cocktails+craft principles: what we believe in and why we do what we do

My sister and I started cocktails+craft in our living room as a way to make things and drink with our friends. It quickly grew into a regular occurrence, and before we knew it, we were able to extend this concept to strangers! We now have some new friends helping us and other priorities that have come up - for example Val's focusing on grad school and I'm focusing on making cocktails+craft a real thing...not that it isn't already but figuring out what it is that people keep coming back for.

In thinking about this, I've come up with a few principles. What we believe in and why we do what we do.

1. Everyone has the capacity to be creative.

Creativity is not something that you just wake up one day and have. Sure, some people may be more inclined to 'be creative' than others, but we really believe that everyone has the capacity to be creative. And if you practice, you will get/feel/be more creative. We exist to help you practice.

2. Creativity exists between the rules and imagination.

In our workshops, we teach you techniques to making crafts and cocktails. Learn them, get comfortable with them, then throw them out the window. Techniques are just building blocks to your own creativity.  - We offer you a method that works; it's you that takes them and makes them your own. You can break the rules. You can change the rules. You can make up your own rules. But you can take the craft we are working on to the limits of your imagination. And that's what makes it creative.

3. Community matters.

We believe that community is important and a huge part of cocktails+craft is building community - even if it's just for a few hours! We want you to be a part of something bigger than yourself. To share your love of whatever it is that you love and open up and maybe learn something in the process.  Right now it's easy to distance yourself from someone because he/she is different from you. We want to to connect. We want you to connect by creating, side-by-side, someone you otherwise may never talk to.

4. Slow, deliberate drinking.

We love making a beautiful cocktail and savoring it. We love to drink with friends and share our love of local and high quality liquors and ingredients. We love figuring out what's in season and how we can get that in a drink. And we MUST slow down for this. We're not that into drinking for the sake of getting drunk, but rather drinking to bring people together--enjoying a cocktail over good conversation and some creative time. Besides, it’s much harder to cut in a straight line if you’re seeing double.

5. You are capable.

We just have to say this again. You are capable of creating, making, sharing, making a new friend, being open, learning, trying something new, showing up, making something beautiful. We wouldn't keep putting all this time and effort into creating workshops if we didn't think you will show up and create something really awesome.

If you’ve attended a workshop, leave a comment about what you liked, and why you want to come back! If you haven't attended one yet, we have so many coming up so RSVP soon!

Special thanks to Kathy Phung who's recently joined as our writer/editor for helping out on this post!