On Sunday, November 13, 2011 The Greater Boston Beverage Society will host ShakinÂ’ It Up! at House of Blues, a six-hour gala event including live music, cocktails, hors dÂ’oeuvres, and The Left Bank vs. Right Bank Bartender Competition. ShakinÂ’ it Up! will be the first in a series of cocktail events designed to preview The Boston Cocktail Summit for cocktail enthusiasts from New England and beyond.
ShakinÂ’ It Up! will be an intimate VIP-style gala where attendees will enjoy cocktails, hors dÂ’oeuvres, comedy, live music, and the livelyLeft Bank vs. Right Bank Bartender Competition. Doors will open to the public at 5 p.m.
Tickets are $40 in advance, $50 at the door and can be purchased now at www.livenation.com
ShakinÂ’ It Up! was developed by The Greater Boston Beverage Society (GBBS) to offer cocktail enthusiasts from New England and beyond a preview of whatÂ’s to come at The Boston Cocktail Summit, the first-ever city-wide cocktail event slated for October 4-6, 2012.
Established in September, 2011 by local mixologists Alexei Beratis and Jamie Walsh, The Greater Boston Beverage Society is a not-for-profit organization developed to preserve and promote BostonÂ’s cocktail and hospitality culture and spirits history while supporting local and national beverage industry related charities. ShakinÂ’ It Up! will be the GBBSÂ’s first large-scale fundraising event and a preview of whatÂ’s to come for The Boston Cocktail Summit in October 2012.
TuBoston talked with Alexei Beratis about cocktails, parties and the big convention in 2012.
-The event «ShakinÂ’ It Up!» is a preview of the Cocktail Summit you are planning for 2012. Could you tell us more about The Greater Boston Beverage Society and about this SundayÂ’s event?
-Together with Jamie Walsh, whoÂ’s the co-founder as well of The Greater Boston Beverage Society, we went to the Tales of the Cocktail event in New Orleans and wonder how come we donÂ’t have one here. And I have been thinking about it for a couple of years and I always said that I had to be done. So we started talking and after a month or so, we brought some people, some bartenders from the area and had a meeting. We organized ourselves and incorporated the group as a non-profit and that is «The Greater Boston Beverage Society». The Society will be the one putting the different events. Now, the first event is coming up on Sunday, November 13th and it is called «ShakinÂ’ It Up!», a preview fundraiser event for the main event that is going to be held next October.
We set 30+ different spirit / liquor sponsors at the House of Blues Boston, and they have all been encouraged to do cocktails, we also have food set up to go all night. People will enjoy several hours of socializing, sampling, networking, and there will be a local comedian, Joey Carroll, who will come on stage for 30 minutes, then we will have The Left Bank vs. Right Bank Cocktail Competition, which will be «Boston best» against «Cambridge best». Also we will explain on stage our plans for The Cocktail Summit in 2012.
-Could you explain more about the Summit?
-For the Summit we are targeting both consumers and professionals. The 2012 Cocktail Summit is going to be an event with people coming from everywhere, not only from Boston. It is going to be similar to the Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans, but not as large as that event. It will be our first year doing it, and they have been doing it for 10 years so they had 21,000 people attending in 2011.
All that said we are planning 3 full days of events of all kinds: From tours to educational events. And we want to highlight not only the event but the city as well, that is our goal.
-How many people are you expecting for «ShakinÂ’ It Up» next Sunday?
-We are actually expecting about 750 for this event. We are doing it at the Ho
