Drinks At Work with Sam Bygrave

Drinks At Work with Sam Bygrave


“You have to be a risk-taker,” says award-winning bartender Erik Lorincz

September 08, 2022

My guest on this episode is ERIK LORINCZ. He’s as big name bartender as you get: he won the global World Class final in 2010, was the 10th head bartender at the American Bar at the storied Savoy Hotel in London, taking it to number 1 on the world’s 50 best bars list in 2017, before opening his own bar, Quaint — which also found itself on The World’s 50 Best Bars the year it debuted. He even has his own line of premium shakers and bar tools which are just beautiful.


Erik will be in Australia next week, when he’s in town as a judge for the global final of Diageo’s world class bartending competition, so I took this opportunity to talk to him about his career, what the weight of responsibility of being the head bartender at a bar like the American Bar feels like, his tips on winning world class (and whether he would still win today), his advice on what makes a great bar, and loads more.