Congratulations to Will Thompson, the bartender at Bib Gourmand Jaguar Sun and the 2023 MICHELIN Guide Florida Exceptional Cocktail Award Winner presented by Basil Hayden! We chatted with Thompson to get the secret sauce behind his compelling cocktails, what drives him, and what he's sipping on. Cheers!
What are you drinking these days?
Martinis, rum, sh*tty beers.
Favorite non-alcoholic drink?
Our (chef and my) LaCroix consumption is a topic of conversation at the restaurant.
How have your cocktail tastes changed over the years?
Not really. Martinis, daiquiris with 'stinky' rum, and the occasional cosmo have been about 95% of my cocktail consumption for a while. I think a lot of the awards and journalism around cocktails have pushed the industry in a direction that I don't always love, so I tend to feel a little safer ordering cocktails in places that focus on simple things rather than striving to reinvent the wheel.
What’s the biggest misconception about mixology, or cocktails in general, that you’d like to dispel?
That cocktails are worth [greater than] $18 or need to have food in them or taste good batched.
What’s your ideal meal and pairing?
Great, late night Chinese-any kind-and your wine friend's wine. Oysters and martinis or oysters and sherry or both. Hard to answer.
All photos courtesy of Jaguar Sun
