A Bartender’s Paradise (Garden)
Atlanta, Ga.- The sound of music radiates across the street from the direction of A Sip of Paradise Garden on a Sunday evening in East Atlanta Village. Walking up to this outdoor space, there are garden beds everywhere, string lights adorn tree branches, and a line of six tents line a fence off to the side. From the street a man with a beard dressed as a Texan cowboy greets guests with a tiny margaritas made with Desert Door sotol and explains a bit more about the cocktail competition taking place here, sponsored by and featuring Desert Door. Eight of the best bartenders in Atlanta have gathered here to make their best cocktail with a sotol base, showcasing fresh ingredients, many of which are from this garden venue.
The cocktail scene in Atlanta is one with much history but also one that is always developing. Since the pandemic, bartending as a trade has seen many ups and downs, and the talented mixologists of the city have needed a good way to interact and unwind while keeping the love of the trade. A Sip of Paradise Garden, started by Keyatta Mincey Parker, was started as a place to do exactly that.
In February 2020, Bombay Sapphire Gin hosted the Most Imaginative Bartender competition. The idea was to set up a business set around a creative outlet for bartenders that was not bartending. Parker is from Liberia in West Africa, and she found that the best outlet for her was gardening like she did back home. “As an African American, in Liberia it’s important to garden because it’s how you eat. Working with your hands is a great way to get in touch with your roots.”
Parker did not win the competition, and the garden looked like it would remain an idea. However, one month later in March 2020, the pandemic hit. “Suddenly, people started reaching out and asking if the garden was still happening. All of these bartenders had been furloughed due to the pandemic because no one could go out. For this competition I had land, a board, everything ready to go and before I knew it, I had handfuls of people coming out to help me dig this garden and to dig this for me to make this happen.”
The city of Atlanta ended up backing the idea, and a plot was offered in East Atlanta Village. Soon brands began reaching out to Parker, wanting to get in on the project in some capacity. “Different brands were trying to spend money and didn’t have anywhere to swipe, and we started getting all these sponsorships. We started getting all of this support that I had never imagined.”
Stephanie Saputo is the brand manager for A Sip of Garden Paradise, or “ASOP”. “She wanted to do something that would just be good for our wellbeing, it just so happened that this took off during covid when we were all out of work and we had the time to get this off the ground. We as bartenders are so in our occupation that we live and breathe our work, it’s rare to go out and just do something for ourselves.”
Saputo elaborates that she and Parker wanted to build a space that could be a safe and positive environment for the Atlanta bartending community and for the neighborhood as well. “We want to engage with people in a different way, something not exactly alcohol driven ,though it is a part of it since it’s our job, but we wanted a space for people you can take meditation classes or yoga classes or just get your hands dirty but we want a better space to let bartenders get out of their heads and their work environment without alcohol being the main draw.”
Parker says that the programming for this year is “very intentional” in order to provide as much as possible to the members. Mindful Mondays can be centered around yoga or sweat classes with personal trainers, and on Workshop Wednesdays brands or farming experts will host or sponsor classes including transplanting or walking and foraging tours. Thirsty Thursdays involves setting up a table and offering mocktails and cocktails in exchange for donations. “This is an oasis for us to have a safe space where we can congregate, meet and read as our space on our own time. There’s been a shift in narrative, all of the members are bartenders and people grow herbs and bring it to work or donate what they grow.”
Most of these events are sponsored by brands which helps to create for the events, and there are sometimes larger partnered events like the Desert Door Cocktail competition. “We’re so happy to host our first annual cocktail competition here” says Zee Zamnit, marketing director for the Georgia brand of Desert Door. “Making memories is the biggest part of events like these, the most important thing is to drink our sotol and think of an amazing memory and experience tied to it. This is a great way to help shape those experiences.”
Wyatt the Wandering Cowboy, mascot of the Desert Door, agrees with Zamnit. “To be part of the experience, to be part of the 2022 summer where we’re finally free of covid and mingle and talk and be together again, why not do it with a bit of sotol in hand?”
“One thing I’m adamant about though” says Parker, “is to always have a mock tail as well as a cocktail so there isn’t pressure to drink.” While this is a safe haven for the bartenders of Atlanta, the idea is to create a community space that is parallel to alcohol but does not require it. All of the members of A Sip of Paradise Garden are bartenders- “it’s the only real requirement” says Parker- except one.
Alicia Henn is one of the neighbors to the property, and lives in a house that literally shares a driveway with the property. “When we moved in, it was just a thrown up lot” says Henn, “just a buffer between us and the neighborhood farmers market. One day, people were out there doing work, and now we have this great relationship.” Saputo showed me a bar that was constructed into the fence that Henn made. “The neighbors make everything” says Parker, “if you have shitty neighbors, it makes a difference. Brad and Alicia Henn, they let us use the water from their house for irrigation, most of the beds Alicia helped build, she helped string the lights. It’s all about the community.”
When Parker first got ahold of the lot, it was a “dumping ground, overgrown and filled with trash, tools, chicken bones and condoms.” Now, says Henn, “People cut through and can appreciate this space, people can stop and have a look. it’s an amazing place to go and learn and make friends with these people, it’s a networking opportunity and it’s not lost on the sponsors that this is a gathering of truly their target audience which is why there’s been so many amazing sponsorships and donations from brands and allow for irrigation and new plants every year.”
“It’s great because people can do whatever they want” says member and brand ambassador Katie McLoughlin. “They have their own plots and it doesn’t have to be the capitalist approach, it can be if you just want to grow succulents or flowers that’s ok. Nothing has to be for production.” McLoughlin has also worked with the garden on fundraising events in the past. “I work for Heaven Hill brands and work for Lunazul Tequila and Deep Eddy Vodka and the like, and we reach out whenever it makes sense to. Last year for national lemon day we had all lemon themed cocktails and raised food for Free99Fridge to give back to the community. It’s so chill and wholesome here.”
The garden has been around for three years now and doing better than ever, according to Parker. “We’re in the realm of getting corporate financing now, and all of these brands, they started off supporting us in the pandemic because they didn’t have anywhere to spend money with everything being closed. Now it’s expanded so much and we have so much support in the neighborhood.”
A Sip of Paradise Garden also puts emphasis on giving back to the neighborhood through composting., says Parker. “In the span of what, a quarter of a mile there are restaurants, a coffee shop and a brewery, we collect all of the leftover food and grounds and mash and compost it. It’s beautiful because everything in this neighborhood, we are actually putting into the ground what we bring out. We all need each other and that is the true base of this, we all need each other to survive.”
“Atlanta is a place that nine months out of the year we can grow these things so it’s silly not to” says Saputo. “If you have this space and the ability to grow your own food, especially right now with inflation, if you have these resources for bartenders to come even if they’re working on something on their own and they need fresh herbs or inspiration they can come browse the garden and see what inspires them and grab that and take it home to work with. That inspires things like the cocktails here” she gestures around the event at the many colorful cocktails available. “They feature things grown in the garden, you can tell a lot of fresh ingredients have inspired what’s here and we’re happy people are understanding what’s going into their cocktails more and the essence of that, that’s just as important as creating the drink itself.”
As we are beginning to leave the pandemic, spaces like this are more important than ever. As Wyatt the Wandering Cowboy said, we are finally free to talk and be free and be together again. Parker and Saputo both mentioned that many of these bartenders were out of work or stuck in limbo for a period of time, and the industry itself is still just starting to recover. We as people are just starting to recover too, and the reason these spaces are so important is so that we as people can meet and explore new hobbies, new connections, and new spaces in a “safe, stress free environment”, to quote Parker. To be able to enjoy music, and meet with neighbors, and get your hands in the dirt, that’s the type of new growth this culture needs.
A Sip of Paradise Garden is a growing, multifunctional space that offers everything from wellness classes to gardening gurus to neighborhood cocktail competitions, but the idea behind it is so much more than just that. A Sip of Paradise Garden is also a mentoring space for bartenders by bartenders, it is a place to get away from the fast paced life of the service industry, it’s a place to build new hobbies and to unwind, it’s a place to discover your new favorite drink, or to get inspired. It is a place of community, a garden that has become the fruit of the hard labor of these women to transform an overgrown eyesore into a well designed array of garden beds that anyone can stop by and enjoy. It’s a grassroots startup funded by Atlanta that really embodies the ideals of creativity, community, and care. In other words, it really is East Atlanta Village’s little slice of Paradise.
To learn more about A Sip of Paradise garden, visit the website for more information.
