Beast + Barrel's Justin Michael Reaux-Colvin combines drinks and wisdom
“There he is!” The velvet in Justin Michael Reaux-Colvin’s drawl and rollicking smile, intoxicating as a riverboat ride down the Mississippi, is an inviting welcome on a warm Friday evening. Stepping up to the bar at Beast and Barrel, though his hands are giving furious attention to two silver shakers, he is quick to inquire, “Where you at?”
Tall and lanky, bespectacled with thick, tortoise-shell frames, decked in black from toe to top—jeans, vest, bow-tie, and driving cap—Reaux-Colvin, like one of his complex cocktails, is equal parts country gentleman, urban hipster, and sublime sage.
A master of mixology and gifted spinner of yarns, it’s not only the drinks he pours that entice, it’s also the conversation he serves on the side, waxing poetic about the lives of ancient Irish saints or the origins of the “Aviation” and how he first discovered the cocktail while reading “The Great Gatsby”—or fish: “When you blacken anything you are speaking directly to my heart.” In short, Reaux-Colvin is here to elevate patrons from doing good to “doing better.”
Reaux-Colvin cut his teeth tending bar in New Orleans and has honed his craft around the world, serving libations in public houses from New York to Dublin, Houston to Los Angeles. In 2016, Reaux-Colvin moved to Chattanooga and quickly fell in love with the Scenic City.
“The city breathes with enthusiasm,” he says. “It’s this idea that it’s perfectly acceptable to be excited about something. I think that’s a neat thing to be a part of,” adding, “Everyone’s got a smile for you. It’s truly fantastic.”
Reaux-Colvin’s skills were displayed at this year’s annual Bartender Brawl where he placed a respectable second in both the judge’s and people’s choice categories. His talents, however, are not limited to behind the bar.
Having graduated magna cum laude with honors in both History and Religion from Columbia University, Reaux-Colvin earned his master’s degree in Medieval History at Fordham University. He studied at the University of Notre Dame and University of Southern California, respectively, where he taught history and Latin while working toward his PhD.
Next spring, he joins the Modern and Classical Languages and Literature Department at UTC teaching a course in Roman mythology.
“Teaching has made me a better bartender and bartending has made me a better teacher. I’m just nerdy enough to approach what I do in terms of an academic discipline. There’s this whole field of cocktail theory,” he says. “And then, of course, there is the history of cocktails themselves. I have a collection of cocktail manuals dating back to 1839. The methods by which I approach history, I also approach bartending.”
Scott Lackman, Beast and Barrel’s general manager, says it’s this approach that makes Reaux-Colvin an exceptional bartender.
“He has a great passion for what he does and that just comes through,” Lackman says. “Justin, just with his knowledge and background of obscure ingredients, really understands the flavors and how to balance something. He understands how to take that knowledge and apply it to the individual. He knows how to ask the right questions.”
So, what is Reaux-Colvin’s favorite cocktail to make?
“The one that puts a big smile on your face,” he says. “If you understand cocktails as empty vessels—they’re fundamentally vehicles for the bartender to reach over to you and share a human moment and allow you, ideally, to share in that bartender’s enthusiasm. It’s all about conveying enthusiasm.”
Photo by Holly Morse-Ellington