This is Lindsay Jones.
Lindsay is 35 years old, is originally from Toronto and studied event planning and tourism management. After spending most of her life in Toronto, she moved to Whistler for a couple of years. Eventually she came back home and decided to head to the East coast. She has been living in Halifax for five years now.
Lindsay started bartending nine years ago. Her first shift was at a dive bar in Toronto. She wanted to finance a trip she had in mind and convinced one of her friends that was opening a bar to hire her. She loved it instantly. One night after she had been working in dive bars for a few years, a customer asked her for an Old Fashioned. She didn’t know what it was and went in the back to google it. It turned out she didn’t have the ingredients to make it but her curiosity was sparked. When she came home, she started doing some research, reading about cocktails and realized that there was this whole other realm of bartending she didn’t know about.
Shortly after that she moved to Halifax and got a job at the Middle Spoon, which is where she really got into cocktails. She knew she loved bartending and was looking for a way to make a career out of it. Cocktail bartending appeared as a way for her to put more care and pride into what she already loved doing, and seemed a lot more sustainable as a choice. It was also then that she realized about the whole cocktail competition circuit. Lindsay grew up playing sports so that side really talked to her. It definitely helped her grow as a bartender and got her to interact with many people across the country.
After working at Middle Spoon for a few years, Lindsay joined the team at the Ostrich Club last February. She was hired as the bar manager and was given the task to create their whole bar program which of course, she did with brio.
To conclude, this article wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t take the time to acknowledge the fact that Lindsay, a part from being pretty amazing at what she does as a bartender and bar manager, is also incredibly involved and does considerable work for her bartending community. She is the co-founder of Hali Team, a platform designed to shine the light on the Halifax cocktail scene. Will Irvine and her created Hali Team in order to showcase all the talent and the great work that is present in this East Coast too often forgotten little gem of a city. She works very hard for Halifax to be represented in cocktail Competitions and recognized as a cocktail destination.
For her cocktail, click here !
A little bit more about Lindsay...
Fun fact: She loves Taylor Swift, it’s a big guilty pleasure of hers.
The first drink that made her fall in love with cocktails: Penicillin.
The quality she loves most about a guest: Curiosity. She loves nerding out, whether it be about techniques or products, with a special love for whiskey. She loves when a customer is into what she’s doing.
Advice to younger bartenders: Find a mentor and learn the basics. Even if you wanna be the best and the most creative, you need to start by learning the base.
What she loves most about bartending: A lot. The social aspect of it. She’s an introvert and doesn’t exactly know what happens when there is that bar between her and the others, but it allows her to connect way more with people and brings out a more social part of her. It also brings out creativity. She has always found that she had creativity but never really knew how to express it. Bartending as showed to be the perfect medium for it.