Ivy Mix – Leyenda

Posted on August 28, 2022

Next to London, New York is still considered the cocktail Mecca of this world. It is hard to keep track of new bar openings if you don’t live in the city and it can be difficult to decide if to try a new place or if you want to imbibe in an old favourite. Leyenda, run by Ivy Mix, is certainly one of these more established bars, located in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, just a stone’s throw away from the famous Clover Club. If you want to indulge in some excellent mezcal, Leyenda is certainly the place to go.

About

Ivy was born in 1985 and raised in central Vermont. She studied at Bennington College and holds a Bachelor’s degree in philosophy and fine arts. She was nineteen years old when she first came in contact with mixology in 2004. That year she traveled to Antigua in Guatemala, the country’s old colonial capital. While there she stumbled over a bar called Café No Sé—which if you know anything about mezcal might ring a bell. When looking at images of No Sé, you can easily see why Ivy fell in love with this bar. It was not only the bar she fell in love with, though, but also a guy working there. Hence she ended up spending as much time at No Sé as she could. Luckily for her, back then you were able to just put money in a jar as payment, as No Sé was using an honor-based system as a form of settling the bill. As is to be expected from someone so young, Ivy didn’t have unlimited financial means. As her bar tab kept growing and her money dwindled, soon the logical thing to do was to work there to pay it off. That was her first time working as a bartender and her first experience in the hospitality industry. During her time there, she also discovered her love for mezcal. The problem was that illegal mezcal was literally illegal in Guatemala at the time. Only five agave spirits had an exporting license back then, and illegal was not one of them. To keep No Sé stocked with the precious supply, Ivy joined the founder on trips to Mexico for smuggling missions. To get it over the border, they both dressed as missionaries and told the border control that they were carrying libros para los niños—books for the children. Her intense green eyes must have bewitched all the guards since they were never caught. She stayed in Central America for a couple of years and traveled extensively throughout Latin America.

In 2008 she moved back to New York, but did not think about working as a bartender in the United States. She did not have any experience in regards to cocktails back then, but was forced to start working as a bartender as the economy crashed right after her move. So in 2009 she got a job at Mayahuel in New York, which had just opened. It took a couple of tries to land that job and she had lots of competition, since many others had also turned to bartending to pay their bills. When the economy takes a dive, bars often do well since many drown their sorrows in booze. From Mayahuel she moved on to Fort Defiance and later to other bars around Brooklyn to broaden her horizon and build a career in the bartending business. Eventually, Ivy was employed by Julie Reiner, a forerunner of the modern cocktail renaissance. She joined the team of Julie’s SoHo tiki bar Lani Kai (now closed) and later Clover Club, before finally opening her own place, Leyenda, in 2015 with the help of Julie and her business partner.

Aside from her bartending, she is also the cofounder of Speed Rack—a national cocktail competition that creates a platform for female bartenders while simultaneously raising money for breast cancer-related charities. Ivy started Speed Rack when she realized that most of her colleagues were men. This might be due to the speakeasy renaissance, which celebrates the prohibition era and its gentlemen’s club image that didn’t include female bartenders, but Ivy didn’t like that kind of side-lining at all. Speed Rack launched in 2011 and has been successfully changing the way people view women in the predominantly male-dominated cocktail-mixing business. So far, the events have raised over 600,000 USD for charity. Crowning her impressive career, Ivy Mix has won the American Bartender of the Year at Tales of the Cocktail’s Spirited Awards and in 2016 was named Mixologist of the Year by Wine Enthusiast.

Leyenda

Leyenda is intended to be an accessible, open, and fun bar for everyone, regardless of nationality, socio-economic status, race, or gender. Ivy wants Leyenda to be a church of sorts where everybody is welcome to worship. When people enter, it is a bright, open, and welcoming place, not dimly lit or hard to grasp. The idea is to serve excellent drinks and food that complements this welcoming environment. The focus in on mezcal, but there are other spirits and cocktails available of course. It’s easy to identify the joyful Latin-American approach to hospitality in this place. It’s vibrant and one can feel the joie de vivre suffusing the air.

Inspiration

Ivy is inspired by food. Particularly by pastry menus and pastry chefs. In her opinion these chefs master the only other culinary profession that really has to balance sweet, sour, and savory like mixologists do. She also finds inspiration from the spirits themselves and the different notes with-in them. These are her main two starting points for new recipes.

Favorite cocktail

Ivy usually drinks Negronis because they are hard to mess up, but also very difficult to truly master. She personally does not make her Negroni in equal parts, but doesn’t mind when she receives it like this. She can order a Negroni anywhere and will always enjoy it.

Check out Ivy’s recipe Shadow Boxer and Tia Mia.

Favorite bar

Pare de Sufrir in Guadalajara.

The future of the bar world

Ivy believes the industry is finally moving away from the sanctity of the drink to the overall experience of being in a bar. Her hope is that bars will return to excellent hospitality and comprehensive guest satisfaction, and that bartenders will get their heads out of their jiggers.

Advice for opening a bar

DON’T!! No, really, it is the hardest thing Ivy has ever done. It is not enough that someone likes cocktails and bartending or has won some competitions or awards, you need to know how to run a business. That is essential.

Brooklyn

Brooklyn for her is home. Brooklyn is New York without the mayhem of Downtown Manhattan. It is a massive, sprawling city, but with so many different flavors and cultures—a veritable melting pot of people and ideas. Ivy avoids Manhattan like the plague, but in Brooklyn she thrives. Her bar is here; her home is here. She lives close to the park and gets to run and walk her dogs there. And it’s easy to travel anywhere in the world from here. Sometimes Ivy feels like she wants to move, but for her and her love of life and celebrating it, nothing comes close to Brooklyn.