Hess, Robert (1959–), is a technology professional and cocktail evangelist near Seattle, Washington. The son of a Methodist minister, Hess was a technical evangelist at Microsoft and worked for the company from 1988 to 2012.
In 1998, marrying his computer expertise with a lifelong interest in cocktails, Hess launched DrinkBoy, a website and web forum that soon became a major focal point of the then-nascent cocktail renaissance, attracting a global audience of bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts. (After Microsoft shuttered MSN Groups—the platform upon which the DrinkBoy forum was based—Hess launched a related site, the Chanticleer Society, in 2008, in collaboration with a group of other cocktail enthusiasts.) In 2007, Hess began hosting an online video series, The Cocktail Spirit with Robert Hess, on the Small Screen Network, covering cocktail recipes, history, and technique.
A cofounder of the Museum of the American Cocktail, Hess first encountered Audrey Saunders, a New York bartender and major figure in the twenty-first-century cocktail renaissance, in 2002, at Bemelmans Bar, where Saunders worked prior to opening her seminal establishment, Pegu Club, in 2005. See Pegu Club. Hess and Saunders married in 2011, conducting two ceremonies—the first, on July 4, a private wedding for friends and family near Hess’s family home in Washington State and the second a public ceremony for bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts, at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans. See Tales of the Cocktail. Hess and Saunders plan to launch an education program aimed at career bartenders from their home in Duvall, Washington.
See also DrinkBoy Forum; Museum of the American Cocktail; and Saunders, Audrey.
Chanticleer Society website. http://chanticleersociety.org/ (accessed February 15, 2021).
The Cocktail Spirit with Robert Hess. Small Screen Cocktails, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCArqex7-NK9TIUpTd5_-rmw (accessed April 22, 2021).
DrinkBoy website. http://www.drinkboy.com (accessed February 15, 2021).
Simonson, Robert. “Audrey Saunders and Robert Hess.” New York Times, July 29, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/fashion/weddings/audrey-saunders-and-robert-hess-vows.html (accessed February 15, 2021).
Tsong, Nicole. “Robert Hess / Raises Toasts to the Art of the Cocktail.” Seattle Times, November 12, 2006. http://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/robert-hess-raises-toasts-to-the-art-of-the-cocktail/ (accessed February 15, 2021).
By: Paul Clarke