How Beyond the Bar Became a Vital Resource for the Drinks Community

A significant but often overlooked aspect of Tales of the Cocktail (TOTC), the annual drinks seminar/bacchanalia held each July in New Orleans, is called Beyond the Bar. It’s a series of seminars that focus on mental health and physical wellness, social justice, substance use, sexual harassment prevention and sustainability within the drinks world.

“Beyond the Bar is all the things that are outside of physically making a drink and presenting it to a guest,” says John Gakuru, a drinks vet of 25 years and a board member of the non-profit Tales of the Cocktail Foundation. “It’s more about the things that we need to feel complete and go to work every day well-balanced.”

Gakuru, now in his second year on the board, has actually attended well over a dozen TOTCs from the other side, as a bartender, brand ambassador, trade marketing manager and sales manager (among other roles). “Tales has been a constant through my career,” he says. “In the early days, I was attending to learn and grow and develop my network. I could just fly to this one city, and everyone I needed to talk to was there.”

Started in 2018, Beyond the Bar offers a respite from the weeklong party/tasting itinerary. It’s for advancing and educating bartenders around the world, particularly from communities that are “less well-served on the day to day,” as Gakuru notes. “It’s all the things that can feed our soul and make us happy.”

This year at Tales (where InsideHook’s drinks newsletter The Spill is a sponsor), Beyond the Bar’s programming includes complimentary fitness classes, wellness workshops, roundtable discussions, bystander intervention and harassment prevention training. It also includes grants given by the Foundation to organizations such as Another Round Another Rally (which offers educational scholarships to the bartender community), Focus on Health (wellness programs for drinks professionals), Safe Bars (which helps create safe, equitable and inclusive hospitality spaces) and Ben’s Friends (a community that offers a path forward for those struggling with substance abuse and addiction).

That said, Beyond the Bar is not just a weeklong program within Tales. Thanks to some recent feedback, the program has grown into a 24/7, 365-day resource hub. “That was some of the feedback we received, to make it year-round,” Gakuru says.

If you’re at Tales, you can also experience Beyond the Bar’s lounge in the Ritz-Carlton, which will offer non-alcoholic beverages and a cool place to relax and escape the heat and general city hubbub. It’s also where you’ll probably find Gakuru each day. “I need to carve out a little time there during the chaos,” he says.

Which begs a follow-up: as a longtime attendee and current board member, what advice does Gakuru have for surviving Tales? While his recommendations unofficially include starting Tales’ mornings with a frozen Irish coffee at Erin Rose, he does offer some sage advice.

“There are two things we tell people: number one, stay hydrated,” he says. “Number two, never finish an entire alcoholic drink because there is another one around the corner for you. You do not need to finish everything that is put in your hands. If you follow those rules, you’ll get so much out of attending Tales.”