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“Creating community is the core function of America’s bars. The bartender is instrumental to that function.”

Michael J. Neff is a Master Bartender, cocktail maker, spirits professional, advocate and entrepreneur. With 27 years and counting in the bar and cocktail game, Neff’s experience has touched almost every level of the business, from creation and ideation through execution and promotion.

Creating community through the bar has been his passion, both as a bartender and as an educator & speaker. Covid has made him an advocate as well, and he works with groups around the country to ensure that bars around the world remain a vibrant part of our cultures, our cities and our economies.

The bars he has made or influenced span the country—New York (Ward III, The Rum House, Holiday Cocktail Lounge), Los Angeles (Clifton’s, The Three Clubs), Omaha (Inkwell), and Houston (The Cottonmouth Club). Neff’s commitment to education, both in-trade & consumer, has taken him around the world advocating for the importance of bartenders in the broader context of cities and their culture.

He has written extensively on trade topics, and his cocktails have been featured in publications as diverse as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, GQ and Esquire Korea.

Neff currently produces and hosts “The Cottonmouth Club Presents,” a podcast about bar culture, cocktails, spirits, and the underlying power & art of the bartender, as well as hosting a nightly live-stream “virtual bar” on Instagram Live (@thecottonmouthclub).

Whenever possible, you’ll still find him behind the stick, which even now is where he finds the most fulfillment.