The way Dave Newman and Pint + Jigger decide on their drink menu is "a little crazy."
Take a simple cocktail like a negroni: three equal parts gin, Campari and sweet vermouth.
"But we don't think that that's the best possible iteration of that drink," Newman said. "So we will grab six different gins, five different sweet Vermouths. We will make that drink over and over again with those different combinations, and then we will start changing proportions."
Newman is one of the owner-operators of Pint + Jigger, but the house negroni is a consensus agreement between him and his staff on what the best possible negroni is.
"And the really cool part about that is that every time they serve it, they know — because they've tried 45 different iterations on a Tuesday with me — that that's the best possible negroni they can make for our guests," he said.
It's that attention to detail to get the best possible drink that has made Newman a finalist in the Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service category in this year's James Beard Awards.
Newman started bartending when he was 19 years old and has been honing his craft for the past 30 years.
"I'm still doing it, so pretty spoiled as to the timeline of everything," Newman said. "When I first started bartending, it definitely wasn't looked at as a career. I think maybe 10 years ago, it really transitioned to where people could make a legitimate career out of it."
He has been at the forefront of the craft cocktail movement since the mid-2000s, when it followed on the heels of the farm-to-table movement.
"It didn't make much sense if you were concerned about the provenance of your food — whether it was organic, sustainable, where it was grown, how it was taken care of — to then go and order a margarita that was made with bottled sour mix that had high fructose corn syrup and red and yellow No. 3," he said.
Newman moved to Hawaiʻi in 2007 when he helped open Nobu in Waikīkī. He opened Pint + Jigger five years later. He said that, at the time, no one had craft cocktails and craft beer in the same place.
"Those two sets of drinkers were always separated. You had a craft beer bar or brewery, and you had craft cocktail bars. They were not combined," Newman said.
A bar focused on whiskey cocktails would be new in Hawaiʻi. He told Distiller Magazine in 2022, "Whiskey wasn’t a thing in Hawaiʻi beyond a shot of Jamo [Jameson] or a 'chilled Crown with a pine back.' I’m not joking: that was literally the thing. So opening a bar that placed whiskey front and center and made no apologies about it wasn’t looked at as a smart business move."
When asked if his customers still order chilled Crown Royal, he said, "We still see it occasionally. It always brings a smile to our face, makes us laugh. It's nice to see that there's die-hards that are going to drink what they were drinking 20 years ago. So it's cool. We like it, and it's an easy drink to make, and makes people happy."
Combining craft beers and craft cocktails turned out to be good for business and the customer experience.
"The biggest complaint, I think, for people in craft cocktail bars is waiting too long to get a drink," Newman said. "If 30% or 40% of your guests are drinking beer, the longest it takes to pour beer is like 30 seconds to a minute for a Guinness. So it worked out really well."
Pint + Jigger turns 13 this month. It first opened at a smaller location on King Street in the McCully neighborhood of Honolulu in 2019. The location also had a speakeasy called Harry's Hardware Emporium. Both bars moved to the new location at the Ala Moana Hotel in 2022.
One reason for the gastropub's longevity (and a criterion for the James Beard award) is a sustainable work culture.
"If you came in here and you're like, I really like this cocktail, I'd give you the recipe and tell you exactly how to make it," Newman said. "And we've had so many bartenders come through Pint, so we opened in 2012, that have gone on to run really amazing other programs. And it's that family tree, and that's really what makes it sustainable."
One branch of that Pint + Jigger family tree is Kuʻulei Akuna, co-owner of the hospitality group Lovers and Fighters and the director of bar operations for Little Plum, Lady Elaine and Uncle Paul's Corner Store in Mānoa.
In a winding career, Akuna was a bar manager at other Honolulu restaurants before she joined Pint + Jigger as a bartender in 2019.
"I wouldn't be the bartender that I am, and I definitely wouldn't be the bar director if I had never worked at Pint + Jigger. It changed my entire outlook on what it means to put out a good drink," Akuna said.
She started at the original location and the adjacent Harry's Hardware Emporium.
"That's where I learned just how taste and flavors mix together, and how I built my palate up so when you start bartending, it's easy to make the drinks that are on your menus and the drinks that people give to you," Akuna said. "When you start doing it, you know, at a higher level, sometimes you have to create your own drinks out of nowhere. Someone's just like, 'Hey, make me something. And that is a hard thing to do.'"
Newman also taught Akuna about caring about the quality of the drinks and the patrons.
"People love sitting at his bar because he makes people feel important," she said. "And there could be 100 people in his bar, and he knows where everybody is and what everybody's doing and what everybody's drinking, because he understands speed and quality and hospitality all have to be combined to be a good bartender."
Akuna is just one of many people with stories about Pint + Jigger. And Newman is grateful for the food and beverage community in Hawaiʻi.
"Our community is unlike any other that I've gotten to visit," Newman said. "And I've worked San Francisco and LA and Colorado and a little bit New York, but Hawaiʻi is really spectacular in that the community is just so strong and so generous. And there's, you know, we show up for each other and we support each other. You're not going to hear bartenders here like really talking s*** about other bartenders, it's really cool, or other bars. We're all trying to do the same thing."
The James Beard Foundation will announce its winners on June 16.
