The Julep Tender with Alba Huerta (TCGS S4 E2)

# Swell AI Transcript: TCGS S4 E2 - Alba

Announcer:
Jonathan Pogash is the cocktail guru, a mixologist and hospitality expert. Ah, see? You know big words. Dude, I'm the cocktail guru. Cheers. Jeffrey's his dad, a wine and spirits author, historian, and consultant.

Jeffrey:
So, I do my homework.

Announcer:
With decades of experience, they're always looking for the next big thing. Join this father and son duo for a few laughs as they explore the hottest trends in hospitality with the service industry's leading trailblazers and tastemakers. Welcome to the Cocktail Guru Show.

Jonahan:
We've talked about bar ownership before a fair amount, dad, right?

Jeffrey:
Yes, we have. But it's a very dicey sort of topic. It's I know, you've said, I would never want to do professionally, I've never wanted to own a bar, right? And if people ask me, when they if they have asked me, should I open up a restaurant or a bar? I always say, if you have lots of money to lose, then yes, go right ahead.

Jonahan:
Yeah, exactly. And you know, the same exact thing people have said, Oh, you know, open up a bar. Oh, yeah, it's just it's that easy. I have all this income to basically waste.

Jeffrey:
Right?

Jonahan:
It because there's so much there's so much time, effort and money mostly. I mean, for us, that's what we keep keep coming back to, right?

Jeffrey:
Yeah, exactly. And I found this incredibly interesting book.

Jonahan:
Oh, I can barely see it. Just tell us what it is. No, tell me what it is.

Jeffrey:
It's called Republican and Spirit Dealers Daily Companion, or Plain and Interesting Advice to Wine Vault and Public Housekeepers. And it details health, comfort, and satisfaction of their customers and society at large. So how to run a bar, how to run a restaurant or hotel or how to run a restaurant, hotel bar and the pitfall. I wrote an article based on this book called The Pitfalls of the Pub. Pitfalls of ownership. And it's quite interesting because many of the issues that they were dealing with in 1803 bar owners have to deal with today as well.

Jonahan:
Yeah, yeah. Well, let's let's go ahead and get to our guests then, shall we?

Jeffrey:
Let's do that. We have a lovely young lady by the name of Alba Huerta. Alba Huerta is the proprietor of Julep, a fantastic bar, which I would say is a bar that it's a down-home cocktail bar. That's how it's been described, down-home cocktail bar with an array of cocktails from the South and a laid back vibe. And I wanna go, I wanna be there. I need a laid back vibe and I desperately need some cocktails. And they have some of my very favorites like the Mint Julep. Of course. Of course. Because the name of the bar is Julep, Julep Bar in Houston, Texas. And Alba Huerta is the proprietor of that bar. We are thrilled to have her as a guest on the fledgling The Cocktail Guru Show. The podcast has been around for a while. The show has not.

Jonahan:
That's right.

Jeffrey:
Welcome. Welcome.

Alba:
Welcome. Hi, thank you so much for having me. This is so exciting. I loved every minute since we started getting on screen. Jeffrey, you're always welcome here, by the way. We've been around for 10 years now. Come and see us and we'd love to have you. You know, maybe we can put you behind the bar for a minute and see what can be done there.

Jeffrey:
Whoa. I haven't been to Texas in 10 years. You might be sorry. Alba, you might be sorry that you just suggested that.

Jonahan:
We're here to help. She won't be here. We should do a pop-up. Yeah, dad, we should do a pop-up at Julep. Yes, we should.

None:
Yeah.

Jeffrey:
Alba will be happy because I pay my bills and I'm a big tipper.

Jonahan:
Excellent. And I've known Alba for several years now, and I can't believe and I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't been to Julep. But I know that we've well, Alba and I have coordinated on so many things throughout the years anyway. And it's insane that I haven't been there. But it's so great to have you and your space behind you is gorgeous.

Alba:
Oh, yes, thank you. The space behind us is called the parlor, so It's kind of an addendum to the main bar where we host events and I'm gonna shortly open it for regular business. So I've finished some of the details and I'm really happy about it. I'm really excited about it.

Jonahan:
Is there an actual bar there?

Alba:
Yes, there is. Do you want me to connect? Can I give you a little?

Jonahan:
If you want to, I can describe it. Oh, there's a beautiful arched archways with shelves and yeah, beautiful.

Jeffrey:
And before you were there, Alba, was that another restaurant?

Alba:
You know, it was a few things. So the building is from the early 1900s, like 1902 is as far back as we can trace it. And it was for a very long time a uniform factory. And from like the 70s to like maybe early early 2000s or something close to that, it was then a wine bar. And when I took a release, it was actually, I guess, a nightclub because there were cabanas inside the bar with like drapery, and it was a very interesting place. So the design of the bar, of the main bar, is actually new construction, but it has that feel like it's been around for a really long time. And the space that we're sitting in used to be the loading dock for the uniform factory. So trucks would enter from the back and then get loaded up and exit through the front as they would pick up their shipments. So the space, the building is beautiful. It's absolutely stunning. And just adding, you know, it needed a little bit of work, but it's overall such a great shell, such a great structure for building beautiful spaces.

Jeffrey:
I asked because it reminded me of a restaurant I used to go to often in Houston called Mark's, which doesn't exist anymore. Yeah, it was a great restaurant, and it had a similar look to it.

Alba:
Yeah, Mark's is a staple in our community.

Jeffrey:
Oh, is it still there?

Alba:
No, the building is there, though. The building is very church-like, I would say.

Jeffrey:
Yes, precisely. So you know the restaurant. You knew it. Yeah, well, it was a great spot. I did quite a few events there, as a matter of fact. So this is very exciting in many, many ways. I guess we have to find out more about the bar, but I need some time at some point to go over all of the accolades. that Alba has received over the years, but that might take too long. I might do that at the end. I'd rather hear more about the bar and the cocktails that you have.

Jonahan:
even before we talked about the bar and the cocktails and the accolades, I would like to know, you know, we always like to go into kind of the origin story of people and within the hospitality world. So, you know, did you grow up in hospitality or did you go to school for something else or how did you get into it?

Alba:
I started bartending in 1998 And I got into bartending because I had maxed out a credit card and I'd never had a job before. And I also had never had a credit card before. So I started bartending at a bar where my roommate was cocktail serving. And I wasn't old enough to drink at the time because in Texas you can serve at the age of 18, but you can't drink until you're 21. So I would go and drop off her books during the shift so that she could have something to study. And I was there on one of those occasions where a bartender stormed out and was like, you know, I'm out of here. blah, blah, blah. And I happen to be walking in super smiley with these books, because I had to be overtly friendly knowing that they, at some point, were going to be like, you've got to get out of here. You're not old enough to be in here. So I'd always walk in and be super friendly. I'm like, hi, how are you? Good to see you. Hi, it's nice to be here. How are you kids? How's your wife? And that demeanor, that is what asked Peter to give me a job. And he was like, you're working here. He was furious. Whatever interchange he had with the bartender that walked out, he was livid. And he's like, you are going to work here. And I was like, OK, I'm going to work here, which worked out great because I needed to work. And I was very, very green, very new. Um, I remember, I mean, we had a jigger system, so we were supposed to measure out, um, like our, our high balls were like an ounce and a quarter at that time. Um, and I just remember like pouring a bottle of Crown Royal. and just being like, this is so awkward. And the jigger was tilted, and I could see the liquid just coming out the other side. And they accepted me, and they were like, OK, we can work with this. They're like, that's not too bad. We can work with this. So I worked really hard, and I got a steady pour eventually. At that time, there were, I feel like, something drafts. Like it was a craft beer pub with liquor. So most of the liquor were like highball type of style of drinks. And I loved it. So I got to learn a lot about beer and also the spirits that we had because everything was very, it was an environment where we were in the, like the university sector of the city. So people would ask us questions about product. They would ask us questions about the beer, how it's made, how are they different? Why are there a hundred and something beers here? And all of those, I had to have the answers for that. And I wanted to be prepared. I felt like it was a great job to make me feel like I needed to explore more about spirits and explore more about beverages and alcoholic spirits to be able to be a good representative of the venue. And it was always a very fun environment. It was absolutely a super fun environment. We were all college kids, I bet. I think there was one adult in the room and that might have been our manager. But we all started getting, you know, we had to do inventory. We had to get responsibilities around the bar. And so at a very young age, we all kind of got those, got our bearings in the industry to be able to to do things that would later help me in my career. But to answer your question, I, you know, that was 98. I was in college, 98, 99, 2000, 2001. And I felt like at that time, bartending was a job that people would have on their way somewhere else. And it wasn't as regarded as a career like it is now. And, um, but I knew that's what I loved. I was like, no, this is really, uh, some, this is something that I really enjoy. Like school was amazing. Um, I was in, in the, at the crossroads of like, is this what I want to do? Or is this what I want to do? So I, I chose to stay in the industry and I just continued, um, up until like 2008 or 2009, when I learned about cocktails for the first time. And then I was super floored and was like, OK, I don't know anything. You've been in the industry for about 10 years, but really, you know nothing. So that was exciting to be at the beginning of something that I thought this could be the kind of bar that I open. This is something that I could devote my life to. This is actually like a cocktail bar or cocktails in general were so intriguing to me. And the fact that I didn't know anything was even more intriguing because I felt it was very refreshing to have that kind of, that impulse to try some, to do new things when, you know, after 10 years of bartending, I was already considering what's the next step? And then I was like, the next step is cocktails. Like that's gotta be the next step I take, so.

Jeffrey:
And was it in Las Vegas that you started learning about cocktails?

Alba:
A little bit, yeah. I think that when I lived in Vegas, it was close to like 05, 06. And we were experimenting with, like there was a lot of purees in the market. And for the first time we were seeing like different product that was the globalization of spirits was becoming a thing. And we were starting to get different products, especially in that city where everything was in such abundance. So there was a lot of education from Southern Wine Spirits. And it was the first time I saw a brand ambassador as well, which I thought, oh, cool. What do you, what is your job? You know, I, um, so there was definitely a growth in the, in the industry.

Jonahan:
Was that the days of, uh, Francesco LaFranconi at Southern or is that earlier?

Alba:
Um, it's a little bit earlier because I started, uh, learning about wine first at Southern Glaciers and they were developing all of the other parts of that program. Um, but it's, it was an incredible education. Um, and then also with having brand ambassadors in the city, who were talking about different spirits and discussing craft spirits and for the first time learning what a craft spirit is and how you would use that in a cocktail. So there was a little bit of that happening at the time, but it was nothing like what was happening in New York and what was happening in these other major cities where there were cocktail bars being built that were specifically just serving those products. And so it was just a very interesting, cool time to be young and learning and seeing how the industry was changing. I remind people that I started bartending prior to the launch of Grey Goose and Patron. And so seeing those launches was really, was really cool to see how the, how marketing and the, you know, the marketing behind these products and how, um, how, how people would follow. They were hungry for, for these types of spirits to be, to, to ask for them to, to really believe in these new craft spirits that were coming into the market. Um, so that the consumer was also equally as intrigued, you know, as as were people in the industry and the hospitality industry.

Jonahan:
And we're going to, I want to talk about the sort of birth of Julep in a moment, but we're going to take a really quick break and we'll be right back. At the Cocktail Guru, it's all about the experience. We want our clients to taste and feel the aroma, the temperature, the flavor, to make memories when they try our cocktails. The Cocktail Guru was born in 2006, when there was a need for high-quality cocktails, bartender training, and expertly crafted drinks for special events. Then the Guru team moved to Massachusetts and expanded nationally. We even provide cocktail demonstrations on morning television institutions, like the Today Show. Consider the Guru team for all of your events. Corporate clients enjoy our entertaining team-building exercises. Bachelorette mixology classes are fun for everyone. We can craft a signature cocktail bar for any occasion. Plus, the Guru team can design cost-effective beverage programs with staff training for any bar or restaurant. And be sure to join us for the Cocktail Guru podcast, where we regularly interview some of the hospitality industry's best. So why not consider the Cocktail Guru for your next project? Cheers. And now we're back. So after kind of honing your cocktail skills, Las Vegas, you moved to Houston. And how was your bar julep birthed? How did it come out of your experience? Why? Why own a bar? Because to my dad and I, it's extremely daunting and we would never want to own a bar, but you seem to do it in an excessively enthusiastic and exceptionally successful way, which I think is rare in the industry because you obviously see so many places open, so many places closed, but you are fulfilling, I guess, what a dream of yours was. So how did that come about?

Alba:
So I moved back home during the recession when everyone was losing their homes. There was very little work in Las Vegas. And I moved home because Texas did not feel that recession as hard as other places. And when I got here, I thought, OK, well, I'll be around for a little bit, and then I'll probably move somewhere. I had a job offer in San Francisco. And it's like that looks, that seems like a good idea. But once I got home, I feel like Houston is where my family is. And it's also the connections that I made here in the industry and the connections that I, the friendships that I have. are still some of the most important ones in my life. And I just felt like, you know, maybe I should stick around and see. The industry was a little bit different. There was definitely more, like we were getting, the culinary scene here was starting to develop and grow in a very exciting way. And I thought, well, let's see, let's stick around. Let's see what happens. And then at that time I'd opened my first bourbon concept, which was called Branchwater Tavern. Later it was purchased and it became now the Federal Grill. And it was the first time that I put together a concept that was focused around a spirit, predominantly, predominantly focused around the spirit. And I always brag about how I used to get, like I would have people, begged me to buy Pappy. They're like, please buy it. Nobody buys this. Please buy this. I had one of the most beautiful collections of whiskeys and ryes and brown water that I don't think I've had since, honestly, because those products are just so difficult to find now. And there was still the beginning of cocktails, where we were making Sazeracs. We were making Old Fashions. We maybe had like three cocktails on the menu and then and then looking and then serving a lot of of neat spirits. So that was probably the first time where I felt, OK, people love the Sazerac in the old fashioned, like we are. We're on the right track here with making cocktails. It's still like 2009, 2010. And in 2009, Anvil opened in Houston. And it just kind of blew the doors off of what a cocktail bar should be. I was later asked to be the general manager there after the two proprietors were getting out from behind the bar and actually opening other places. I was their first general manager, and I loved that experience so much. It was such an incredible space to be. It was a very innovative at that time, the idea to just surround the menu with a hundred and something cocktails and have the community just explore the menu and always felt like there was something that they didn't have. So it built such a great, it's such a great interest in our consumer here in Houston. And I was, roughly then, I guess, in my early 30s. And I always knew in the back of my mind that I wanted to open a bar. But I didn't actually, and I learned this now that I've taken different accelerated classes and I've done a lot more entrepreneurship studies, that as women, we question ourselves a lot. Although all along I felt like, yes, this is what I want to do. This seems like this is where my life is, what I want to devote my life to. I still felt like I waited to the point where I was overprepared. And in my mind, which I'll be honest, I was not as an owner operator. Those are very different things to be overprepared as a bartender, and feel comfortable in your skills is a very different domain to being an operator and being an owner. Those are really far apart from each other. So you're not necessarily wrong in feeling like you don't want to open a place. That's OK. That's understandable.

Jeffrey:
Whenever someone asks me for advice about opening a restaurant and bar or bar, I say, don't. That's my, don't.

Alba:
When somebody asks me, I ask them if they want to buy mine.

Jonahan:
Yes. Very good question.

Alba:
And that changes the conversation really quickly. They're like, what do you mean? I'm like, let me show you, you can buy this one. You don't have to go through the trouble of doing all of that. And I think that really sets the sails in another direction. That's not my intention. It's more to be very transparent that, yeah, it is a, you know, it's quite a task and it's, it's completely changed me as a person and as a, you know, as an operator and as, as, as the way that I, like, I live my life because there's a, there's an enormous amount of need that that the business has and that the bar has.

Jonahan:
And another thing is- How has it changed you as a person? Is it like having, I mean, what is it like having a child?

Alba:
Probably, I don't have children, but it's probably like that in the sense of the way your schedule is, my schedule is, you know, it's very set and I wake up at a certain time and there's a lot of things that are going to happen every week for the rest of the business's life, right? So I went to, for example, I went to La Perla's 25 year anniversary in Paris with Tomas Estes. And it was their 25 year of being open. And he's like, hey, let's meet for lunch. And I was like, OK, great, let's meet for lunch. So I show up to the to the bar. And he was he was checking over. He was running like a PMIX report of some sort. And I just remember thinking, oh, this is forever. You know that you're in business for 25 years. And he's like, yeah, there's things you're going to do forever. The late Tomas Estes was a great mentor to me. And I got to have that reckoning of like, OK, well, for the lifetime of this business, these are things that I'm going to have to do regularly to be able to keep a healthy business. And that was prior to Julep opening. Julep, I signed the lease in 2012, and it took about two years to open. As cool as this historic building is, it's also a difficult thing to open in a historic building. So it took quite a bit of time. But once it opened, it was great. It was in the waiting period, which was a little bit difficult. And then we've only closed the door once during the pandemic. We ran a cocktail truck for deliveries for 13 months and then reopened the bar again. The experience of opening this bar twice was really instrumental and very, it was a great education of, I've never thought I would have to open a bar twice, but I'm glad that I did.

Jeffrey:
And in that historic, in that historic building, you serve historic cocktails, do you not?

Alba:
We do.

Jeffrey:
Yes, cocktails like the Mint Julep, the Hotel Nacional, the Daiquiri, the Hemingway Daiquiri. The Mojito, one of my favorites, the Queen's Park Swizzle. And also one of our tiki favorites, the Missionary's Downfall.

Alba:
Amazing. Yes. So you are hired. So whenever you're ready, just make your way here and we'll be ready for you.

Jeffrey:
I accept.

Alba:
Excellent. We're waiting for you, Jeffrey.

Jeffrey:
Thank you.

Alba:
I feel like the space, so the at the parlor, which is where I'm sitting at today. There's a conversation in cocktails that's happening of new modern techniques to add flavor to cocktails, to create cocktails with. So the space that I'm sitting in actually is kind of a concept that revolves around that, where The techniques in this room are on the modern side. We use, you know, we use clarification methods. We use different emulsifiers. We've worked on different stabilization of cocktails. So the two rooms kind of work in where Julep has a very classic appeal, classic cocktail appeal. The parlor has a more modern appeal to it. And it was a good time. After the pandemic is when I started to see this new group think of how to construct cocktails. And I'm like, I love it. So I like that every 10 years or so, there's something very exciting to learn. And so the parlor became that place where we can experiment with different methods and see what we can create in this room.

Jeffrey:
Fantastic, and Julep is where you have served the classic cocktails.

Alba:
Yeah, the classic's in. We create a house menu of riffs on classics as well.

Jeffrey:
Wow, wonderful.

Jonahan:
And Dad, the accolades, you've been waiting.

Jeffrey:
Yeah, I'm waiting. Well, if anyone is going to succeed forever in this business, it's Alba, because the accolades just keep rolling in. Where do I start in 2011? She was well, 2012, I guess, is maybe the beginning here. She was inducted into the Cocktail Dame Hall of Fame at Tales of the Cocktail. That is already something pretty big. Also, one that I particularly like. you are an incomparable in the Cherry Bomb 100. Yes, an incomparable, and that we can see just by this interview. In 2014, Alba was awarded or on the list of the 50 most fascinating people in Houston. and that was a Houston Chronicle list. In that same year, you opened Julep, and then just a year later, less than a year later, you were awarded, you were in the finals in the running for the American Cocktail Best Bar at Tales of the Cocktail. And that was a year or less after you opened. That's pretty incredible. And then you were featured in Garden and Gun magazine, which is a magazine I used to work with quite a bit. New York Times, Bon Appetit, one of the five best bars in the United States in 2015. And that, again, just a year or less after you opened. 2017, Esquire, one of the top 24 bars in the United States. Also, Food & Wine magazine, one of the 10 rising star female mixologists. Alba Huerta. So I know there are, in 2018, you wrote a book called Julep, of course. So there we have it. That's, I'm probably missing one or two things, but that's already a very impressive list of accolades. And I know they'll keep coming.

Jonahan:
You know, and you're just a great person, you know, and you're just in general. I mean, I think in hospitality, you kind of have to have that mindset to make a business successful. And, you know, you've done a terrific job at that and you're very influential in the industry and kind of put Houston on the cocktail map or has been very influential in putting Texas as a whole on the cocktail map. And we look forward to what's to come always with Alba Huerta. And we also look forward to our guest bartending stint in the parlor at some point coming up. We'll have to schedule that. but we always wish that we had more time to chat with our guests. But Alba, we appreciate you coming on and thanks for giving us the rundown of how you got into this and the birth of Julep. And yeah, until next time. Thank you so much.

Jeffrey:
And let me modify that accolade list a little bit by saying that Alba, in my book, is one of the 10 most fascinating people in the United States. Not just an hour.

SPEAKER_03:
You're hired, Jeffrey. We're on good terms here.

Jeffrey:
Well, I spent my career in public relations, so I would love to do that with you in Houston.

Alba:
You should know, Jeffrey, that we get accolades, and it's beautiful, and it's so well-received. Someone asked me recently about how do you stay grounded? And like it's really easy to stay grounded for the bar on your hands. Like in 2017 when we were part of the Esquire's US bars, I was filming for Esquire and then all of a sudden the AC went Like I heard it drop, I heard it go, and I was like, oh no. About 15 minutes later after they left, after the camera crew left, I was up in the attic and I was trying to figure out what went wrong or who I needed to call. And I was dusty. And I was like, yeah, this is the bar life. Like you get beautiful accolades, people love your work. And then all of a sudden you got to get your hands dirty and you just get it done. And so staying grounded is very easy when you have a bar in your hands to take care of.

Jeffrey:
And also Alba's success is due to another factor, which I forgot to mention because I've read about this. Everything that Alba does is done with great passion. That is a quote from one of your admirers.

Alba:
Oh, thank you so much.

Jeffrey:
And I can see it's true.

Jonahan:
Well, thank you so much, Alba, for joining us. We appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03:
Thanks. Bye.

Jonahan:
See you in Houston.

SPEAKER_03:
See you soon.

Announcer:
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