DrinkCurious would like to thank the St. Louis Business Journal for the recent story about our founder and Chief Drinking Officer, Patrick “Pops” Garrett. They did a wonderful job capturing Pops passion for bourbon and teaching the world to drink curious via virtual and in-person spirits-tasting. A short intro to the story is below the image for your reading pleasure.
St. Louis character: How Patrick “pops” garrett made a business out of bourbon
Written by Maddy Simpson
Patrick Garrett describes his career as a “long circuitous journey.”
Garrett, better known as “Pops,” spent much of his career in the advertising space, including at global advertising giant WPP and St. Louis-based FleishmanHillard. After too many cocktails at client dinners, he started drinking bourbon as an alternative.
His love for bourbon led him to start a blog in 2011, Bourbon & Banter. What started as a “voice of one,” in Garrett’s words, is now a vibrant community with 15 contributors and hundreds of articles. The blog reviews bourbons and other spirits and covers industry news and new product releases. The site now has a podcast and paid tiers where premium members get access to virtual tasting events, discounts on purchases and access to extra content.
When Covid hit and the world went virtual, Garrett’s expertise in all things bourbon introduced another business opportunity: virtual tastings. The tastings turned into a new business, Drink Curious.
Since its founding in 2022, Drink Curious has done tastings for over 20,000 people, both virtually and in person. In 2024, the business is on track to do over 200 tastings, an increase of up to 30% over last year’s number of tastings, Garrett said.
Much of your bourbon journey began through a bourbon club you started while working in the media world. How did this club start?
You know, we worked at a media company, we were supporting advertising, and we were also fans of Mad Men, like a lot of people were back then. (My colleagues and I) were standing in the hall one day and we’re talking about Mad Men, and we’re like, “We’re in advertising, they’re in advertising. Why can’t we drink during the day?” And (the HR guy was) like, “Well, you know, technically, there’s nothing in the company rules that says you can’t.” So my colleague looked at me and he said that if I bought a bar for my office, he would buy the first four bottles. So 15 minutes later, I sent him the receipt for a vintage replica globe bar. It showed up. Two days later, he brought in four bottles, and that started the bourbon club. That really is the whole genesis.
