Columbine Quillen Doesn’t Just Mix Drinks
She Tells a Story
By David Holley / The Bulletin
Published: January 16. 2010 4:00AM PST
Come February, a Bend mixologist could be dubbed “Bartender of the Year.”
Columbine Quillen, the 34-year-old bar manager at The Blacksmith Restaurant, was one of four bartenders picked nationally by Nightclub & Bar Magazine as a finalist in the best bartender category of the magazine’s annual awards. The winner will be announced in early February, profiled in the magazine’s March issue and invited to attend the Nightclub & Bar Trade Show in Las Vegas in March.
Although Quillen, an experienced and innovative drink mixer, remains confident about her chances, she is up against some stiff competition. Her opponents are from much larger cities — Chicago, San Francisco and Austin, Texas — and are highly involved in the bar world.
The owner of The Blacksmith, Gavin McMichael, nominated Quillen for the award. He said she’s the best bartender he has ever worked with, adding that she approaches the job as if she were a chef.
“She tells a story through her drinks,” McMichael said. “She’s whimsical, technical. She’s very, very good.”
Nightclub & Bar picks four finalists for each of 14 categories. It received more than 230 entries for the categories, and a panel of 20 judges will decide the winners. Quillen was the only person from Oregon who made it to the finals. No Oregon bar made it either.
Although she earned an international business degree in college, Quillen has been working in bars and restaurants since she graduated. She started at The Blacksmith in September 2008 and said she has revamped the bar, making it more efficient and personalizing it with her own pair of cocktail lists — one for happy hour and another for normal business hours.
“I really wanted to do something behind the bar that would really flatter and complement The Blacksmith,” she said, adding that she created cocktails meant to play off the restaurant’s atmosphere and cuisine, such as the Bubble Gum Lemondrop or the Vulcan.
With maple-infused vodka, ancho chile, a hint of lime and epazote, Quillen said the Vulcan will test a person’s pallet and their senses.
Additionally, Quillen created two cocktails for causes.
One is the Maui Zowie. For every one sold, $1 is donated to the Central Oregon Police Chaplaincy, which works with police officers who have been injured in the line of duty.
And her Save the Pacific Lamprey cocktail is meant to promote awareness about the species.
Quillen’s involvement in the alcohol industry spreads beyond The Blacksmith, however, a reason she thinks she was picked as a finalist.
She makes her own bitters, teaches occasional mixology classes at The Blacksmith and runs an online blog, called the Jerry Thomas Project, on which she writes about mixing drinks invented by Jerry Thomas. A bartender from the 1800s, Thomas is considered the father of mixology, according to Quillen, who has the book “Jerry Thomas’ Bar-Tender’s Guide or How to Mix Drinks.”
Quillen also makes and sells earrings.
Although she started bartending merely as a way to earn money, Quillen said she fell in love with it.
“I love the chaos of it, the excitement of it,” Quillen said. “I love that every day is different.”
- Columbine Quillen I am a mixologist bartender and this is my blog.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
The new blog looks fantastic – good job
will there be a national finalist at the bend contest? Some really inovated people there
Thank you Fay for your comment. It was actually a nationally recognized honor – not a Bend honor. If you read The Source awards this year, you might know I was voted the second most popular bartender in Bend (Will Pack of The Blackhorse was voted number one) and as for the Nightclub and Bar Magazine Pick of the Year, I remain one in the top four but Joseph Ehrmann who owns the Elixir in San Francisco took that prize. Thank you for your interest in my work, please come down and see the new cocktail list!