Sipping the Past with the Pink Lady of LUPEC

Kirsten Amann is living what might be considered an upscale tippler’s dream. When not behind the bar at South End hotspot Toro, this multi-talented lady can be found helming her eponymous PR company (bringing many delightful cocktail-related events to fruition, including the seminar and tasting with The Bitter Truth). And as if that weren’t enough boozy goodness, Amann is a founding member of the Boston chapter of LUPEC: Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails. We recently sat down together for a chat about the group and its seamless melding of cocktail culture, American history, and even a little bit a of feminism.

First, a brief history of LUPEC. The first chapter was founded in Pittsburgh in 2001. Its cheeky tagline (“Dismantling the patriarchy, one cocktail at a time”) underscores a deeper truth: much like high-end kitchens, mixology is still, according to Amann, “very much a boy’s club.” Which is not to say that male bartenders or cocktail enthusiasts are at all bad. But it left a small but vibrant niche to be filled, with women teaching women about cocktails.

Here in Boston, those ladies came together in 2007 under the leadership of Misty Kalkofen (currently rocking the bar at Drink in Fort Point). The group’s membership is diverse, containing everyone from bartenders to media types to a water treatment engineer.

Because each chapter has its own personality and spin, the local group has had the chance to branch out in many directions. Their charitable endeavors run the gamut from a tiki-themed luau to a published work, The Little Black Book of Cocktails. The generative process behind this pocket sized handbook gives a delightfully telling look at the incredible energy of the group. It began with a collaboration with a photographer friend on a series of black and white photos based on classic images of silent film star Louise Brooks.

“We just did it for fun, and then we wanted to use them as a fundraising tool,” Amann reminisces, “We loved the images, and were going to do a calendar but couldn’t get it together in time – so we did a book.” All proceeds from the book’s sales go to charity, and it’s an accessible example of the way that creative, motivated people can turn a whim of a project into a powerhouse for the forces of female empowerment.

When I ask about feminizzle and its place in the world of drankin’, Amann gets thoughtful. She points out that during the golden age of the cocktail, women were not allowed to be in bars unless they were working there or (ahem) working there. Possibly as a result of this exclusion–and the saloon’s ensuing reputation as a house of ill-repute–women were a driving force behind temperance leagues and eventually Prohibition itself. The speakeasies of the Roaring Twenties, then, were the first places where men and women were allowed to mingle and drink as relative equals.

The ladies of LUPEC

Bringing it from the past and into the present and future, Amann points out that women are frequently judged by what, and how much, they drink: which often comes out in coverage of LUPEC itself. “I don’t think we necessarily drink more than the men in the industry,” she says, “But every time someone writes about us, that’s what comes up.” She goes on to discuss the gender stereotypes inherent in certain shapes of drink glasses, and even in various different hues of beverages. The discomfort some men have, for example, when they order a drink only to find when it arrives that it is served in a martini glass and has a dangerously pale red–dare I say pink?–hue can be amusing to the bystander for its squirm factor, but is also fascinating on a sociohistorical level.

Kirsten describes the rabbithole of cocktail enthusiasm that goes into that history, and how it starts. “The thing about beverages is that you can’t really separate a spirit from a culture,” she begins. (A total social history nerd, my interest is piqued.) “Once you start to dig and go into that infinite well, you learn that the cocktail is an American invention, and that people here have always drank spirits. And also that ice is an American invention, which is why Americans order everything with a ton of ice. That’s not to say that there haven’t been cocktails that sprang up all over the world, but the invention is a huge part of our country.”

We delve a little deeper into where that concept evolved from and how it changed over time. “Before cocktails, a major category that people drank was punch. But here in America, people decided that that was something they couldn’t do because we’re a very rugged, individualistic country–no one has time to sit around a bowl drinking punch all day! So we came up with a smaller version: the cocktail. And they’re an incredible window into history; they’re so affected by the politics of the time (quite literally, because of Prohibition). It really gets the part of me that is interested in history, and in why we do things the way we do in the present. This is an important, interesting part of our culture, and you can recreate them if you find the right ingredients. You can drink a little slice of the past.”

For Amann, that interest began when she first made her way into the restaurant industry, waitressing during high school and college and then finding that the industry had become a kind of a home (“I’ve met some of my closest friends while wearing an apron,” she quips). Her involvement with LUPEC has enabled her to be a bit of an educator when it comes to discussing Toro’s beverage program with guests, many of her PR clients are spirits brands and she works with in conjunction with Debbie Rizzo of Drink PR, whom she met while representing the Boston chapter at Tales of the Cocktail.

It’s an interesting life, and she is practical but excited about the paths it may lead to in future: “Misty and I are currently at work on a cocktail book which would be a huge dream come true for me. I’ve wanted to write books since I was a little girl, so this would be just amazing. Beyond that, who knows? I’m trying to position myself as an eager student right now and allow that to guide me in this. So, whether that will lead to more PR projects, more writing projects, work with a brand or maybe some sort of teaching some day, I don’t know. But I am totally 100% thrilled with all of it. I cannot stress how much I love my job and how blessed I feel to be able to learn about, write about, talk about and drink cocktails and call it work.”

Jonesing for some information on our national invention? Check out LUPEC Boston’s site, or slide on down to the bar at Drink, Toro, Trina’s Starlite Lounge, Green Street, Eastern Standard, No. 9 Park, or any of the other fabulous spots around the city that are actively bringing classic back. You may find that the drink you receive comes seasoned with history, flair, and joie de vivre – which means the ladies of LUPEC will be succeeding, one cocktail at a time.

–Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong