After Dark

Establishment: Felt — 341 S. Main St., SLC
Bartender: Josh Van Gorden
Cocktail Name: The Cafe Racer

For Josh Van Gorden, after a long shift, his preferred taste is a traditional pint of Guinness, because sometimes the old ways are the best.

Josh loves to surprise his customers by going back to the roots. His traditional daiquiris are tart and bracing, not the usual sugar bomb from a blender that most folks are used to. Trendy celebrity-endorsed liquors, made without the quality that comes with time and good practice, are what make him cringe. “You’re paying so much more for an inferior product. I like to make anybody what they order, I just like to avoid certain spirits that aren’t ethical or made correctly.”

Photography by Natalie Simpson, Beehive Photography.

Farm-to-glass is how Josh thinks we should always be making cocktails. “It’s a way to explore and champion local spirits and products, whether it’s foraging, which is really abundant in Salt Lake, or buying from the farmers’ market, it’s a great way to reduce the amount of waste that is so inherent in bars.”

Josh’s rigor in how he works extends to how he cures a hangover—with a cold plunge, or as he puts it, “diving into the hurt locker.” With that kind of discipline, you know that he’s never going to put a drink in front of you that doesn’t meet his standards. 

The Cafe Racer

1 oz Beehive Decade Dry Gin
.75 oz Sweet Vermouth
.5 oz Campari
.25 oz Notom Amaro 
.5 oz Five Spice Syrup
2 oz Peach Cordial (below)
Garnished with Five Spice Foam, lemon zest and sage

Peach Cordial:
Get yourself a hearty basket of yellow peaches from the Farmer’s Market. Set aside half for juicing and half for a syrup. For the syrup, combine equal weight peach slices and white sugar. Let it sit for 24 hours and strain. Once you have your syrup and fresh peach juice, blend them at a ratio of 3:1 juice to sugar.

Explore the cocktail trail and vote for your favorite cocktail in the 2025 Salt Lake Magazine Farm-To-Glass Cocktail Contest.

About the 2025 Salt Lake Magazine Farm-To-Glass Cocktail Contest

23 bars from across the state present delicious cocktail creations and compete for the best in Utah. This year’s contest cocktails shine with all Utah has to offer, embodying the farm-to-glass ethos by incorporating the bountiful range of Utah’s native herbs, homegrown produce and locally distilled spirits. Celebrate the bartenders’ hard work throughout from Sept. 1–Oct. 1 by visiting participating bars, trying their unique cocktail concoctions and voting for your favorite on saltlakemagazine.com.

Establishment: Melancholy — 556 Gale St., SLC
Bartender: Tay Dixon
Cocktail Name: Goat in the Garden

Tay Dixon got into bartending because when he was younger, he struggled talking to people. He figured if there was one job that would help him get over that, it would be bartending. 

That “just jump in” attitude continues to inform his work, with a cocktail that uses exotic ingredients that might give others pause—goat cheese whey, black pepper, lemon zest honey. He’s not afraid
to swing for the fences. Tay’s favorite drink to make is a sazerac, the ur-cocktail that started it all down in New Orleans. It speaks to his deep immersion into cocktail history and tradition—even though he’s only been behind the bar for two years, he’s gone into the deep end of cocktail culture, finding those old things that can be made new again. “Whatever you are doing, you should take pride in it.”

Photography by Natalie Simpson, Beehive Photography.

He takes pride in being a bartender in Utah. “We kind of have a chip on our shoulder, in a good way.” Tay’s motivated by the idea that we have something to prove. “I like that angst.”

Goat in the Garden

1.5 oz water pocket temple of the moon gin 
1 oz Fino sherry
.25 oz Cappelletti
1 oz blackberry lemon zest honey syrup
.5 oz lemon juice
Goat cheese whey
2 dashes black pepper tincture 
Shaken, double-strained, served up 

Explore the cocktail trail and vote for your favorite cocktail in the 2025 Salt Lake Magazine Farm-To-Glass Cocktail Contest.

About the 2025 Salt Lake Magazine Farm-To-Glass Cocktail Contest

23 bars from across the state present delicious cocktail creations and compete for the best in Utah. This year’s contest cocktails shine with all Utah has to offer, embodying the farm-to-glass ethos by incorporating the bountiful range of Utah’s native herbs, homegrown produce and locally distilled spirits. Celebrate the bartenders’ hard work throughout from Sept. 1–Oct. 1 by visiting participating bars, trying their unique cocktail concoctions and voting for your favorite on saltlakemagazine.com.

Establishment: Current — 279 E. 300 South, SLC
Bartender: Karissa Kermode
Cocktail Name: Sporeplay

Karissa Kermode’s concept of local ingredients takes an unexpected turn: mushrooms. That’s right, her cocktail, “Sporeplay,” finishes with a surprising note of locally foraged oyster mushrooms. Yes. Mushrooms.

She shrugs: “What can I say, there are a lot of people who like to forage in Utah, so I wanted to bring that to light.”

Photography by Natalie Simpson, Beehive Photography.

The drink is a Beehive Jack Rabbit Gin-based trip, to say the least. Combining local peaches from Burgess Orchards in Alpine and locally sourced mushrooms delivered in a butter wash, it sounds like a dare. But early tastings indicate that this cocktail is definitely one to watch in this year’s contest.

“There’s definitely a lot going on,” she winks. “Bartending in Utah has made me very creative. I’m from Connecticut and there’s no restrictions, so using splits (combinations of base spirits and flavoring spirits) is new to me.” Umm, yeah.

Sporeplay

1.5 oz Beehive Jack Rabbit Gin
1 oz lemon
1 egg white
.5 oz habanero simple
1.5 oz brown butter washed oyster mushroom simple
Muddled peaches

Dry shake, wet shake, double strain and top with five drops of sage oil and a pinned sage leaf

Explore the cocktail trail and vote for your favorite cocktail in the 2024 Salt Lake Magazine Farm-To-Glass Cocktail Contest.

About the 2025 Salt Lake Magazine Farm-To-Glass Cocktail Contest

23 bars from across the state present delicious cocktail creations and compete for the best in Utah. This year’s contest cocktails shine with all Utah has to offer, embodying the farm-to-glass ethos by incorporating the bountiful range of Utah’s native herbs, homegrown produce and locally distilled spirits. Celebrate the bartenders’ hard work throughout from Sept. 1–Oct. 1 by visiting participating bars, trying their unique cocktail concoctions and voting for your favorite on saltlakemagazine.com.

Establishment: HK Brewing — 370 Aspen Ave., SLC
Bartender: Kate Lubing, Zac Ford & Alyssa Burson
Cocktail Name: Son of a Peach!

Zac is one of the newest bartenders in our contest, with only a year under his belt behind the bar. That’s why he pulled in two of his elders at HK Brewing—Alyssa Burson and Kate Lubing—to help craft their contest cocktail, the “Son of a Peach!”

With Utah-made bourbon, triple sec and kombucha, Zac and HK are leaning into local in a big way—that isn’t a new thing at this brewery, which gives away its compost to area farmers.

Photography by Natalie Simpson, Beehive Photography.

Zac has only bartended in Salt Lake, so to him, our quirky liquor laws are just the way things are. He fits right in at HK, a whole team of beautiful dirtbags who clean
up real nice.

Son of a Peach!

1 oz High West Bourbon
1 oz Waterpocket Fruita Triple Sec 
2 dashes orange bitters
4 dashes of vegan Fee Foam 
1.5 oz spicy peach shrub 
2 oz of Han’s Cheers Queers white peach Champagne kombucha

Garnish: Large Horseshoe Cube 
Dust: Finely Ground Freeze Dried Peaches & Fresno Chilies

Dust: 

Freeze-dry fresh peaches and Fresno chilies. Finely grind together in a blender and now you have beautiful spicy, peachy magic. 

In a shaker, combine bourbon, triple sec, bitters, fee foam and spicy peach shrub. Break a large cube and shake it like a Polaroid picture. With a rocks glass of your choice, double strain the bevy over a large cube. Top with Han’s Cheer Queers, a white peach Champagne kombucha. Now, generously dust your cocktail with finely ground freeze-dried peaches and chilies. Enjoy! 

Explore the cocktail trail and vote for your favorite cocktail in the 2025 Salt Lake Magazine Farm-To-Glass Cocktail Contest.

About the 2025 Salt Lake Magazine Farm-To-Glass Cocktail Contest

23 bars from across the state present delicious cocktail creations and compete for the best in Utah. This year’s contest cocktails shine with all Utah has to offer, embodying the farm-to-glass ethos by incorporating the bountiful range of Utah’s native herbs, homegrown produce and locally distilled spirits. Celebrate the bartenders’ hard work throughout from Sept. 1–Oct. 1 by visiting participating bars, trying their unique cocktail concoctions and voting for your favorite on saltlakemagazine.com.

Establishment: Log Haven — 6451 Mill Creek Canyon Rd., SLC
Bartender: Zach Gunderman
Cocktail Name: Wild Mountain Thyme

For a guy whose admitted his favorite after-shift drink is an “Irish whiskey on rocks, by myself,” his new position behind the bar at Log Haven has opened his eyes to the beautiful setting he works in, specifically the ingredients it provides.

“We’ve made it with the huckleberries that grow in Millcreek Canyon and the fresh thyme that grows right outside the kitchen,” he says. 

Photography by Natalie Simpson, Beehive Photography.

Fittingly, Log Haven’s entry is called “Wild Mountain Thyme” and is a local (very local) take on a traditional whiskey sour. Starting with Sugar House Distillery’s Bourbon, Zach creates a simple syrup from the huckleberries, thyme and lemon, which provides the tartness one would expect in a whiskey sour. To take the edge off, he uses a Capertiff (vermouth) from South Africa, selected from Log Haven’s always eclectic spirit library

Wild Mountain Thyme

1.5 oz Blue Corn Sugar House Bourbon
.5 oz Caperitif 
.75 oz huckleberry thyme syrup
.5 oz lemon juice
4 dashes of barrel-aged Bitters 
Shaken into a double rocks glass

Garnish with 3 sprigs of thyme, candied huckleberries and a lemon peel.

Huckleberry Thyme Syrup:

1 cup fresh huckleberries 
1 cup sugar
Zest from 4 lemons
20 sprigs fresh thyme

Mix it all in a saucepan on medium heat. Bring to a simmer and reduce heat to low for 15-30 minutes.  

Explore the cocktail trail and vote for your favorite cocktail in the 2025 Salt Lake Magazine Farm-To-Glass Cocktail Contest.

About the 2025 Salt Lake Magazine Farm-To-Glass Cocktail Contest

23 bars from across the state present delicious cocktail creations and compete for the best in Utah. This year’s contest cocktails shine with all Utah has to offer, embodying the farm-to-glass ethos by incorporating the bountiful range of Utah’s native herbs, homegrown produce and locally distilled spirits. Celebrate the bartenders’ hard work throughout from Sept. 1–Oct. 1 by visiting participating bars, trying their unique cocktail concoctions and voting for your favorite on saltlakemagazine.com.

Establishment: High West Saloon — 703 Park Ave., Park City
Bartender: Karina Brown
Cocktail Name: What the Duck?

Karina hails all the way from Australia, where she started bartending at 18, as you can down under. Eventually drawn to Utah by our great outdoors, she came to play and worked to stay. That love informs her campfire-inspired cocktail. “It looks like it would be a sweet drink, but it’s not.” 

Farm-to-glass is about freshness to her, brightening up a cocktail with high-quality ingredients right off the nearby farm.

Working at a bar that’s also a distiller, Karina gets to lean into High West’s unique liquors. With 12 years behind the bar at High West, she knows her stuff.

What the Duck?

1.5 oz High West Gin
.5 oz blue curacao
2 oz What the Duck mixer
Shake all ingredients and double strain into a wine glass over pebble ice and top with Ruffino Prosecco.

What the Duck Mixer
Banana, coconut oil, toasted coconut syrup, lemon juice, polo santo bitters, basil and yuzu.

Explore the cocktail trail and vote for your favorite cocktail in the 2025 Salt Lake Magazine Farm-To-Glass Cocktail Contest.

About the 2025 Salt Lake Magazine Farm-To-Glass Cocktail Contest

23 bars from across the state present delicious cocktail creations and compete for the best in Utah. This year’s contest cocktails shine with all Utah has to offer, embodying the farm-to-glass ethos by incorporating the bountiful range of Utah’s native herbs, homegrown produce and locally distilled spirits. Celebrate the bartenders’ hard work throughout from Sept. 1–Oct. 1 by visiting participating bars, trying their unique cocktail concoctions and voting for your favorite on saltlakemagazine.com.

Establishment: Rouser at Asher Adams —2 S. 400 West, SLC
Bartender: Benjamin Arcia
Cocktail Name: Sticks & Stones

Ben Arcia works to transcend the role of a bartender—he is an architect of experience, a curator of flavor and a storyteller through spirits. This expertise extends beyond the mechanics of crafting cocktails; understanding the rhythm of a room, the alchemy of ingredients and the unspoken language of hospitality.

He especially enjoys taking well-loved drinks and making them fresh. “In modern bartending, you need your own take on classics. I’ll try and reinvent the wheel for somebody.” Whether reviving a forgotten classic or trying something new, Ben wants to turn every drink into an encounter—an invitation to indulge, savor
and remember. 

What does he love most about being behind the bar? “I get to make silly drinks and talk to people all day. I get to have my fun while giving people an experience.

Photography by Natalie Simpson, Beehive Photography.

Sticks & Stones

.75 oz Neisson Rhum Agricole Blanc
.75 oz Angeleno Amaro
.75 oz lemon juice
25 oz Bees Brothers honey infused with saffron tea
1 Tbs of Tagges apricot preserves
1 dash of Scrappys cardamom bitters
1 hefty pinch of fresh Frog Bench Farms arugula
Dash of salt

Garnish with fresh arugula leaves and a crack of black pepper.

Explore the cocktail trail and vote for your favorite cocktail in the 2025 Salt Lake Magazine Farm-To-Glass Cocktail Contest.

About the 2025 Salt Lake Magazine Farm-To-Glass Cocktail Contest

23 bars from across the state present delicious cocktail creations and compete for the best in Utah. This year’s contest cocktails shine with all Utah has to offer, embodying the farm-to-glass ethos by incorporating the bountiful range of Utah’s native herbs, homegrown produce and locally distilled spirits. Celebrate the bartenders’ hard work throughout from Sept. 1–Oct. 1 by visiting participating bars, trying their unique cocktail concoctions and voting for your favorite on saltlakemagazine.com.

Establishment: Grand Hyatt Deer Valley / Hidden Ace — 1702 Glencoe Mountain Wy., Park City
Bartender: Victor Wilson
Cocktail Name: Lavender Lift

When Victor came to our photo shoot, he showed up with a big piece of honeycomb. He takes farm-to-glass seriously—his lavender and lemon twist on a French 85 uses local honey and Alpine gin. With 26 years behind the bar, he knows what he likes and he likes it local—He’ll often finish his evening with a glass of High West whiskey.

When he says he’s an old-fashioned guy, he means both the drink and his respect for bartending traditions. But after so much time behind the bar, he’d be happy to never make another Long Island Iced Tea. “I’m done with that from the club days.” One pour that he hopes to never smell again? A Jager bomb. “I don’t think I can smell Jagermeister and Red Bull together anymore.”

Photography by Natalie Simpson, Beehive Photography.

Bartending is something he loves deeply—creating craft cocktails, making memories and talking to people from all over the world. “For me, it’s all about great drinks, good conversation and a little bit of showmanship.”

His hangover advice is to get out and go hiking in the great outdoors. “Suck it up. You did this to yourself.”

Lavender Lift

1.5 oz Alpine Elevated Gin
.75 oz lavender honey simple
.75 oz fresh lemon juice
Shake and strain into a Champagne glass
Top off with Champagne
Lemon twist garnish

Explore the cocktail trail and vote for your favorite cocktail in the 2025 Salt Lake Magazine Farm-To-Glass Cocktail Contest.

About the 2025 Salt Lake Magazine Farm-To-Glass Cocktail Contest

23 bars from across the state present delicious cocktail creations and compete for the best in Utah. This year’s contest cocktails shine with all Utah has to offer, embodying the farm-to-glass ethos by incorporating the bountiful range of Utah’s native herbs, homegrown produce and locally distilled spirits. Celebrate the bartenders’ hard work throughout from Sept. 1–Oct. 1 by visiting participating bars, trying their unique cocktail concoctions and voting for your favorite on saltlakemagazine.com.

Establishment: Hopkins Brewing — 1048 E. 2100 South, SLC
Bartender: Maddie Villano
Cocktail Name: Harvest Reverie

When she’s not out riding motorcycles, hiking in the mountains, or hitting up live shows, Maddie loves the balance between efficiency and creativity that bartending offers—whether pouring a perfect pint or mixing up a custom cocktail, she’s all about making people feel welcome and taken care of. 

She especially enjoys entertaining visitors with her take on Utah’s byzantine liquor regs. 

Photography by Natalie Simpson, Beehive Photography.

When it comes to her own drink preferences, she loves the cocktail classics—a manhattan, an old-fashioned, a sazerac. Like many of the bartenders we interviewed, she laments Salt Lake’s inexplicable fondness for the Long Island Iced Tea. 

Her cocktail is a dreamy tribute to Autumn in Utah, featuring local honey, Utah pear juice and two different local liquors—Sugar House Rye and Waterpocket’s Hartnet Amaro. Definitely not a Long Island Iced Tea.

Harvest Reverie

1.5 oz Sugar House Rye
.5 oz Waterpocket Hartnet Amaro
2 oz pear juice
.75 oz honey chai syrup

Short shake with ice and strain up in a coupe glass. Garnish with dehydrated pear.

Explore the cocktail trail and vote for your favorite cocktail in the 2025 Salt Lake Magazine Farm-To-Glass Cocktail Contest.

About the 2025 Salt Lake Magazine Farm-To-Glass Cocktail Contest

23 bars from across the state present delicious cocktail creations and compete for the best in Utah. This year’s contest cocktails shine with all Utah has to offer, embodying the farm-to-glass ethos by incorporating the bountiful range of Utah’s native herbs, homegrown produce and locally distilled spirits. Celebrate the bartenders’ hard work throughout from Sept. 1–Oct. 1 by visiting participating bars, trying their unique cocktail concoctions and voting for your favorite on saltlakemagazine.com.

Establishment: Urban Hill —510 S. 300 West, SLC
Bartender: Jordon Strang
Cocktail Name: Afterlight

In addition to his work at Urban Hill, Jordon Strang runs a popular pop-up drink series called Bitter Lovers, which shows how much this bartender dives into the deep end of the liquor pool. He’s so enthusiastic about the farm-to-glass concept of our contest that he’s revised the entire Urban Hill drinks menu this fall. The whole lineup will be made with products farmed, produced, or foraged in the state of Utah. (He actually made six entries and all will appear on the menu.)

“We have short seasons and rapid growing periods, and it’s very feast or famine, so we are picking these products in the peak of their season and doing some slight fermentation or preserving them for this menu. I think it’s a fun opportunity to highlight our local farmers.”

Photography by Natalie Simpson, Beehive Photography.

What does he love about bar work? “Taking care of people. Maybe take them away from the tedium, the mundane, the troubles of their life.”

After a night of drinking, Jordon loves the salty limeade at Salt Lake’s Phở Tây Hô. A bit of bitter, a bit of salty, a bit of sweet, just as it should be.

Afterlight

1.5 oz Sugar House Blue Corn Bourbon
.5 oz Faccia Brutto Amaro Gorini
.5 oz apricot-golden beet Gum Syrup
Grated Ritual Chocolate on top

Stir and strain over a big rock and generously grate chocolate over the top.

Apricot-Golden Beet Gum Syrup:
Juice equal parts apricot and golden beet syrup, add 50% sugar by weight and combine and blend 

Explore the cocktail trail and vote for your favorite cocktail in the 2025 Salt Lake Magazine Farm-To-Glass Cocktail Contest.

About the 2025 Salt Lake Magazine Farm-To-Glass Cocktail Contest

23 bars from across the state present delicious cocktail creations and compete for the best in Utah. This year’s contest cocktails shine with all Utah has to offer, embodying the farm-to-glass ethos by incorporating the bountiful range of Utah’s native herbs, homegrown produce and locally distilled spirits. Celebrate the bartenders’ hard work throughout from Sept. 1–Oct. 1 by visiting participating bars, trying their unique cocktail concoctions and voting for your favorite on saltlakemagazine.com.