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Who | Dan Vienneau
Where | Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada
Current Bar | Hopscotch Whisky Bar
Past Bar(s) | Thandi, Peppers Pub, Mexicali Rosa’s, Saint John Alehouse
Favourite Spirit | Bourbon
Favourite Juice | Grapefruit
Favourite Classic Cocktail | Old Fashioned
Favourite Part of the Job | Meeting people and finding out what they like, and don’t like, then tailoring a drink or spirit to them.
Favourite After Work Drink | If we’re being honest, a nice cold beer.
Favourite at Home Drink | A nice heavily peated single malt scotch like Laphroaig
Favourite bar in the world | Grumpy’s Bar (Montreal, Quebec). A trip to Montreal is just not complete without a visit to Grumpy’s Bar.
Best known for | I’d say I’m probably best known for my whisky obsession.
Favourite “at work” memory | One of my local sales guys texted to see if he could bring a friend by to see the bar before we opened for the night, this was about 3 or 4 years ago. I assumed he was bringing his dad or a friend from out of town. He showed up with Andy Watts, the Master Distiller for Three Ships Whisky in South Africa! Andy was, of course, very humble and super nice. He still follows the bar to this day and will like and share some of our social media posts.
What do you collect? Aside from whisky, I’m a music geek and I’m constantly adding records to my collection.
Favourite thing about your city? The people, we’re a small city, with a lot of character and characters!
What was the last photo that you took? A photo of a whisky for the bar’s instagram
Where is one place that you have never been but would like to travel to? Japan. I’ve wanted to travel there for most of my life, but now that I’ve been working in a whisky bar for years and obsessing over all things whisky related, Japan has risen to the top of my bucket list travel destinations.
Any claims to fame? I won a spot on the Wild Turkey Behind the Barrel Contest in 2017 to visit the distillery in Kentucky, and a spot on the Appleton Estate Tiki Cocktail Contest in 2019 to visit the distillery in Jamaica.
Prosecco or Cava? Cava
Angostura or Peychaud’s? Angostura
Singapore or San Francisco? San Francisco, only because I’ve never been to Singapore, but I have visited San Fran and it’s one of my fave American cities.
Grapefruit or Pineapple? Grapefruit
Are you available for freelance gigs? Yes
Find them: I don’t post cocktails on my personal social media pages very much, but I’m always posting content on the bar’s Instagram.