Meet Lisa Carrington of Cocktail Maven in Central Phoenix

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lisa Carrington.

Lisa, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I grew up in a small town in rural Washington State that has more fruit orchards than people. I grew up working on my parent’s farm eating what we grew. We were farm-to-table before it was cool. It was here I gained an appreciation for hard work, fresh food, and local flavors. To this day, one of my favorite smells is an orchard in the morning at harvest time with the intoxicating smell of ripe fruit ready to pick. Growing up on a farm makes you a foodie without all the foodie pretense.

Cocktails were a different story in the beginning. I came of age during the dark cosmo and appletini era of drinking, in a town with nothing other than two dive bars. As a result, I started mostly as a foodie with only marginal interest in cocktails. But as the cocktail ‘dark ages’ came to a close with over-neoned bars giving way to intimate speakeasys, and cloying cosmos being replaced by revived classics my interests expanded to mixology and craft cocktails.

Because I still lived in a small town I didn’t have access to great cocktails so I had to learn how to make my own. I began using the concepts I learned on the farm to craft cocktails, bitters, and syrups by hand. I started reading, listening to podcasts, and translating the flavors from my cooking over to cocktails and teaching myself everything I could. I started an Instagram account to chronicle my journey and the Cocktail Maven was inadvertently born.

I never really meant for it to be more than a hobby, but somewhere along the way, it became an obsession. From drinking cocktails to making cocktails to talking about cocktails on my own podcast, to judging cocktail competitions and designing drinks for restaurants and brands. So many doors have been opened and so many incredible people have entered my life from all over the world as a result of this adventure. When I started, I couldn’t even imagine getting paid to design cocktails, social media content, or teach classes. My job eventually brought me to Phoenix and that move created the opportunity to transform Cocktail Maven from a hobby into what it is today.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I have another job leading an IT organization which is very demanding. Cocktail Maven gives me a desperately needed creative outlet. But I always wish I had more time to dedicate to it. It often takes a back seat to my day job which I find frustrating at times. Trying to find the right balance of work, family, home and growing your dreams is always a struggle. But one that’s forever worth the effort.

We’d love to hear more about your work.
The Maven name harkens back to Hebrew and loosely translated means someone who wants to share what they know. That’s really the best way to describe my work. I love to share my passion with others.

I am known for bold, spirit-forward cocktails and for my obsession with smoke. I love smoky spirits like Scotch and Mezcal but also tobacco smoked cocktails, bold cigars, and smoked foods. One of my favorite classes to teach is a cocktail journey through smoke that really lets you experience a similar element in completely different ways.

When I was first learning I realized there were very few cocktail classes designed with the home bartender in mind. Especially classes that could offer an advancing degree of difficulty. If you don’t work in a bar, it can be challenging to hone your palate and drink making skills. The Maven ethos eventually evolved into a number of different classes and events, from purely educational, to simply entertaining, to spirit focused history lessons. Because I custom-craft the events I am pushed to continuously learn, to share, and to meet new people.

I also do drink design for events, restaurants, and brands. It is so rewarding to create a drink or interpret an idea and see someone’s eyes light up. I have a few products that are in the testing phase to make delicious cocktails simple. The most popular is the “Emotional Support Cocktail Kit” designed for plane travel. It allows you to make several great old fashioned cocktails on the road with high quality, super compact, plane friendly ingredients.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
To me, success is doing the things you love surrounded by people who inspire you. If you are inspired, you will find ways to do more than you ever thought possible. If you inspire others, then that cycle of positive growth multiplies and grows in ways you didn’t even imagine it could.

The markers of success are contentment and amplification. Contentment is not settling for less, it’s knowing you are relentlessly focused on the right things. Successful people look outside themselves find ways to help others grow and become successful. In this way, success becomes an amplifier.

Contact Info:

• Website: cocktailmavenaz.com
• Email: cocktailmavenaz@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cocktail_maven
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cocktailmavenaz
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Cocktail_maven

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