This is Stephanie Lamb, from Toronto.
Steph is 31 years old and is originally from Montreal. She moved to Toronto a little over five years ago. Steph wanted to be a vet since she was a kid. When the time came to study at university, she put herself through business school to better her grades and hopefully get into vet school. She turned out staying in business school and waitressing to put herself through school. She is now the national brand ambassador for Grey Goose and has been bartending for almost a decade. Let’s see how this all happened.
Back when she was a waitress, there was this amazing woman that bartended at the restaurant she worked at. She was in her forties, was making caipirinhias for the whole room, had a wonderful energy and was awesome to watch. That’s when Steph thought that she wanted to become a bartender. She was 20 years old, was bored in business school, bored at her second job at the bank, and realized that there really was no reason for her to be bored at all! She quit the bank, quit school, and started her journey as a bartender.
Her first job behind a bar was at Upstairs Jazz Bar in Montreal. She fell in love with the trade instantly. This is where she learned to work fast and quietly. A few years later, she started to work at 132 Bar Vintage. She started to enter cocktail competitions, consulting for other restaurants and bars, and eventually felt that Montreal was a little small. This was years ago and the cocktail scene was not the same as today.
So she decided to move to Toronto. If it took her a little while to get use to the culture there, once she pierced into the cocktail community and became part of it, she adopted the new city as her home. Eventually, she got a bartending job at Pretty Ugly. It was the point in her career where she had the most experience, but also one of which she learnt most. It was because she worked there that she got the opportunity to work with Grey Goose.
Steph went from full-time bartender to full-time national brand ambassador from the very get-go. The change happened so fast that she wasn’t really sure that it was for her. It was Kris Bahamondes and Sam Trudreau that suggested her for the position. After her second interview in NYC, Steph walked out of there feeling very proud that she made it to the second round, thinking that it was a great experience and being sure that she didn’t get the job. To her great surprise, she was hired. It took her six months to figure out how to do the brand ambassador role, one year to become good at it, and it’s been three years now so it must say something!
In parallel to her brand ambassador role, Steph is very interested in the health and wellness of the bar community. She co-founded Bar Benefits with Tess Anne Sawyer, an initiative that promotes “better minds, better bodies, better bartenders”.
Overall, whether it’s through her work with Grey Goose or with Bar Benefits, Steph is extremely involved in our community. She’s very close from bartenders and is always happy to support their initiatives and offer her help whenever she can. She also firmly believes in making our community better and actively works towards that goal. Least to say, she has a very impressive path into our industry and is an extremely talented bartender and brand ambassador. Most of all, she’s quite a gem of a human and we are very proud to showcase her today.
A little bit more about Stephanie...
The three words that describe her best: Bubbly – laughs at herself – transparent
How does she drink her martini:
5 parts Grey Goose
1 part dry vermouth
1 dsh orange bitters
Lemon twist.
Fun fact about her: She has a small addiction to apps & complete badges. For instance, she LOVES using All Trails Apps and doing the trails to obtain the little complete sign next to it after.
Her advice for people that want to become a brand ambassador: Don’t burn your bridges. You never know when you’re gonna need somebody in the future and it would be very sad if you lose an opportunity because of something stupid you did 10 years ago.
The biggest challenge she had to overcome professionally: Being on TV. As much as she has a big personality in person, for some reasons it doesn’t shine the same way on TV.