Nestled inside a cactus store that is located inside a barbershop that is tucked behind a brewery, sisters Jess Saleska and Cole Londeree opened West Egg Cocktails in October to empower others to master mixology.
“I fell in love with cocktail making,” said Saleska. “My husband and I would try to learn from books, and then try to find obscure ingredients in local liquor stores, and we found it all to be a really intimidating process. My best experiences were just chatting with bartenders in off hours and hearing about their passions and I learned so much, so I wanted to re-create that experience.”
Saleska and Londeree were friends with the owners of plant shop Stump and found a home to launch their budding business inside Stump’s Cactus Consortium, which is located in the southeast corner of the Holy Moses Barbershop, which is in an alley behind the Endeavor Brewing Company. It’s like a small business matryoshka doll.
West Egg seeks to sell every component of a cocktail except for the alcohol — bitters, bar tools, glassware, syrups, and mixology books, with a small but curated collection currently available for retail purchase during the store’s limited hours. Saleska and Londeree are also working with artisans to create a line of custom bar products, and hope to launch e-commerce soon at westeggcocktails.com.
“In the long term I would love to add super interesting bitters and flavors and syrups from around the world,” said Saleska.
While selling supplies is what got the business started, cocktail classes have become a core component of West Egg’s business.
“Our original thought for this company was selling bar supplies but what we’ve found is there’s a a big demand for learning how to make cocktails, because it’s such a lovely experience to make cocktails and enjoy them,” said Saleska. “It’s basically like a cooking class but with alcohol, which is always more fun.”
West Egg hosts cocktail classes monthly, with past classes including coffee cocktails, holiday punches and champagne drinks. With a class capacity of only 12 space fills quickly; their just-announced Back to Basics class with Watershed’s Alex Chien is already sold out.
West Egg’s retail shop is open from 12-6pm Friday and Saturday, and upcoming classes are announced online. West Egg is located at 909 W 5th Ave #2.