Portland Cocktail Week offers scholarships for Utah bartenders

Chassis the Robot won the 2011 PDXCW Human vs.
Robot Bartender Competition

Portland Cocktail Week is offering a great opportunity for Utah bartenders: scholarships to the third annual Portland Cocktail Week, October 21-25 2012.  The application is available online, and is humorous enough to be worth a read even if you’re not thinking of applying.  If you are interested, apply soon: places are going fast!

Scholars will be granted access to all parties, events, seminars, and tastings, and have their hotel rooms paid for, but must provide their own transportation to Portland and pay for most of their own meals.  While Portland is not “right next door” to Salt Lake City (unless you live on the east coast), flights are not unreasonably priced, and it’s drivable (640 miles) in a pinch.

Some of the highlights of last year’s Portland Cocktail Week include:

• A Welcome to Cocktail Week party, attended by some of the biggest names in the spirits business, and where no less a cocktail luminary than Dale DeGroff made me a Martini.
• The ladies’ Speed Rack competition to determine who the most skilled lady bartender in Portland was.
• A battle between bartenders and cocktail-making robots to determine who could make the best cocktails.  It was like watching a drinking man’s John Henry do battle.

It was a great gathering, and this year’s is bigger, and is shaping up to be better.  To track emerging developments, follow @PDXCocktailWeek on Twitter.  While you’re at it, be sure to follow the @UtahMixologist.