The Museum of the American Cocktail is both a physical entity in New Orleans and an organization devoted to raising awareness of and respect for the history of mixology and those who practice the trade.
MOTAC, as it is known, was founded in 2004 by Dale DeGroff and his wife, Jill, along with other luminaries in the cocktail industry, including Gary Regan, Robert Hess, and historian David Wondrich. The fledgling museum hosted a temporary exhibit in New York in 2005, and in 2006 presented the American Cocktail Awards (also known as “the Olives”), an annual ceremony honoring individuals and establishments in the bartending industry, which continues today. The actual museum opened in New Orleans in 2008, with exhibits spotlighting the cocktail in the context of America’s political and cultural history, featuring bartending equipment and memorabilia from throughout the cocktail’s two-hundred-plus-year history. MOTAC also hosts traveling exhibitions in cities around the country.
See also DeGroff, Dale; Hess, Robert; and Regan, Gary.
Emails sent to the author by MOTAC from 2005-present.
Museum of the American Cocktail website. http://natfab.org/cocktail-museum/ (accessed February 21, 2021).
By: Tony Sachs