My Favorite Recipe is a recurring feature on Grok Nation that highlights a celebrity or chef’s all-time favorite.
You may not guess that a person with the title “The Cocktail Guru” started as a bartender to supplement a fledgling acting career, but that’s exactly what happened to Jonathan Pogash. Growing up in New Jersey with a French-Moroccan mother who had an affinity for cooking and a father who worked in the wine industry, Jonathan was exposed early to the world of hospitality. But it was his love of acting that sent him to Skidmore College and then to NYC to pursue the limelight. After his father suggested he work in restaurants to pay the bills between acting gigs, he realized he’d found his true passion.
Jonathan soon found himself immersed in all things beverage. “I was not only slinging beers, shots, and cocktails at top notch spots across NYC (my first gig was at The Russian Tea Room), but I was setting up and working events for liquor brand clients, and sometimes consulting with other bars and restaurants on their drink menus and trainings,” he explains. Eventually he created a brand (“which I cloyingly named ‘The Cocktail Guru,’ he says”) for beverage consultation, special events coverage, brand ambassador work and more; once he saw success, he was able to make it his full-time career.
Read the full profile on The Cocktail Guru and get his tiki drink recipe on groknation.com.