PORTLAND, Ore. — Eugene-based Ninkasi Brewing Company recently launched a line of high-end canned cocktails in partnership with world renowned Oregon-native bartender, Jeffrey Morgenthaler.
“This is really the culmination of what I have been doing and really focusing on for the past nearly 20 years through my writing, through traveling the world and educating bartenders, through sharing all of my recipes on my website. And that is getting more delicious drinks in the hands of more people,” Morgenthaler said.
Morgenthaler is an award-winning bartender and mixologist with seven James Beard Award nominations for his bar program at the recently shuttered Clyde Common and Pepe Le Moko. He has also been named “Top 10 Most Influential Bartenders of the Past Decade” by Food & Wine, a “Top 10 Mixologist Nationally” by Playboy Magazine and has judged many prestigious cocktail competitions, including the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
Ninkasi is Oregon’s second largest independent craft brewery.
Co-founder Jamie Floyd met Morgenthaler 25 years ago at The Tiny Tavern in Eugene. From there, the two became close friends while pursuing careers in the alcohol and brewing industries.
Floyd said he founded Ninkasi on the idea of being different, of reimagining what beer and brewing could be. So partnering with his long-time friend to create fun cocktails that trick the tongue into thinking it was never canned to begin with is in the brewery’s DNA.
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