Spirits spilled, blenders roared, shaker tins rattled, and when the mud settled, Daniela Pedraza of St. Louis’s New Society was topped VinePair’s Finest New Bartender of 2025.
The competitors, sponsored by Luxardo, kicked off on March 3 when a web based utility interval opened. After a number of extra distant rounds, 4 finalists assembled at VinePair HQ in NYC on June 23 to face off for the title. The group included Pedraza, Linda Douglas of Los Angeles’s Donna’s, Samuel Fuller of NYC’s Eleven Madison Park, and Scott Kitsmiller of Gus’ Sip & Dip in Chicago.
All of the contestants wowed the judges with their proprietary creations and talent to suppose creatively on their ft. Finally, Pedraza clinched the win together with her presentation, surprising taste mixtures, and reimagination of a beloved bar staple.
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The day started with a bonus spherical by which the bartenders had been tasked with making a drink on the fly utilizing Luxardo merchandise, their selection of spirits from the VinePair bar, and something they may discover on the close by Entire Meals. VinePair managing editor Tim McKirdy and director of technique and innovation for Hotaling & Co., Elizabeth Staino, judged the bonus spherical.
Pedraza whipped up a White Negroni-inspired highball with gin, Bitter Bianco, vermouth, raspberry apricots, and grapefruit. Douglas hit the judges with a Sicilian-salad-inspired twist on Demise & Co’s Pleasure Division cocktail, infused with dried mandarins, orange peel, and numerous herbs. Fuller shook up a tiki cocktail crafted with a mix of three rums, tahini-infused amaro, espresso liqueur, and a raspberry Demerara syrup. And Kitsmiller served an Espresso Martini and White Russian hybrid made with condensed coconut milk, Vietnamese instantaneous espresso, and Luxardo Del Santo.
For the second spherical, the contestants made a pre-planned proprietary cocktail. These drinks had been both initially created for his or her respective bars’ menus or crafted particularly for the competitors. The finalists talked by means of their cocktails and ready them for VinePair co-founders Adam Teeter and Joshua Malin and editor in chief Joanna Sciarrino.
After a gathering and difficult deliberation, the judges introduced Pedraza as VinePair’s inaugural Finest New Bartender.
“Even competing in any respect was a shock. Successful was only a cherry on high,” Pedraza says. “After I heard the announcement, I simply stored pondering that I’d not be right here with out the people who find themselves with me.”
As is usually the case, Pedraza’s first foray into bartending wasn’t preordained. Early on in her profession within the well being care enterprise, her father unexpectedly handed away, so she took break day from her job and started reconsidering how she’d return to the working world. “I used to be ready the place I couldn’t honestly take care of myself, however all of my life I knew methods to take care of different folks,” she says. “I had been studying some bartending books over the summer time and I used to be like, ‘I believe that I might do that proper now.’”
From there, Pedraza rapidly reduce her tooth within the business. In November 2021, she landed a job at Avanzare, an Italian restaurant in Springfield, Mo., and labored there for six months earlier than taking over the function of lead bartender on the vegetable-forward and seasonally centered Vicia in St. Louis. Not solely did the brand new gig introduce her to the world of garden-style cocktails, however the restaurant’s excessive concentrate on hospitality pushed her to consider drink constructing and presentation by means of the lens of her friends. “I used to be caring for those who I didn’t even know earlier than I used to be caring about myself,” she says. “And I’m actually happy with myself for doing that.”
“I reside for the second when curiosity takes over a visitor — once I begin explaining a clarified Milk Punch or the story behind a foraged syrup and out of the blue their eyes gentle up. These moments of connection, particularly once I’m working farm-to-glass-style, remind me why I do that.”
The farm-to-glass ethos grew to become an enormous a part of Pedraza’s method to creating cocktails, stemming not solely from her expertise at Vicia, but in addition her upbringing. “I’m Mexican, and I grew up consuming loads of contemporary fruits, so loads of actually vivid substances are in my wheelhouse,” she says. “I discover that I take that a part of my childhood, mix it with cocktail and taste idea, and put all of it collectively.“
After honing her ability set at Vicia, Pedraza made the leap to her present place as bar supervisor of St. Louis’s speakeasy-style New Society, the place experimentation and fashionable strategies take middle stage. The expertise has allowed Pedraza to raise her abilities with out venturing too deep into esoteric territory. Her drinks stroll the tightrope between approachability and introducing friends to one thing they’ve probably by no means encountered earlier than.
“I reside for the second when curiosity takes over a visitor — once I begin explaining a clarified Milk Punch or the story behind a foraged syrup and out of the blue their eyes gentle up,” she says. “These moments of connection, particularly once I’m working farm-to-glass-style, remind me why I do that. Schooling is rarely a lecture. It’s a shared spark.”
Pedraza’s last spherical drink was a tackle a Soiled Martini known as The Root. Impressed by a chorizo-fat-washed cocktail from the Vicia menu, she determined to copy the drink’s taste profile however with greens rather than meat. To imitate the smokiness of the chorizo, she infused gin with smoked celery root, earlier than including citrus vodka, aloe liqueur, dry vermouth, and olive brine to realize steadiness and preserve the essence of a Soiled Martini on the cocktail’s core. “I noticed a possibility to create one thing simply as daring and satisfying, however accessible,” she says.
Every of the opposite finalists arrived with their very own tips up their sleeves. Their drinks weren’t solely scrumptious, however emblematic of their respective careers, showcasing character and distinctive approaches to crafting cocktails.
“These typically handled as disposable are actually the inspiration of our communities. I noticed no higher method to get the story throughout of what’s taking place in our business proper now than to make use of my privilege right here at this time.”
“I grew up enjoying jazz music, and I’ve at all times had the mindset of taking a look at cocktails by means of the lens of music,” Scott Kitsmiller says. As he explains, his method stems from mastering the classics — like how music idea turns into second nature for a jazz artist — after which utilizing these templates as a jumping-off level for improvisation. At Chicago’s Gus’ Sip & Dip, the place he’s the bar supervisor, the menu consists solely of basic cocktails. And whereas Kitsmiller’s creation for the competitors was primarily based on the Champagne Cocktail, he turned the drink on its head.
Dubbed the Prince of Rodney Bay, it featured a force-carbonated mix of clarified apple juice, Cognac, and rum poured over a Inexperienced Chartreuse sugar dice soaked in Chartreuse Elixir Végétal. “The Champagne Cocktail is such a easy drink at its core,” Kitsmiller says. “So the concept of taking every ingredient and turning them into one thing thought-provoking however nonetheless tasty was actually thrilling to me.”
L.A.-based finalist Linda Douglas’s drink-making philosophy is rooted in nostalgia, approachability, and training with out intimidation, however she additionally strives to make her place in hospitality a platform for cultural advocacy. “The those that had been traditionally pushed to the facet and neglected have at all times been right here, however now we’re the brand new leaders, defending our tradition and area,” she says.
To honor Mexican immigrants and the way their tradition is woven into the material of America’s meals and beverage business, Douglas offered a cocktail known as No Kings, crafted with Mexican corn whisky, elote and chile pasilla mixe liqueurs, lime juice, and myriad Latin herbs. “These typically handled as disposable are actually the inspiration of our communities,” she says. “I noticed no higher method to get the story throughout of what’s taking place in our business proper now than to make use of my privilege right here at this time.”
Eleven Madison Park’s Sam Fuller takes a science- and ingredient-driven method to crafting cocktails, incorporating new strategies each time attainable. “I really like going to different bars, attempting a drink that simply blows me away, and listening to in regards to the course of behind it,” he says. “I’ve at all times needed to work at a spot that launched me to some cutting-edge strategies.”
Strategies apart, Fuller typically begins with a single ingredient. For his final-round cocktail, kiwi was the star of the present. Constructed on a base of shochu and Scotch, his drink — named Shiso — included kiwi jelly, acidified kiwi juice, a shiso cordial, and pecan orgeat, amongst a handful of different substances. “After I’m engaged on a drink, it begins off as this large jumble of concepts, and I chip away at it till it’s extra refined, all the pieces is sensible, and all the pieces has a goal.”
Each time it looks as if cocktail innovation has hit its ceiling, a drink or two comes round and reminds us that bartenders across the nation are breaking new floor day by day. And in an business overflowing with expertise and creativity, some stars fly beneath the radar. That spurred VinePair to host our inaugural Finest New Bartender competitors, and shine a lightweight on the up-and-coming professionals who’re making severe waves of their respective cities and the business at massive.
“My want for the way forward for bartending can be that bartenders proceed supporting one another by means of mutual promotion and the aggressive facet of our careers — not within the sense that we’re competing with each other, however extra that we’re collaborating with each other,” Pedraza says. “The manufacturers that we work with present loads of worth to our work, they usually may help us transfer with extra ease all through the world, however we are able to additionally try this for one another and with one another to be really profitable.”
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