Lush Life is a bartender advocacy collective focused on empowering our community to build itself and its members in thoughtful, engaged, and healthy ways. Through education and networking, Lush Life is able to bridge bar communities together across the globe. Succinctly put, Lush Life is in service to the service industry.

Lush Life began as a vehicle to tell bartenders’ stories. Through video, photos, and written work, Lush Life shared the talent and stories of the incredible people behind America’s bars. As we told those stories, it became evident that the labor market had yet to catch up with the craft cocktail movement. Few bartenders were being paid fairly for their time and expertise, and even fewer had access to the knowledge that was changing the ways bars operate across the country. Our role as storytellers had to evolve alongside bars we covered, and Lush Life chose to shift focus from content creation to founding the first agency dedicated to bartender advocacy.

Leveraging Lush Life’s storytelling background, we were able to offer our clients a product they were proud to share while elevating bartenders and their stories through our work. Lush Life saw a need to design events for the modern bartender in tandem with our digital and visual work. From this spark, Portland Cocktail Week was born. Portland Cocktail Week is one of the largest bartender festivals in the country. It has changed the face of events in the United States by making our offerings free of charge to bartenders and removing alcohol from the classroom.

In 2012, Lush Life decided bartenders needed more access to the products they serve in their bars and the people who make them. From this insight, Camp Runamok was created, which continues to offer 600+ bartenders each year the opportunity to visit America’s most legendary distilleries on the Bourbon Trail while also networking, learning, and growing in community with one another.

As our community grows and changes, access to our resources continues to be our top priority. With that in mind, Lush Life began offering spirits certifications, bar management cohorts, and a variety of other digital education. Lush Life will continue to meet our community’s needs as that community grows and changes.