From a Proud Wife, on the Eve of Scott’s Debut

I’ve been here since the very first crappy cocktail. The failed gin & tonics, the horror of the Mexican ’75, and the botched “classics”. 

And tomorrow Scott will step back behind his very own bar, and mix for our family in advance of our opening night on Saturday. 

When I met Scott, he was the wine guy. On our very first date, we shared the best bottle of red wine I’ve ever had, now in abundance on our collector’s shelf. I learned a lot in the infancy of our relationship about wine, as Scott would spend weekends pouring for Barboursville Vineyards at various festivals. I learned varietals, the minute differences in vintages, and how to approach tastings like a professional. 

But while I tried to catch up to Scott in wine, he was off and running on a new passion: craft cocktails. And try as I may, I’ll never catch up to him on that one. Our blog in DC found us drinking and dining out multiple nights a week, years on end. To say that we’ve tasted thousands of cocktails is not an exaggeration – and Scott has taken copious mental notes on each. Our best friends in the city were in the industry, and somewhere during that chaotic dining out phase of our early relationship, an idea was born in Scott’s mind: to someday open his own cocktail bar. 

Who knew? Scott, September 2016 one month after moving home.

And here we are. If you asked me 5 years ago what our life would like now, I never would have mentioned this. If you had asked me a year ago, even, if we would be business owners in our beautiful small town, I’d have laughed.  But over the last 3 years, those botched cocktails, those pathetic gin and tonics have transformed under an excessive amount of reading and experience. 

When you watch Scott mix at the Factory, I want you to see what I see. I want you to see the hours spent staring at the shelves in his bar room, smelling spirits and bitters. I want you to note the stack of cocktail books he has on his bedside table, toppling over in abundance. I want you to see the furious shaking and stirring in the kitchen, only to see him take a sip, dump it, and try again. I want you to peer inside our refrigerator at the dozens of obnoxious concoctions of infusions and washes, some of which take weeks to perfect. 

More than anything, I want you to see a man who is passionate, eager, and whose whole heart has been waiting for this moment. The moment where he can share his excitement for cocktails and love of his hometown. Believe me when I say that mixture is the most intoxicating of all. 

Proud of you, Scott. Knock em’ dead, babe.