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.
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.
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.
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.”
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
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:Post Office Place— 16 W. Market St., SLC Bartender: April Long Cocktail Name: What Remains
The star ingredient of “What Remains,” is its story. April Long designed it with the dwindling Great Salt Lake in her mind.
“It’s the story of how the lake is changing,” she says. “As the water level drops and the saline concentration grows in the lake, its blue color gives way to red algae. That red algae is the last color the lake will have. So hopefully this cocktail is just a little bit of a nudge to think about preservation and what we have yet to save.”
Built with Waterpocket Gin, Meliae and shochu, the cocktail’s soft blue-green base is tinted with blue spirulina to evoke the lake’s iconic color when it’s full of life. Crowning the top is an aromatic, silky red foam of tangy sumac, watermelon and hibiscus, symbolizing the hues of the concentrated salinity of the lake. A pickled sea bean garnish is a taste of the wetlands, which are a critical habitat for migratory birds. Now that’s a story.
“Fall is a time for reflecting and this drink invites us to consider our relationship with the land—what we protect and ‘What Remains’ if we fail.”
April hopes her drink will spark bar talk about the lake. “I want to ask what people think about the lake, what do they know? Have they ever been there? Cocktails can be a means to communicate something larger.”
She’ll be directing patrons to the Great Salt Lake Hopeline, a project supported by the public art project Wake the Great Salt Lake. She’d love folks to call and leave the Great Salt Lake a loving voicemail. “It’s the coolest thing,” she says. (Call 979-GSL-HOPE or visit gslhopeline.org for more info.)
What Remains
6 drops preserved lemon cordial 6 drops botanical brine .5 oz clarified lemon juice .5 oz juniper-sage and blue spirulina syrup .5 oz Waterpocket Meanad .5 oz Iichiko shochu 1 oz Waterpocket Gin
Shake and strain into a small coupe. Siphon sumac tea, watermelon juice, hibiscus liqueur and salt foam. Sprinkle salted sumac on one half of the cocktail and garnish with a pickled sea bean.
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:Scion Cider — 916 S. Jefferson St., SLC Bartender: Tyler Zacher Cocktail Name: Red Rave
Native Utahn Tyler ZacHer was gone for a long while,spending 12 years behind bars in Austin before returning home to Salt Lake City. Tyler works at Scion, which has the second-largest cider selection in North America, so he had plenty of inspiration around him. His cocktail uses a Normandy-style apple brandy produced here in Utah, combined with fresh beet juice from beets grown in the garden of Scion’s owner.
His time in Austin did leave him with a love of post-shift margaritas. He geeks out on cocktails that mimic things in the real world—a tootsie roll martini is a favorite. But most of all, he loves the speed of bartending, the constant flow of different folks and the diversity of tastes. He especially loves talking about Utah to visitors, explaining his favorite things about his home state that drew him back in after all those years away.
Red Rave
1.5 oz Holystone Normandy Apple Brandy 1 oz beet-brandy (fresh beet juice and Christian Bros. Brandy) .5 oz RAFT Demerara Syrup .75 oz fresh lemon juice, orange twist and candied beet garnish
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:Sugar House Station — 2155 S. Highland Dr., SLC Bartender: Seth Hansink Cocktail Name: Pottery Class
The historic Post Office buildingoff 2100 South in Sugar House has been a drug store, an ice cream shop, a seafood restaurant, and now, the 1930s landmark is the home of Utah’s very first “bar hall”. Sugar House Station is the latest endeavor from Pago Group’s Scott Evans, who has partnered with local distilling vanguards James Fowler and Alan Scott of Sugar House Distillery and Waterpocket Distillery, respectively, to bring the building into a new era of business.
Head bartender Seth Hansink came up with this spicy, amaro-forward sipper for this year’s Farm-to-Glass contest, and the cocktail does a lovely job of showcasing the collaborative nature of Sugar House Station. Utilizing Sugar House Distilling’s Blue Corn Bourbon and Water Pocket Distilling’s Hartnet, the booze-forward cocktail gets a dose of heat from habanero orgeat. Paying homage to the classic Trinidad Sour, Hansink added a heaping half ounce of Angostura bitters for some full-bodied baking spice flavor. Crowning the autumn-hued drink is a fresh bouquet of mint, delivering some fresh herbal aromatics to this bold concoction.
Pottery Class
1 .5oz Sugar House Blue Corn Bourbon .5 oz Waterpocket Hartnet .5 oz Angostura Bitters .75 oz lime juice .75 oz habanero orgeat
Add all ingredients with ice to a shaker tin and shake well. Strain into a collins glass and garnish with a fresh mint bouquet.
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: HSL — 418 E. 200 South, SLC Bartender: Cole Jones Cocktail Name: The Dirty Rat
Cole Jones tried several different artistic fields, including working as a chef, before he found bartending and something clicked. “I love coming up with cocktails and making menus, it’s such an interesting expression of creativity. There’s nothing else like it”.
That creativity led to the Dirty Rat, a cocktail inspired by his experience making late summer ratatouille. “The second it hit me, a ratatouille martini, it was like divine inspiration.” Watch for hints of garlic and olive.
Even though his drink is veggie-forward, when it comes to relaxing, Cole loves a tiki cocktail. A classic daiquiri or ‘ti punch with rhum agricole hits the spot. Cole also loves mixing up some theatrical drinks—“anything I can light on fire, I’m happy with.”
His hangover recovery routine is inspired by Anthony Bourdain: “Have a beer, have a cigarette, eat some spicy food, go for a long walk, drink some coffee, all within the same hour.”
The Dirty Rat
1.5 oz Sugar House Vodka 1 oz ratatouille shrub .5 oz Olive brine .25 oz Waterpocket Toadstool Notum .25 oz Lusau Fino Sherry 2 drops of Saline solution
Stir, strain and garnish with a skewer of dehydrated zucchini and yellow summer squash
Ratatouille shrub:
Add tomatoes, charred eggplant, zucchini, squash blossom, red bell pepper, garlic, salt, pepper, verjus rouge, red wine vinegar and water to a blender, blend on high till well incorporated, strain through a fine mesh strainer, then strain again through a coffee filter.
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.
Dawson is a local boy who has been tending bar since he turned 21. It’s no wonder that his cocktail was inspired by a sack lunch like your momma used to make for you. Think recess vibes.
Don’t mistake youth for a lack of maturity though. With Waterpocket Snow Angel Aquavit, fino sherry, homemade peach burrata and locally produced bitters, this is not your kindergarten juice box.
Dawson loves whipping up egg white cocktails, as befits a guy who is always thinking about the chemistry of what he’s stirring and the idea of understanding what flavors exist in Utah’s biome.
“What grows together, goes together, and we grow here.” Bartending in Utah is especially fun because he gets to subvert the expectations that our drinks will suck. “It makes me a little oppositional defiant …I have the most fun job in the world. There’s so much more going on than making drinks … hosting a vibe, making sure that everybody’s having a good time and facilitating connections.”
Dawson used to be skeptical about the hair-of-the-dog hangover cure. “I thought ‘you guys are just looking for an excuse to drink again.’ It works, a little bit. So maybe an Underberg after a breakfast sandwich.”
Sack Lunch
1 oz Waterpocket aquavit .5 oz cappaletti .5 oz fino Sherry .75 oz acid-corrected apple juice .5 oz whey A bar spoon of Maenad 1 sleeve bitters blend
Shake and strain onto ice
Garnish: Garnish with two crescent apple slices and a ball of housemade peach burrata. Bitters Blend: Mix equal parts Angostura and Waterpocket Notom.
Acid Corrected Apple Juice: Juice green apples and add 4g of citric and 4g of malic acid to every 500g of apple juice
Whey and Peach Burrata: Bring whole milk just below a boil and slowly add 1 cup of white vinegar per gallon of milk till the mixture curdles. Set aside for 20 minutes and blend the peaches. (You can use whey to begin the blending if peaches are less juicy).
Set aside the whey to cool. Take milk solids (curds) and incorporate peaches. Add salt and sugar to taste and strain this wet mess in a cheesecloth. Suspend the cheesecloth in the fridge overnight to solidify and form into pearls once the cheese has set.
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:The Vault at Bambara—202 S. Main St., SLC Bartender: Nick Murphy Cocktail Name: Pear of Amigos
“Salt Lake is a little hesitanton booze-forward cocktails,” Nick Murphy says, “so I try to make something that’s a little more boozy, but not just a punch in the mouth.” Working in the bar at the Kimpton Monaco means that he needs to straddle two worlds—locals and visitors. Nick works to marry the sophistication that his globe-trotting customers expect with Utah’s local ingredients.
He loves the interaction he gets with all kinds of people. “Everyone has an amazing story. Once you get past the initial icebreaker, most times they open up.”
His cocktail is squarely aimed at the fall weather he enjoys as an outdoor guy. With ginger and cinnamon bark to evoke the changing seasons and whiskey and reposado to warm you up, the Pear of Amigos is a campfire cocktail that works well served up in one of Salt Lake’s swankiest hotels.
Pear of Amigos
1.5 oz Elijah Craig .5 oz Casamigos Reposado .25 oz spiced pear .25 oz Domaine De Canton .25 oz lemon .5 oz cinnamon bark syrup
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.
For us old Salt Lakers, the dizzying array of changes to Salt Lake City can be disorienting. I’m not talking about the actual map; the grid system still abides, as is written. No, I’m talking about the shifts to the cultural map, the ideas and concepts that orient us. The places and spaces that make any city a city have been changing, shifting around and evolving.
Every city has a Restaurant Row, that part of town, often an actual street, that occupies the collective mental map as the place to go to answer the eternal question, “where shall we eat?” In Salt Lake, this has been and continues to be downtown, but new possibilities have emerged in parts of town that weren’t previously places to be considered.
Our writer, Lydia Martinez, recently pointed this out. Nine-hundred South, specifically the intersection of 900 East and 900 South (9th and 9th), has long been a spot, a thing. A place we all regard as “cool.” And now the whale! But slowly, in fits and starts, the avenue of 900 South, AKA Harvey Milk Boulevard, has turned into what could be described as a Restaurant Row, albeit a very long one. We have big blocks in SLC. Hotspots dot the path west, drawing us beyond 9th and 9th proper.
To the West is Central 9th, anchored by its initial pioneers, the cocktail wizards at Water Witch, but from the rubble, a new place for your mental maps now exists. The Pearl, Bar Nohm, Central Ninth Market and Scion Cider Bar make this place a place.
It was the in-between, however, that Lydia noted. Fine-dining stalwarts like Veneto and Manoli’s have been there, of course, but now there is more there, there. While we complained about orange traffic barrels and fledgling businesses struggled uphill, little by little, cohesion and a new bike and walking route (The Nine Line) connected the dots. Lake Sears is still a blight, but enough dots have filled in that we can proclaim that 900 South is a Restaurant Row. We point the way on in our feature “The New Foodie Hotspot.”
Read more stories like this and all of our Community coverage. And while you’re here, subscribe and get six issues of Salt Lake magazine, your curated guide to the best of life in Utah.
A judge has ruled the Utah Legislature overstepped when it repealed and replaced a 2018 ballot initiative creating an independent redistricting commission. Now, she’s ordering lawmakers to draw new congressional maps in time for the 2026 election.
Third District Court Judge Dianna Gibson handed down the ruling Monday evening — a major development in a complex, yearslong court case that has major implications for the future of Utah’s federal political landscape.
“Plaintiffs have proven, as a matter of law, that the Legislature unconstitutionally repealed Proposition 4, and enacted SB 200, in violation of the people’s fundamental right to reform redistricting in Utah and to prohibit partisan gerrymandering,” Gibson wrote in the ruling.
The judge also enjoined the state’s 2021 congressional map and directed the Legislature to “design and enact a remedial congressional redistricting map in conformity” with the 2018 ballot initiative known as Better Boundaries and its mandatory independent requirements.
The ruling comes during a time when debate over redistricting is at the forefront on the national stage — and it now propels Utah into the fray. While redistricting efforts in Texas, California and other states are playing out mid-decade — fueled by President Donald Trump’s aim to bolster the U.S. House’s slim GOP majority in the 2026 midterm elections — Utah’s effort for an independent and nonpartisan process is court ordered.
The ruling — if allowed to stand — could force the Republican-controlled Utah Legislature to redraw maps for its congressional boundaries that it last set in 2021. Before those maps were adopted, one of Utah’s four U.S. House seats was competitive for Democrats. Today, Republicans consistently dominate all four.
However, that all depends on the final outcome of the case — which isn’t over. Attorneys for the Utah Legislature have indicated that if Gibson didn’t rule in their favor, they’d appeal to the Utah Supreme Court and possibly the U.S. Supreme Court.
Utah’s top Republican legislative leaders left the door open Monday to additional legal or legislative maneuvering.
Plaintiffs in an anti-gerrymandering lawsuit pose for a photo outside the Matheson Courthouse in downtown Salt Lake City on Aug. 25, 2025. (Katie McKellar/Utah News Dispatch)
“While disappointed by the court’s decision, we remain committed to protecting the voices of Utahns and upholding the Legislature’s state and federal constitutional authority to draw congressional districts,” House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, and Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, said in a joint statement. “We will carefully review the ruling and consider our next steps.”
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox issued a short statement saying he disagreed with an earlier Utah Supreme Court ruling that sent the redistricting case back to Gibson’s court room last July. In that unanimous opinion, Utah’s highest court ruled Gibson erred when she initially dismissed the claim that the Legislature overstepped when it repealed and replaced Proposition 4.
“Today’s decision is not a surprise after the Supreme Court’s ruling last summer,” Cox said. “While I respect the role of the courts in our system, I continue to disagree with that decision.”
Gibson’s ruling sides with the plaintiffs — which include the groups League of Women Voters of Utah, Mormon Women for Ethical Government and the Campaign Legal Center — in an anti-gerrymanding lawsuit that’s stretched on for more than two years over an issue that dates back even further.
Now, with Gibson’s ruling, the court has reinstated the language of Proposition 4, the 2018 ballot initiative that requires redistricting maps to comply with a set of specific standards meant to prevent partisan gerrymandering.
To “remedy” the 2021 congressional map that’s now been deemed unconstitutional, Gibson proposed a timeline to govern additional court proceedings between now and Nov. 1, giving the Legislature 30 days to draw a new congressional map “that complies with the mandatory redistricting standards and requirements originally established under Proposition 4.”
“The Legislative Defendants are ordered to make their chosen remedial map available to Plaintiffs and the Court no later than 5:00 p.m. on September 24, 2025 or within 24 hours of enacting the new congressional map, whichever occurs earlier,” the judge wrote.
The judge said plaintiffs and other third parties “may also submit proposed remedial maps” to the court on Sept. 24 if the Legislature doesn’t enact a map that complies with Proposition 4 by its deadline or if the plaintiffs “contend that the remedial map fails to abide by and conform” to Proposition 4.
‘Watershed moment’
The lawsuit’s plaintiffs and leaders of Better Boundaries were elated by Monday’s ruling. They chatted excitedly and hugged each other as they gathered outside the Matheson Courthouse in Salt Lake City for a news conference as evening fell.
Elizabeth Rasmussen, executive director of Better Boundaries, called the ruling a “major win, not just for the plaintiffs, but for the voters of Utah and for the future of citizen-led reform in this state.”
“We are thrilled that the court has reaffirmed what we have known all along — that the people have co-equal lawmaking authority with the Legislature. That the Legislature violated the Utah Constitution when they overturned Proposition 4. And that Utahns deserve fair, independent maps they voted for almost seven years ago,” she said.
The plaintiffs’ attorney David Reymann said the ruling was a “watershed moment in Utah for the voices of Utah voters.”
“We have maintained from the start that the Legislature in this state is not king, that their power derives from the people,” Reymann said. “Today, the voice of Utah voters was vindicated by the district court, which held that the Legislature cannot ignore what the Utah voters enact without consequence.”
Reymann said the judge has also set up a process “that will allow us to give to voters what they voted for so many years ago, which is a map that is not stacked in favor of one party.”
Emma Petty Addams, co-executive director of Mormon Women for Ethical Government and one of the plaintiffs, called the ruling “a significant and meaningful victory … for every Utahn who believes that government should serve the people.”
“The court today reaffirmed that citizens have both the right and the responsibility to reform unjust systems. That this right cannot be discarded by elected officials for their own political convenience,” Addams said.
To Utah’s state leaders, Addams issued a call to work together rather than continue to fight.
“Let’s work together to create a more representative government. The people have spoken. The courts have spoken. Now is the time to move forward with cooperation and respect for the rule of law,” she said.
This article was originally published by Utah News Dispatch, read the full story here.
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About the Author
Katie McKellar covers Utah government as a senior reporter for Utah News Dispatch. She specializes in political reporting, covering the governor and the Utah Legislature, with expertise in beats including growth, housing and homelessness.
