Dr. Nicola Nice is the author of The Cocktail Parlor: How Women Brought the Cocktail Home. This book helped me think about cocktails and entertaining more holistically. Clubs, bars, hotels, and restaurants may be where many drinks originally came to life, but women are the ones responsible for bringing them into the home.

The book has a nice forward by Robert Simonson, who Dr. Nicola says encouraged her to write the book, after she showcased to him how many women are overlooked in the history of cocktails.

Fun fact: the first-ever cocktail party was hosted by Miss Clara Bell Walsh in 1917 in my city of St. Louis. Doesn’t she look like a real party animal?

If you want to buy the book, you can find it here.

Colin Asare-Appiah (Instagram) is the trade director of multicultural and LGBTQ advocacy at Bacardi and the co-founder of the AJABU Festival (Instagram, website), a platform for the African hospitality industry.

See highlights from the first year below.

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After roughly 18 years with William Grant & Sons in a wide array of positions, including Global Head of Brand Ambassadors, Charlotte Voisey is now serving in the newly created role of Executive Director for Tales of the Cocktail.

Having been to Tales three times, and preparing for my fourth, it was a delight to chat with Charlotte. Her enthusiasm for the organization and its work psyched me up for this year’s week-long adventure in the beautiful city of New Orleans.

Enjoy this conversation.