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    Drink. Donate. Vote. repeat.

    Shake up your summer with this stirring Houston bartender competition

    Holly Beretto
    Jun 6, 2019 | 10:35 am

    Cocktail lovers in Houston ought to be thrilled about the latest DIY cocktail crawl to hit the Bayou City this month. Through the end of June, drinkers can hit 20 different Houston bars, sip a specially created cocktail and vote for their favorite Iron Bartender.

    Cut from similar cloth as its sister competition, Iron Sommelier (also the brain child of sommelier Sean Beck), showcases the talents of 20 bartenders working with 20 different spirits to craft cocktails that show off not only the spirit's flavor and depth but also their own personalities. It benefits the Periwinkle Foundation, a Houston charity that offers support, care, and activities for children with cancer and their families.

    Throughout June, Houstonians can visit any of the bars with bartenders participating in the competition and purchase the cocktail they've created for it. One dollar of their purchase will be donated to the Periwinkle Foundation, and sippers can then go online and vote for their favorite bartender and his or her cocktail.

    The three bartenders with the most votes will move on the finals of the Iron Bartender competition in September. On their first visit to a participating bar, visitors will receive a punch card listing all the bars and bartenders taking part. As they meander the city, sipping the different cocktails, they'll get a punch for each one they purchase. Anyone with 10 or more punches can enter a raffle to win tickets to September's finals.

    "We have amazing bars in Houston," Beck tells CultureMap. "And those programs start with the amazing bartenders working here. We wanted to build something around that."

    Participants in the event include CultureMap Tastemaker Awards 2019 Bartender of the Year, Sarah Troxell of Nobie's. Other CultureMap Bartender of the Year nominees include Anvil's Tommy Ho, Kristine Nguyen of Nancy's Hustle, Jessica Johnson of Wooster's Garden, and Lindsey Rae of Grand Prize. Other contestants include Hugo's Ricky Gonzalez, State of Grace's Ashley Rhoads, and a host of others. The full listing — along with their cocktails — is on the Iron Bartender website.

    Beck says he began thinking about Iron Bartender a couple of years back. Iron Sommelier, which also benefits the Periwinkle Foundation, has become a must-attend event on the Houston social calendar, and Beck was looking for a way to showcase the work bars and bartenders were doing with craft cocktails.

    For Iron Bartender, he reached out to friends and colleagues in the industry and set up a draft. There were 20 bartenders and 20 spirits. Each bartender got a draft number and then got to pick the spirit he or she wanted to work with, until all the pairings were made.

    "I was number five on the list, and I just kept crossing my fingers no one was going to pick Appleton," laughs Caitlin Vann, a bartender at Lei Low, who's competing. "It's great stuff, and I had this idea that I wanted to create something that fit the environment I work in [tiki drinks] but also make this really boozy cocktail."

    Her entry, the Prime Minister, blends Appleton 12 Year rum with Giffard's banana liqueur, Lustau vermouth, Angustora bitters, and a lime coin.

    "Banana is a note you find in a lot of pot stilled rums, and Appleton is a blend of pot stilled and column rums," Vann explains. "The drink is kind of a take on the El Presidente. But Russ [Thoede, owner of Lei Low] pointed out in Jamaica, where Appleton is from, doesn't have presidents. They have prime ministers. So, that's how we named it. I'm really pleased with how it turned out."

    Vann says after she went to the first meeting about Iron Bartender, she was sold on being part of it, liking the idea of working to help raise funds for the charity. That's also part of what drove Zach Hornberger of Miss Carousel to take part.

    "It's such a good cause," he says. "The Periwinkle Foundation helps families dealing with cancer to heal. I think that's so great."

    For the competition, he created The Duke's Delight, using Caravedo Pisco as its base.

    "I'd never heard of that brand before," he says. "So I thought it would be a fun way to challenge myself. And I like how Pisco feels light, with apricot or floral notes, but it's still a boozy spirit."

    For the Duke's Delight, he incorporated the pisco with banana and coffee liqueurs and Manzanilla sherry. He was shooting for a South American theme, readily thinking that bananas and coffee come from the region. He admits it was a "stretch" for the sherry, which is Spanish, but liked how it worked together.

    "The bananas we eat today are Cavendish bananas," he said. "The Duke of Devonshire liked them so much he had the plants imported to England to grow in his greenhouse. They traveled really well, and our bananas are descended from them. That's how I picked the name."

    Beck loves seeing the creativity that the participants are putting into their drinks. And he thinks that the draw for drinkers isn't only that they can help a good cause but also use it as a chance to explore their city.

    "Cocktail competitions take bartenders out of their environments, toss them into this situation where they're crafting drinks on the fly, and they ask judges to drink 20 cocktails; it's crazy. This allows people to see the bartenders in their bars, to check out the amazing work they are doing. And I hope it encourages people to go visit places all over the city, not just The Heights or downtown, because that's where they live or work."

    The votes drinkers make on the bartenders this month will be used to crown the People's Choice winner, as well as determine who will go on to the final competition.

    Thus far, everyone seems to be enjoying the spirit of Beck's idea.

    "Iron Bartender is uniting all of my favorite people in friendly competition for a great cause," says Sarah Troxell of Nobies, who's crafted a drink called the Oaxaca Macha with a base of Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal, blended with lime juice, pineapple shrub, and saline. "I am excited to participate because it brings the community together, both behind and across our bars, to raise money together."

    "This is going to be fun," says Beck. "And what better way to spend a hot month like June than going around Houston and drinking refreshing cocktails for charity?"

    ---

    For a full list of bars and competing bartenders, visit the Iron Bartender website.

    Ricky Gonzalez of Hugo's.

    Ricky Gonzalez Hugo's
      
    Photo courtesy of Iron Bartender
    Ricky Gonzalez of Hugo's.
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    he finished the job

    Houston chef Tristen Epps dishes on his Top Chef victory — and what's next

    Eric Sandler
    Jun 13, 2025 | 9:05 am
    Top Chef Tristen Epps
    Photo by David Moir/Bravo
    Kristen Kish, Tristen Epps, Gail Simmons, and Tom Colicchio.

    Houston has played a leading role in America’s culinary scene, but the city has never been home to a Top Chef winner — until last night. In the final episode of season 22, chef Tristen Epps earned the title and a $250,000 cash prize.

    Epps secured his victory by remaining true to the Afro-Caribbean cuisine that helped him secured an impressive four Elimination Challenge wins and $35,000 in additional prize money from two Quickfire wins and as a member of the team that won the show’s signature Restaurant Wars challenge. His four-course menu took a panel of celebrity judges on a journey that also referenced the finale location of Milan, Italy.

    In particular, Epps wowed the panel with his second course — Chicken “Durango” with injera shrimp toast and shellfish jus — that referenced both the Ethiopian chicken stew doro wat and the Italian dish pollo durango, a sly nod to the history of imperialism between the two countries. He finished his savory offerings with Oxtail Milanese Crepinette with Carolina Gold rice grits, curry butter, and bone marrow gremolata, which earned praised from the panel.

    “Historically, we’ve been underserved oxtail,” Top Chef alum and James Beard Award winner Gregory Gourdet said during the episode. “Tristen took the time to pull it, create that beautiful, huge, maybe too big, portion of oxtail. And cover it with that gremolata. He did not forget the bone marrow. That’s very, very smart.”

    Throughout Top Chef’s run, Epps has been holding a series of pop-ups devoted to everything from hot dogs to steakhouses. Now, he can turn his attention to Buboy, a tasting menu concept that will celebrate the Afro-Caribbean cuisine he championed throughout his time on the show.

    CultureMap caught up with Epps on Friday morning for a brief chat about his victory and what’s next.

    CultureMap: What do you remember from the day you cooked that final dinner?
    Tristen Epps: It was an extreme amount of focus. A lot of writing in my notebook. I didn’t want to laugh. I didn’t want to cry or do anything except finish the job, regardless of whatever the outcome would have been. I remember wanting to call my mom. I really wanted to talk things out so I could calm myself down and stay within my focus. Once I got into cooking, I felt so much at ease. It’s my happy place. It’s my serenity.

    CM: How did you feel when you saw Gregory Gourdet on the panel? Did you feel like you had an advocate in the room?
    TE: I’ve cooked with gregory before, a long time ago. It was really fun. I loved what he was doing.

    I felt like I had kind of an advocate. I was worried my food wold be too spicy or too overpowering [for the European chefs]. Seeing Gregory was really good, especially with what I was doing.

    CM: Other chefs, including Gregory Gourdet and Houston chef Dawn Burrell, have done well on the show with Afro-Caribbean cuisine but they didn’t win. How important was it to you to finish the job and use those flavors to win the title?
    TE: To me that was super important. There’s adventurous people who make phenomenal food. They’ll go once because it’s interesting, bu they’re usually skeptical. When you don’t nail it, they say, that’s why I go to the regular places that are familiar.

    Finishing the job was really important to me. People have come up short on this. I wanted to get this right for everyone who’s made that step forward and created the ladder.

    CM: What have your last 12 hours been like since the episode aired? Have any celebrities reached out to you?
    TE: A lot of calls, a lot of good luck. A lot of everything. It’s been amazing.

    A lot of past Top Chef winners reached out to me, giving me a lot of support and telling me what they did after they won.

    [ESPN football commentator] Mina Kimes did, which was really cool.

    CM: What are your plans for the prize money?
    TE: It’s going to go to Buboy. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, it can go a little faster.

    CM: You’ve been holding a series of pop-ups that range from tasting menus to hot dogs? What’s next?
    TE: Part of getting the restaurant open has been introducing myself to all of Houston. These pop-ups represent my interests and my fun. They’re the things that Buboy is going to represent. It can be fun, it can be a conversation, it can be educational, it can push the limits of cuisines we know. It’s an expression of culture in whatever way I see fit that day.

    The hot dog concept will probably be a separate venture, but who’s to say there’s not a hot dog at the end of that meal?

    Top Chef Tristen Epps
      

    Photo by David Moir/Bravo

    Kristen Kish, Tristen Epps, Gail Simmons, and Tom Colicchio.

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