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In the Mix Todd Brutcher keeps St. Louis quenched with Southside Alchemy’s award-winning cocktail mixes Written by
CHERYL BAEHR
T
odd Brutcher vividly recalls the moment that bartending first piqued his interest. As a nineteen-year-old bussing tables at Olive Garden, Brutcher would watch in awe as the restaurant’s bartenders were treated like rock stars by anyone they encountered. The staff, the customers, the ladies — everyone loved to be around them, and he knew he wanted to be that guy. “Back then, I already knew restaurants would be my career, because I had zero interest in school,” Brutcher said. “At Olive Garden, I saw how the bartenders always got girls laughing and guys giving them high-fives. They were the celebrities of the restaurant. I told myself, ‘I’ve got to figure this out.’” Now a few decades later, Butcher has both realized that dream and expanded upon it. As the founder of the Bloody Mary and sangria mix company Southside Alchemy (@Southsidealchemy), the longtime barman is no longer behind the stick, but is instead arming his compatriots with the tools they need to make exceptional drinks. Early on, however, Brutcher didn’t know if he’d ever get his shot to tend bar. He spent the first few years of his food and beverage career waiting tables and lucked out during a daytime shift when the restaurant he was working needed some help. The bartender failed to show up for her shift, he explains, so the manager asked Brutcher to jump in and handle the lunch bar business. That lunch shift turned into happy hour, and when he looked down at how much he’d made for the day, he was both exhilarated and determined to never go back to waiting
Longtime barman Todd Brutcher isn’t behind the stick anymore, but he’s still supplying drinks with Bloody Mary and sangria mixes. | ANDY PAULISSEN tables. When his manager, who only hired female bartenders, refused to put him behind the bar permanently, Brutcher packed up and headed to the former Pitted Olive and eventually Onesto Pizza & Trattoria. That would prove to be a fateful switch. “When I first started at Onesto, we only had a license for beer and wine, but after two years, we got our full liquor license,” Brutcher says. “At that time, we were going through about a case of Zing Zang [Bloody Mary mix] about every two or three months. Once I started infusing my own vodkas, it turned to a case and a half every month.” Not content to stop at infused vodkas, Brutcher made a deal with his boss. He’d been playing around with his own Bloody Mary mixes at home, and suggested that Onesto should begin using his instead of Zing Zang. His boss suggested a taste test: He’d blind taste Brutcher’s version against the bought-in mix, and which-
ever was better would be put on the list. Brutcher wasn’t surprised when his won out. In no time, Brutcher developed a cult following for his Bloody Marys and sangria, another of his specialty concoctions. Even after leaving Onesto, he’d still hear praise from his former regulars who insisted that he bottle up and sell his mixes. Eventually, he began to test the waters at a pop-up market his friend put together to showcase local makers. Though Brutcher was hesitant to participate at first, he came around to the idea and was thrilled with the response. He did it again the next year, never thinking of it as more than a way to make some extra spending money — but a run-in with a St. Louis health department official made him reconsider. “He couldn’t have been nicer, but he told me I had to start doing things on the up and up to sell to the public,” Brutcher says. “He gave me all of the information
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I needed to go legit. I discarded it, because I was bartending full time, but about a week later, I was having one of those nights at work. The barback didn’t show up, I was the only bartender and five kegs blew. I was a week away from my 40th birthday and said to myself, ‘I am so sick of this shit.’” Brutcher talked with his wife about going all in with his Bloody Mary and sangria mix. As he explained it, he’d done a lot of things in his life for which he had no regrets, but he felt that this would be that one thing he’d look back on as a missed opportunity if he didn’t act. With her solidly behind him, Brutcher got all of the logistics in order and launched Southside Alchemy in 2019. Two years later, Brutcher could not be more thrilled with his decision. Not only has his Bloody Mary mix gone on to receive national awards, it’s also afforded him more of a work-life balance.
APRIL 7-13, 2021
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