Many people dream of being a spirits expert, but Jennifer Massolo of this month's Craft: Spirits & Beer event actually is.
Jennifer Massolo at her favorite haunt, The Broken Shaker at the Freehand.
It’s a rainy Friday night in Miami Beach, and Jennifer Massolo is setting up her home bar for about a dozen guests. She’s hosting a blind gin tasting, and bottles of gin, from basic to premium brands, are hidden in brown paper bags, concealing the labels from some of the most discerning palates in town. The group scrutinizes the unidentified spirits—smelling, tasting, and swirling—until members are ready to appraise each one.
“We all ended up loving the Beefeater and thinking that the Gordon’s was fantastic,” she says. For Massolo, it’s all in a day’s work as the founder of consulting company The Liquid Projects. She launched her dream job in 2012 after a couple of decades in the wine business, a career that started in her hometown of Vancouver, then shifted to Chile, and finally to Miami, where she produced the Miami International Wine Fair.
Massolo fell in love with spirits while driving through the Napa Valley in 2009, when her friend Nicolas Palazzi of PM Spirits, a well-known cognac bottler and rare spirits importer, called her. “He’s so passionate and protective of the traditional way to produce and bottle fine spirits,” she says of Palazzi. “It rubbed off on me during this conversation, as I was surrounded by vineyards, and that led to him helping me find a way to support independent distillers through his connections.”
She parlayed her passion for imbibing into two major initiatives, both under the umbrella of The Liquid Projects: Spirited Sirens and Craft: Spirits & Beer. Spirited Sirens is a consulting business that works with beverage producers to grow their craft spirits program, as well as being a blog focusing on travel and tasting experiences. Craft is an annual event that connects craft spirits and beer producers with the beverage trade and the public. Now in its second year, Craft will take over The Fillmore Miami Beach at the end of the month. “There’s no better way to connect with people than talking during a tasting,” says Massolo of the two-day event, which will have tasting tables for vendors and plenty of seminars. “You empower them with education to the point they feel comfortable enough to impress someone else with their knowledge.”
She’s thrilled to see Miami’s interest in cocktail culture and small-batch spirits grow in the many new bars around town. As a self-proclaimed promoter of the “underdog,” or the small, independent producer of spirits and beer, Massolo prefers to drink in this category when she finds time to relax at her favorite haunt, The Broken Shaker at the Freehand. There’s a sense of responsibility to generate awareness, she says, as she likens it to the food movement: “We’re all asking, ‘Where does our food come from?’ Why not, ‘Where does our booze come from?’” Craft: Spirits & Beer takes place January 30 (trade) and 31 (open to the public) at The Fillmore Miami Beach, 1700 Washington Ave.