This is Colie Ehrenworth, from Toronto.
Colie grew up in Thorn Hill and moved to Toronto for University. She is the youngest of her siblings and has two brothers. She is the proud mom of a lovely dog called Hank, AKA Hanky Panky. Colie majored in dance. While she was still a student, she would work for her dad’s company during summers. She started with administrative work and ended up moving into graphic design work. Colie was never an office person and sitting at her desk all day wasn’t exactly best for her. When she was little, she wanted to be a flight attendant like her mother was. She left her office job to go travel for a year and when she came back, she got a job at a bar since she always loved the hospitality industry and thought that down the line, it would be a good experience for when she would become a flight attendant. That was about three years ago, and you guessed it, she stayed in the bar industry ever since.
Colie had quite a flamboyant debut in our industry. She worked as a bar back at Mahjong Bar for a few months before she got promoted as a bartender. A few months later again, she took part in her first cocktail competition, Speed Rack, and ended up winning the nationals after not even a year of bartending experience. Least to say, she made quite an impression! Colie knew that she loved the hospitality industry and has always been the type of person that sits at the bar and enjoys the experience and interaction. Providing that interaction and experience to her guests is what she likes most, as well as having all that back bar as a back drop behind her to spark conversations about spirits and products.
Shortly after she won Speed Rack, she was approached by Jon Smolenski who was looking for someone to take care of Sovereign Canada’s portfolio in Toronto. Colie turned out to be that person and has been on board since as the Ontario Portfolio Manager.
Overall, Colie strikes us not only as being someone that has gained a tremendous amount of knowledge about many facades of our industry in record times, but even most importantly, as someone that is all about building an inclusive community. We are lucky that her path led her to our industry and look forward to see the bright future that awaits her.
For her cocktail recipe, click here.
A little bit more about Colie
Fun fact about her: She has a lot of random hobbies. She’s on a curling team, she absolutely loves fishing and was a trampoline instructor at some point.
What did she dream to be when she was little: Everything. It was changing almost every week. She wanted to be an artist, a fire fighter, a dog breeder, a flight attendant and more.
Her favourite colour: Seafoam green.
Her biggest strength as a bartender: It applies to life in general, but as a bartender in specific, she’s really good at understanding the different ways that people like to be interacted with. Whether it’s with her co-workers or with her guests, she’s really good at navigating different types of people, energies and vibes, and understanding how they work and communicating appropriately.
The biggest professional challenge that she had to overcome: Navigating in general. Whenever you move up a level in your career, when you make that next step and you have to learn new things, just being able to navigate it and being able to stay humble, ask those questions and not pretend like you know everything, even if it’s a challenge to let your guards down. Because if you pretend that you know everything, you’re never going to get anywhere because you’re never going to learn.