DeGroff, Dale (1948–), is an American bartender, author, and drinks educator who is widely credited with being a catalyst, if not the catalyst, for the renaissance in mixology that ushered in the twenty-first century. Born the son of a navy pilot at Quonset Point, Rhode Island, DeGroff grew up in places as far afield as Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands; Pensacola, Florida; and Spain and Morocco. DeGroff began acting while at the University of Rhode Island, which led him to New York City, where he did a little bartending among numerous other jobs, and then Los Angeles, where a stint behind the bar at the Hotel Bel Air turned a day job into a career.
In 1985, DeGroff returned to New York and secured the head bartender spot at Aurora, a fine-dining restaurant being opened by the legendary restaurateur Joe Baum (1920–1998). Baum tasked him to set up a “nineteenth century cocktail bar” using fresh juices and classic recipes, both well out of fashion, and told him to get Jerry Thomas’s book for guidance, not mentioning that it was from 1862 and its last edition was from 1928. See Thomas, Jerry. In 1988, when Baum reopened the Rainbow Room atop the art deco skyscraper at the heart of Rockefeller Center, he made sure that DeGroff ran the bar. In the decade DeGroff worked there he demonstrated not only that it was possible to run a bar without the shortcuts and compromises that had crept into the heart of the craft, but that it was good business—in fact, it was great business.
With the critical and popular success of the Rainbow Room bar, DeGroff found himself in the bully pulpit, so to speak, when it came to the American cocktail. He became the bartender of first resort for the media at a time when the Martini was getting a second look, and with it the craft that produced it. See Martini. The craft could not have asked for a better spokesperson. DeGroff proved to be immensely knowledgeable, humble, generous to his younger peers, charming in a way that was both courtly and quotably Runyonesque, and deeply connected to the traditions of the bar. Unlike many traditionalists, however, he was not crotchety when faced with change. When the Cosmopolitan surfaced, rather than reject the rather slapdash mix of vodka, cranberry juice, triple sec, and Rose’s bottled lime juice, he improved it, substituting fresh lime for the Rose’s and Cointreau for the triple sec, and for good measure flamed an orange peel over the top, a trick he learned from Pepe Ruiz, the longtime bartender at Chasen’s in Los Angeles. See
Ironically, DeGroff’s influence only grew when the Rainbow Room closed in 1998. After a stint at the short-lived Blackbird, a high-end bar and grill in which he was a partner, DeGroff began consulting on bar programs, including that at the London branch of New York’s influential Milk & Honey and evangelizing for the bartender’s craft. In 2002, he published his first book, the seminal Craft of the Cocktail (The Essential Cocktail followed in 2008 and a revised edition of Craft in 2020). In 2004, he spearheaded the founding of the Museum of the American Cocktail. See Museum of the American Cocktail. In 2005, he became one of the founding partners of Beverage Alcohol Resource, through which he has taught and influenced literally thousands of younger bartenders. See Beverage Alcohol Resource (BAR). DeGroff continues to teach and to inspire bartenders worldwide, but he also keeps exploring new ingredients, techniques, and pockets of lore.
See also cocktail renaissance.
DeGroff, Dale. The Craft of the Cocktail, 2nd ed. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2020.
Numerous conversations with the author, 2001–2020.
By: David Wondrich
Dale DeGroff at the Rainbow Room.
Courtesy of Dale DeGroff.
Dale DeGroff at the Rainbow Room. Source: Courtesy of Dale DeGroff.