H. Joseph Ehrmann

H. Joseph Ehrmann, better known as H., started his career in 1986 as a cook on the beaches of New Jersey, under New Orleans’ renowned chef Duke Locicero. He went on to cook, serve, manage and bartend in Boston, Orlando, Washington DC, Vail and Phoenix before completing an MBA in International Management from Thunderbird (where he also bartended).

That degree landed him in Geneva, Prague, and Madrid where he spent several years traveling and studying the flavors, agriculture and traditions (as well as the distilleries, wineries and breweries) of Europe.

After the completion of his MBA, he worked in several countries, industries, and positions, building small and medium-sized companies as both an employee and consultant.

In January 2003, he left the corporate consulting world to return to his passion, the bar business. By November he had restored one of the oldest saloons in San Francisco and reopened it as Elixir, having worked at 18 different bars and restaurants around the country prior to that.

H. is widely recognized as a pioneering barman in the resurgence of cocktail culture over the last fifteen years. He and his cocktails have appeared in numerous major media outlets over the years, most recently he won the first ever “2018 Cocktail of the Year” at the San Francisco Wine and Spirits Competition, besting an elite crowd of fellow judges which includes some of the biggest names in the industry.

Education is a key component of his career and current work, founding and running The Boothby Center for the Beverage Arts (2009-2014), with classes for consumers and professionals alike.

In 2014, he became one of the few Certified Cognac Educators in the world, at the invitation of the cognac industry’s central organization, the Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac and he was hired by the West Indies Rum and Spirits Producers Association (WIRSPA) as one of four US Panel Members for the Authentic Caribbean Rums program (www.acr-rum.com). In 2017, he produced and co-presented the first-ever Armagnac Academy on the West Coast for the Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Armagnac and is poised to become the first-ever West Coast Armagnac Ambassador in 2019.