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My wife is actually Hawaiian of Japanese descent, so we often visited Tokyo and I already had experience drinking different types of shochu. My first impression was that because of koji’s aroma, it reminds me of sake a little bit. Of course, the taste is different from sake, but it was very deep. When I drank it in Japan, it was almost always mixed with soda or served straight, so it was a challenge for me to make a new cocktail with shochu.

When I started mixing my own shochu cocktails, they had a unique character I hadn’t sensed with other spirits and I really liked them. When I find something that’s unique, I like to ponder it and experiment with it over and over again to understand its flavor. I’ve always liked experimenting with the unfamiliar.

That’s a really long story... I’ll make it short. For five years I worked with IT and computers. I was an engineer in charge of centralized network management. I worked in a room with a big map of the U.S. with lights on it. As soon as a light switched from green to red, I would contact somebody in that state and deal with their problem. I was still 20 or 21 years old.

I grew up in D.C. My best friend and roommate was a DJ, and my girlfriend at the time was a bartender. I would party with them almost every night. It was so much fun I decided I wanted to work in a bar, too, so I quit my job as an engineer and went to bartending school. But since I didn’t have any experience working in a bar, it was hard to find a job. Fortunately, my girlfriend’s acquaintance gave me an introduction that landed me my first bartending gig at the Ritz-Carlton in D.C.

Yep, that was the beginning. I was still 22, so basically a kid. In addition to the Ritz-Carlton, I worked at a nightclub on weekends. I did it because it was so much fun. After a while, the beverage manager at the Ritz-Carlton told me to start making cocktails, but I still didn’t know much about them back then.

That’s why I started reading books to study them. That was when I realized I didn’t know much about spirits in general, not just cocktails. So I started visiting other cities to research bars and cocktails. In the process, I decided to move to San Francisco to study spirits and bartending more in-depth.

I visited many cities, including New York and Chicago. But I grew up on the East Coast, so I wanted to go somewhere totally different. That’s why I requested a transfer to the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco. In 2007, I bought a one-way ticket and moved there with all my belongings in three bags. Later, I returned to D.C., then moved to New York, and then again went back to San Francisco, where I went independent and opened my own bar, Pacific Cocktail Haven (P.C.H.).

Pacific Cocktail Haven (P.C.H.) has won accolades for being one of “The World’s 50 Best Bars.” It was also the “Best American Cocktail Bar” at Tales of the Cocktail®, where owner bartender Kevin Diedrich has also been recognized as “Best American Bartender.” The bar’s popularity stems from its highly creative cocktails. We asked Diedrich about the pandemic’s impact on the bar business and its future.

Text: Akira Suzuki / Photography: Koichi Mitsui / Composition: Contentsbrain /
English translation:LIBER
Interview Location: Kenji and Loa Bar, both located on the first floor of the International House Hotel at 221 Camp Street,
New Orleans, Louisiana 70130, U.S.A.

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Actually, the first bar I opened in 2017 burned down in a fire in 2021 [and I opened the current one in 2022], but before that first one was destroyed, I’d bought the building in December 2015. It was a very old building in bad condition, so when I first bought it, I wasn’t sure what to do with the interior. In the meantime, I opened the bar as a temporary business.

It was in a really bad state, so I opened the bar from 5 p.m. to midnight. After closing, I would stay until seven or eight in the morning to strip the walls and renovate on my own, then tidy up the bar, do some prep work, and open up again at five. I lived like that for about six months. The renovations took about a year to finish, and in 2017, the bar was finally ready to open.

Well, tearing down and stripping walls is easy. One day I’d tear down a wall, and the next day I’d work on another part. But the bar was open during the work, so customers would come and have fun seeing what was gone or different. Some people came there to drink just to see the bar change. (Laughs.) I did a lot of the other work myself, but I hired builders for the new parts. If I’d made the walls, they would have collapsed.(Laughs.)

No, I was surprised. I hadn’t even thought about it before. I do this because I like this business and I like hospitality. I wanted to be part of a community and be of use to the people here. I wanted to be a bartender and serve people.

One thing my wife loves to say is, “If you work hard and you’re kind to others, you’ll be fine.” That’s all there is to it. I’m here to work, not to impress people. I’m just doing my job. If I’ve had good results, it’s because I’ve had a lot of great people around me. Other people have always been contributing to my career advancement. I’ve been blessed with a lot of wonderful mentors and people who’ve helped me, and that’s why I’m here.

A lot’s changed since before the pandemic. I think we’ve had a changing of the guard. We lost a lot of bartenders during the pandemic, many of them very experienced. Because of that, we’ve lost their guidance and mentorship. We lost those who would have been mentors to today’s young bartenders.

When I started out as a bartender, there were always more experienced ones working with me behind the bar, and I learned a lot from them. But during the pandemic, they closed their business, changed jobs, retired, or left the country.

This has created a huge gap between the experienced bartenders and the newcomers. There’s a lack of mentorship, and young bartenders don’t have the knowledge they need. They need successful role models to look up to, but without them, I can’t see them finding much success in the future. The professionals in my generation are nothing like the ones who came before us.

With regard to the future, I know we have a lot to do now. One big change is the presence of social media. Learning materials are also much more accessible now, because you can go online and learn all about recipes, techniques, and how to use new carbonated drinks.

When I was younger, if I wanted to know how to do something, I’d first have to find someone who knew, then somehow get their phone number or email address and contact them to ask. But now we have lots of people who I call “basement bartenders” or “Instagram bartenders.”

I’m a little reluctant to call them bartenders. Sure, they’re making cocktails, but they’re not really bartending. However, I do think social media is providing people with the resources to learn about cocktails and alcohol.

Even if you don’t go to a school or you don’t know certain people, if you open up YouTube or Instagram on your phone, you can learn cocktail techniques or research something new about alcohol. If you want to learn about shochu, sake, or spirits, it’s all on the internet in the palm of your hand. That’s the future, and I guess we have to adapt to it.

But, as I said before, I got into this work because I like this business and I like hospitality. I wanted to be part of a community and be of use to this place and the people here. I wanted to be a bartender and serve people. What’s important to me isn’t the drinks, but rather the customers I serve.

I think there’s a special art to serving strangers without expecting anything in return. In Japan, you have omotenashi, which is a wonderful approach to hospitality that is done without asking for anything in return, right? That’s what I want to do. I’m just running a bar with the spirit of omotenashi, and maybe there’s a future beyond that.