of today’s cocktail culture, to developing education and beverage programs and to creating events that bring that culture to an even greater audience.
Beginning with a career working at some of New York City’s and the Hamptons busiest venues, Andy has dedicated himself to a life of producing great service and providing others with the tools to do the same. Early in his career behind the bar, Andy began working with Steve Olson. Working alongside Olson, Andy was able to acquire a deeper understanding about spirits and cocktails and the importance of working with quality ingredients.
Andy eventually stepped out from behind the bar to focus on his work with Olson’s company aka Wine Geek, and soon became a partner. In the process, Andy worked with their clients to create and mix cocktails at the highest level of the industry, developing beverage and trade education programs that became a standard by which all others were measured. He continues to educate for many of the world’s top spirit brands, lecturing about cocktails, spirits, sherry and the hospitality industry as a whole.
While at aka Wine Geek, Andy taught at a long list of properties that included The Bellagio Resort in Las Vegas, Wynn Las Vegas, and The Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City. They also created and implemented beverage programs at the Five-Star, Five-Diamond Broadmoor Resort in Colorado Springs, OTG Management and their numerous bars and restaurants throughout airports across the country, Grupo Posadas high-end Aqua resort in Cancun, and most recently at Mondrian and Hudson hotels in NYC for The Morgan Group. Andy and Steve also opened the widely acclaimed Taqueria and Agave Palace, Viktor & Spoils at the Hotel on Rivington on NYC’s Lower East Side in 2011, while during the same period Andy developed and installed the beverage program at Alchemy in Memphis, TN.
As a speaker and educator Andy’s engaging, authentic style is well recognized throughout the industry. Some of his presenting credits include Tales of the Cocktail, Berlin Bar Show, Manhattan Cocktail Classic, Arizona Cocktail Week, Boston Cocktail Summit, Paris of the Plains in Kansas City, The Telluride Wine Festival and for Crystal Cruise Ships. In addition, his critically acclaimed YouTube cocktail series Behind the Drink explores the cocktail culture of NYC.
As a leader in large format cocktail execution, Andy and Liquid Productions have brought the fine balanced execution of today’s craft cocktail movement to one large audience after another. Andy executes events and is perhaps most well known throughout the industry for his fine detail and easy going manner in creating and running such large format projects as Diageo’s Liquid Cellar at the Super Bowl 2014, Jazz Age Lawn Party on Governors Island, SuperFly Presents’ Great GoogaMooga Music and Food Festival, The Grand Marnier Mixology Summit in Vail, Tales of the Cocktail’s Bar Room Brawl, and Diageo’s World Class events and US finals in 2012-2014 to name a few.
Today Andy is recognized throughout the industry as a leader in the global cocktail movement. He continues to expand his role as a mentor and teacher to bartenders across the country through educational seminars and bartending demonstrations. He also is a member of the Board of Generals and advisor to the social media platform ShakeStir—focused on the beverage trade.
Andy is also a partner in Beverage Alcohol Resource (BAR). BAR was founded in 2006 by industry experts Steve Olson, Dale DeGroff, Doug Frost, F. Paul Pacult, and David Wondrich to fill an industry need for training on the subject of beverage alcohol products, and to help return the craft to the profession of the bar. Through programs such as Drinkwell and BarSmarts, Andy has taught thousands of America’s bartenders and beverage professionals, and BAR’s 5-day certificate program has been acknowledged as a bench mark for professional achievement in the field of spirits and cocktails. BAR was chosen as Cheers Magazine Beverage Innovator of the Year 2007.
In 2012, Andy stepped away from his partnership at aka wine geek to focus on his own company, Liquid Productions which he founded in 1999. Today, Andy’s mission is to help the growing world of cocktails and spirits continue to be a source of great fun, and entertainment for anyone who steps up to a bar to order a drink.
“Singapore Sling is a cocktail very much about the history and heritage what bartending is all about. You can’t make this drink without the Cherry Heering, it is the heart and soul, deep richness, texture and flavor”
