Shaking things up: The OKC bartender making a national name for herself
Walking into any of the city's top restaurants or bars typically means you'll be greeted by a staff of bartenders capable of serving up a craft cocktail of your choosing, whether shaken or stirred.
But few of those bartenders can claim the kind of recognition Loretha Kirk has earned for herself in a short time. In 2021, Kirk entered a cocktail competition for a company called Chocolate City, a brand that creates more awareness and opportunities for people of color in the food and beverage industry.
She landed in the top 10.
"I started off bartending with Black bartenders, and I had never seen another Black bartender, ever. So I was just thinking, 'You know what, I guess I'm just going to be a Black bartender in Oklahoma. It's fine, it is what it is. I'll just show up and show out,'" Kirk said. "But then when I saw what they were doing, I was like, 'Oh, I'm doing absolutely nothing, so let me do more.' So, I did that, and then that just kind of put a fire underneath me to do more competitions."
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This year, she's already made it to the Top 100 in the United States Bartending Guild's World Class competition, which sees applicants from across the country compete through multiple rounds of competition to be named Bartender of the Year.
Finding her way to a home behind the bar
"I always wanted to be a bartender. I was telling my mom from the age of 16, 'They look so cool, I just want to be like them, I want to bartend.' But I grew up in a family that's like, 'But, you got to go to college. So, you can bartend if you want to, but you still got to go to school,'" Kirk said. "I ended up graduating college. I have two degrees, but I don't utilize either one of them because this just ended up being something I love doing."
Kirk followed her parents wishes and began her career in bartending while in school. But, it wasn't until she landed at The Jones Assembly in 2021 that she truly learned the ins and outs of the craft. It was a bar manager at The Jones who encouraged her to enter the Chocolate City's Best competition and the leadership there that nurtured her and allowed her to continue growing her skills.
"I was able to move. I was able to create little pieces of artwork and glasses that people were able to kind of experience in their own way," Kirk said.
"There are so many different combinations and techniques — three ingredients can make seven different cocktails — it's like giving a little piece of yourself to each guest that you have. I love hospitality, I love drinks, I love the artwork behind it, I love the craft behind it."
Crafting a brand and creating new opportunities
Kirk experienced an injury that led to a need to step out from behind the bar, but she knew she wasn't ready to leave the art behind entirely.
She began focusing heavily on her company, Cocktails Connection, which allows people the opportunity to request custom cocktails for events.
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"Every single cocktail tells a story. I allow people to tell me things about themselves, what they love, their favorite flavors, and I'll build individual cocktails for them for their events," Kirk said. "Then if they choose to, I'll trademark it so they can end up having the full recipe and everything that goes along with it, so that is their cocktail for their event. I will never make it anywhere else, for anyone else, ever."
The company also employs bartenders who can be hired out for events, an aspect Kirk hopes to grow.
Kirk pays bartenders a flat fee, regardless of the events details, similar to how bands may receive a guarantee for a performance. She said she would like to expand her clientele to the point where bartenders would only need to work a few days to make more than a full week's income.
"I want to eventually get it to a point where I have people underneath me who are working for me part-time, getting full-time pay, and they're able to live their lives the way they would if they were busting their butt for 50 or 60 hours somewhere else," Kirk said.
Bartending comes with a lot of misconceptions Kirk wants to see broken down and eliminated. She believes a lot of people simply don't realize that it's a fully viable career opportunity.
"People behind the bar absolutely adore what they're doing and they're kind of shunned out of it. I know bartenders that are 60 years old right now, and they're shaking a cocktail just as good as 20-year-olds," she said. "There are so many opportunities when it comes to working behind the bar, and there aren't enough Black and brown people that understand that, and I think it is a disservice."
Kirk, who grew up in Oklahoma City's historically Black northeast side community, said bartending can be an opportunity for people to build a lifestyle for themselves beyond the sometimes limited expectations. She's also hoping to use her skills to build capital for creating a way to give back to the community.
Kirk wants to create a space where she can introduce students to the arts, help them excel academically with access to hands-on help, and where adults can easily access help with everything from understanding contracts to creating savings and money management.
"The end goal for all of this, I just want to see people have hope that they're going to get out of the situation that they're in, and if I can do that for just one family, I feel like I have accomplished my goal," Kirk said.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Meet OKC bartender in U.S. Bartending Guild's 2024 World Class Top 100
