In this episode of The Industry Podcast, we sit down with Nicole White, a bartender currently working at OPA, a Greek and Mediterranean restaurant in Waterville, Maine. Nicole traces her path through the hospitality industry — from her first job at Panera Bread and serving at Ruby Tuesday, to learning the craft behind the bar at The Speakeasy in Waterville, to becoming a full-time bartender in Newburyport, Massachusetts.
Nicole's career eventually took her to San Diego, where she spent six years working at spots including Urban North Park (a New Haven-style pizza bar) and the now-closed Magic Dinner Theater in the Gaslamp Quarter, a speakeasy-style venue accessed through an escape room, known for elaborate, intentional cocktails like the smoked "Smoking Elephant" and a Manhattan served through a bullet-pierced glass. She also worked at a comedy club, giving her a unique window into hospitality under very different crowd dynamics.
A pivotal early moment in her career was attending Gaz Regan's Cocktails in the Country in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, in 2016 — a four-day intensive she credits with shaping her approach to mindful, service-first bartending.
The conversation also covers Nicole's deep involvement with Camp Runamok (Lush Life Production), where she's participated three times — first in the low-ABV Pathfinder cabin during her sobriety journey, then running the Suze-themed cabin, and most recently joining the beverage team, which included an R\&D trip to the Monin facility in Nevada and a seven-day stretch making over 10,000 cocktails for 150 bartenders at camp.
Nicole also discusses:
- Moving back to Central Maine after her mother's stroke, and rebuilding her career and creative outlet from the ground up
- Her certifications, including the ABCs of Canadian Whiskey and the Executive Bourbon Steward program through the Stave & Thief Society
- Attending Behind the Barrel distillery experiences at Wilderness Trail and Wild Turkey
- Her honest reflection on her relationship with alcohol and sobriety, and how that shaped the direction of her career
- Her favorite bars and restaurants across Maine (Portland, Bangor, Rockport) and San Diego (North Park, Little Italy, Gaslamp)
- Why she loves doing thoughtful riffs on classic cocktails as a way to make craft drinks approachable to guests
Connect with Nicole White
- Instagram / all platforms: @NicoleXTayl0r
https://www.instagram.com/NicoleXTayl0r
A big thank you to Jean-Marc Dykes of Imbiblia. Imbiblia is a cocktail app for bartenders, restaurants and cocktail lovers alike and built by a bartender with more than a decade of experience behind the bar. Several of the features includes the ability to create your own Imbiblia Recipe Cards with the Imbiblia Cocktail Builder, rapidly select ingredients, garnishes, methods and workshop recipes with a unique visual format, search by taste, using flavour profiles unique to Imbiblia, share recipes publicly plus many more......Imbiblia - check it out!
Contact the host Kypp Saunders by email at kyppsaunders@gmail.com for products from Elora Distilling and Noble Estates. https://malivoire.com/
Links
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@sugarrunbar
@the_industry_podcast
email us: info@theindustrypodcast.club
