KATE GERWIN

Kate Gerwin, a widely celebrated bartender and hospitality consultant, is well-known in the drinks industry for being the first woman world bartending champion and first American to win the Bols Around the World Bartending Championship in 2014, but this is just one of her many worthy accomplishments. In her more-than-20-year career, Gerwin has been named by Drinks International as one of the industry’s “Top 100 Most Influential Figures in the World,” from 2019-2023, she has worked as a certified advanced master sommelier for some of Napa’s top wineries, consulted on the docuseries Bar Rescue, was a finalist in the Netflix reality competition series “Drinkmasters”. She taught at the Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Arts campus in Scottsdale, Arizona and the New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, Vt., and she is currently one of the instructors for the prestigious Bar 5 Day program, hosted yearly at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park.

In 2015, She was inducted into the Tales of the Cocktail Hall of Fame Catalyst Awards, which celebrates the contributions of hard-working people to the spirits and cocktail industry and is one of the only “peer judged” awards in the industry.

But it is her bar and distillery in Albuquerque, New Mexico that she is most passionate about. When she and her long time business partner, Blaze Montana opened Happy Accidents in 2021 on the tail end of the pandemic, they set out to set a new standard in cocktail bars. Happy Accidents won “Best New American Cocktail Bar” two times, for both Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards, and the liquor.com awards. Kate’s crowning moment happened this year, as the bar was awarded “Best U.S. Bar Team” at the Spirited Awards, the award Kate has coveted the most. Kate and Blaze have also been named the Drinks Industry’s Innovator of the Year Award 2023 from Seven Fifty Daily. Kate was also awarded “Bartender of the Year” 2023 and the bar just brought home the prestigious “Bar of the Year” 2024 award at Bar & Restaurant Expo awards in Las Vegas. Kate is currently designing a glassware collection for Onis, a prize for her global win in the Glassology competition in 2023 in Athens, Greece.