Salt Lake Magazine
2025 Farm-to-Glass Cocktail Contest
It is a common complaint from newcomers: “You can’t get a drink in Utah.” You’ve said it. You’ve heard it. And we say: This statement is fiction. Bartenders from 23 of Utah’s best bars are here with the facts.
We at Salt Lake magazine understand. A cocktail is a preprandial activity. It should be stiff and assertive. It’s not something you drink all night. A cocktail should pack a punch. And. Yes. A cocktail should be bracing.
As you will see, you can have a glass of something you’ve never tasted in a way you’ve never tasted it. A cocktail, as it’s meant to be, should be the beginning of an adventure.
Our bartenders will show you to the trailhead.
And away we go!
Spencer Jensen—Tomato Boiii
About the cocktail: Tomato Boiii is a spritz-style cocktail. Made with a split base of a fantastic local gin which brings a nice bright floral flavor, Mezcal for a little smoke, a touch of sherry, lemon, and a heirloom tomato & parsley simple syrup. Those ingredients are shaken, then topped with a fresh and savory tomato foam.
Current Fish and Oyster
Karissa Kermode—Sporeplay
About the cocktail: This cocktail starts herbaceous from the sage oil and bright from fresh muddled peaches. The umami and savory flavors from the brown butter oyster mushroom simple syrup hit next, followed by a gentle heat from the habanero simple syrup.
Felt
Josh Van Gorden—The Cafe Racer
About the cocktail: The Cafe Racer is bittersweet & fruity, injected with a healthy dose of nostalgia perfectly tailored for the waning days of summer. Fresh, juicy Utah peaches steal the show here, but underneath there’s a local amaro from Waterpocket Distillery, summery gin from Beehive Distillery, and the warming bitter notes of Chinese five spice. All topped off with a five-spice foam for a peaches ’n’ cream finish.
Flanker Kitchen + Sporting Club
Leo Rosas—Garden Bliss
About the cocktail: Garden Bliss is a fresh celebration of Utah’s local farms and natural beauty. It features crisp Alpine Gin and bright, floral notes from St-Germain and Angel Vert, perfectly balanced with a house-made strawberry, basil, and honey syrup crafted from ingredients sourced right here in Utah’s mountains and fields. This cocktail captures the vibrant flavors of the region in every sip, a true farm-to-glass experience that honors our local growers and brings the spirit of the land to your glass.
Franklin Ave
Hannah Trosclair & Katie Patrick—Sundance Kid
About the cocktail: “This spring, we toured the Waterpocket Distillery in West Valley. Alan’s stories of Butch Cassidy, the Pennellen Pass, the Waterpocket Fold, and how Utah’s history and terrain inspire his approach to distilling, in turn, inspired our own already synesthetic approach to cocktailing. Sundance Kid is our love letter to Utah—a cocktail that captures the essence of this wildly beautiful and complicated state through our eyes: whiskey, amaro, local honey, chamomile tea, and Utah peaches.”
Grand Hyatt Deer Valley
Dustin Nordman—Lavender Lift
About the cocktail: A bright, floral blend of locally distilled gin, local honey, fresh lemon juice, and a hint of lavender. Delicate and refreshing, it captures the essence of the region in every sip—balanced, botanical, and beautifully aromatic.
Harbor Seafood + Steak Co.
Haden Bromley & Devin Kaufusi — Birdie
About the cocktail: A smooth swing into summer, the Birdie blends Sugar House Vodka with Wasatch Blossom Utah Tart Cherry Liqueur, Cherry Schnapps, Utah Cherry-Sambal-Brown Sugar Syrup—shaken to perfection and crowned with a velvety Disaronno amaretto cold foam. Bursting with bold local cherry flavor and a whisper of toasted almond, it’s a refreshing cocktail with just enough tartness and a little spice to keep you coming back for another round.
High West Saloon
Karina Brown— “What the Duck”
About the cocktail: The theme this summer is Camp Highwest. Karina wanted it to look like it was going to be sweet, but on the other hand it’s not. It’s bringing earthy woodsy flavors yet bubbly and refreshing. She incorporated basil, lemon, coconut, banana and polo santo flavors into this cocktail.
HK Brewing Collective Taproom & Bar
Kate Lubing, Zac Ford, Alyssa Burson— Son of a Peach!
About the cocktail: A vibrant mash-up of perfectly balanced Bourbon from High West Distillery, Fruita Triple Sec from the geniuses at Waterpocket Distillery and our own Cheers Queers, a white peach Champagne kombucha. We spice things up with a house-made Fresno & Peach Shrub. Add a dusting of freeze-dried local peaches and Fresno chilies to round things out.
Hopkins Brewing Company
Maddie Villano — Harvest Reverie
About the cocktail: Local pear juice is juiced in-house with local honey chai syrup blended with Sugar House Rye and Waterpocket’s Hartnett Amaro. Warm and aromatic, this cocktail is a dreamy tribute to autumn in Utah.
HSL
Cole Jones — Dirty Rat
About the cocktail: “One of my favorite late summer/early fall comfort dishes to make is ratatouille. There’s something about a simple yet well-executed vegetable dish that I’ve always admired. Savory martinis are amongst my favorite types of cocktails to make and to drink, also a very simple yet well-executed concept. So, when racking my brain about ideas for this contest, a dirty ratatouille martini came to mind. It reads like a martini but more vegetal, and herbal.”
Log Haven
Zach Gunderman — Wild Mountain Thyme
About the cocktail: It’s a take on a classic Whiskey sour. Zach started with a bourbon from Sugar House Distillery. Then he made a huckleberry, thyme, and lemon syrup that is decently tart. The Thyme comes from just out back of Log Haven and the Huckleberries they use in some of their dishes at work. They tried a couple of different liquors to complement the bourbon and Huckleberry, and we decided upon the South African Caperitif as a nice contrast to the tart Huckleberry.
Mar | Muntanya
Keslee Smith — Raspberry Days Gimlet
About the cocktail: This gimlet is built around a spruce tip–infused gin that they developed with Sara Sergent from Alpine Distillery. It brings a beautiful citrusy brightness with floral and forest tones that feel right at home in a mountain-inspired cocktail. For this version of the gimlet, they worked with fresh raspberries from the downtown Salt Lake farmers market. The timing aligns with Bear Lake’s Raspberry Days festival. Raspberry leaves, which are often brewed as tea, also make their way into the drink, blended into a purée with local clover honey from Cox’s Honey, and use that as the base for a soft, slightly herbal espuma that floats on top.
Matteo
Joel Aoyagi — Acquaprese
About the cocktail: The cocktail inspiration is a liquid caprese salad. Tomatoes are abundant in the summer and I’m utilizing multiple varieties to make a tomato water. For the mozzarella element, I’m using the whey liquid from our imported Italian burrata cheese. The whey adds an awesome creamy flavor and texture. White balsamic vinegar of Modena (Matteo’s family is from Modena) gives you the perfect amount of acidic balance. Lastly, local basil brings a sweet herbaceous note to play with the gin spices and botanicals. Madame Pattrini gin from Ogden’s Own Distillery was the perfect base spirit. It plays particularly well with the white balsamic vinegar.”
Melancholy
Tay Dixon — Goat in the Garden
About the cocktail: Bold, complex and a little provocative—this cocktail features local chèvre, blackberry, and peppercorn with Water Pocket Temple of the Moon gin, Fino sherry, and cappelletti, balancing creamy decadence with wild berry brightness.
Palomino
Mariano Agustin Forza — Smoked Orchard
About the cocktail: For this cocktail, Mariano started with fresh Utah pears. He smoked them on the grill using oak wood, a tree that grows all around the Wasatch. That smoke brings him right back to Argentina, but the flavors are rooted in this place. He clarified the smoked pears into a silky cordial with a touch of local honey, then built the cocktail around High West bourbon. He added Amaro Nonino for depth, clarified lemon for brightness, and a dash of Angostura and ginger bitters for a little extra warmth.
Post Office Place
April Long — What Remains
About the cocktail: Inspired by the Great Salt Lake, What Remains reflects a beautiful but fragile ecosystem, what is vanishing and what’s still worth preserving. Built with Waterpocket Gin, Maenad, and shochu, it’s supported with subtle botanicals and light savory umami flavors: preserved lemon cordial, brine drops, and a sage-juniper syrup- a nod to Utah’s surrounding desert landscape. The cocktail’s soft blue-green base is tinted with blue spirulina to evoke the lake’s iconic color when full of life. Crowning the top is an aromatic, silky red foam of tangy sumac, watermelon, and hibiscus, and local salt symbolizing the hues of the concentrated salinity of the lake. A pickled sea bean garnish is a taste of the marshlands, a critical habitat for migratory birds. Fall is a time of reflecting and this drink invites us to consider our relationship with the land- what we protect, what we lose and ‘what remains.
Rouser
Benjamin Arcia — Sticks and Stones
About the cocktail: This cocktail is a refined twist on the classic Sidecar, replacing traditional Cognac with the grassy, earthy complexity of Rhum Agricole. The addition of Bee’s Brother’s honey infused with saffron lends a smooth, floral sweetness, balancing the tartness of fresh lemon juice. Pronounced pepper notes from fresh local arugula, Tagge’s Apricot Preserves enhances the drink with a rich, stone-fruit depth, complementing the rum’s natural funk and vibrancy. These ingredients get balanced out by adding Angeleno orange amaro. Served on the rocks with a fresh crack of black pepper, this cocktail delivers a perfect harmony of bright acidity, punch of pepper, nuanced sweetness, and bitter orange—ideal for sipping and savoring.
Scion Cider Bar
Tyler Zacher — Red Rave
About the cocktail: “At Scion, we consistently work with the local distilleries for our cider-inspired cocktails, and the Holystone Normandy Apple Brandy is a truly unique product in our local market. We appreciate its origins as much as we do true French cider and Calvados. This cocktail helps transition us from the end of summer fruit season to the earthy, savory flavors of fall with the beets, grown in our owner (Elisabeth’s) garden. Its rich flavors are balanced nicely with a hint of sweetness that isn’t overpowering.”
Sugar House Station
Seth Hansink — Pottery Class
About the cocktail: The creative drive behind the Sugar House Iced to was to create a cocktail that combines two of their three craft bar concepts at Sugar House Station. It features spirits from both Waterpocket Distillery and Sugar House Distillery, as well as some zesty house made habanero orgeat and Angostura. It’s a crushable concoction with just the right amount of heat to keep you coming back for more.
The Vault at Bambara
Nick Murphy — Pear of Amigos
About the cocktail: “I wanted to make a boozy yet easy drinking cocktail that fits the fall/winter season. The pear, ginger, and cinnamon bark taste like a change of the season and the whiskey and reposado warm you up.“
Urban Hill
Jordon Strang — Afterlight
About the cocktail: This is a bitter booze-forward cocktail with some rich top notes from the beet and apricots. Grated chocolate always adds a really nice melty mouthfeel as well. It uses entirely local Utah ingredients.
Water Witch
Dawson Jenkens — Sack Lunch
About the cocktail: “Sack lunch levels green apple, nutty notes of both Fino and the carraway-spirit, aquavit, along with bright bubblegum juiciness of cappelletti and house blended baking spice bitters, all these flavors are carried along a velvety layer of whey.
Aquavit, Notom and Maenad comprise the distinct and aromatic spirit component of this drink. Lastly, this garnish is an homage to my favorite childhood snack, apples and cheese. We utilize the curds after making whey to blend with peaches and top our apples with housemade peach burrata, the perfect sack lunch snack.”
