A Beverage Director making her mark

The last time we talked with Erin Hines, she was a bartender at Picco in Larkspur and had just started her Bitter Girl Bitters company, making four unique bitters at her home in Petaluma. By then, her resume had already included bartending stops at Piazza D’Angelo and Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley, Terrapin Crossroads in San Rafael and Nick’s Cove in Marshall. Hines moved on to Guesthouse in Kentfield, along with chef Jared Rogers and Dustin Sullivan, when they opened the restaurant in 2018. That team has also recently opened Mijo in Corte Madera, a new Californian-Spanish restaurant located at the site of the old Moseley’s Sports Bar. Bartenders like to be busy and let’s just say that things haven’t gotten any less busy for her.

Hines, a single mother and law school student, is now the beverage director for both Guesthouse and Mijo. She has also added a few new bitters to her bitter company, now comprising eight different offerings: Let’s Celery Brate, Bitter Rose, Morning Wood Barrel Aged Coffee, Mom’s Prickly Poms, Pear Jordan ‘It’s Got Hops’, Go Walnuts and Garden Party. All are $18 and available in Marin and Sonoma counties as well as online via her website at bittergirlbitters.com.

Hines herself has recently found new inspiration through Will Guidara’s 2022 book “Unreasonable Hospitality,” putting her own interpretation on a chapter examining the differences between two different types of servers.

“In my 20 years of experience, I have found that the bartenders who connect with people overall do better than the bartenders who have the more technical skill sets,” she said. “Ultimately, it’s the personality that proves most successful. It’s the way you make people feel when they come in.”

Recently, we caught up with her on a Thursday afternoon — in between dropping her child off for daycare, finishing her weekly homework, supplying a retail account with bitters and doing the opening prep at Mijo, all before closing the bar at Guesthouse.

(For more on Hines, check out the premier episode of Season 6 of the Barfly Podcast, now available online.)

Q You’ve a long history as both a bar manager and a bartender. What, in your opinion, makes a great one?

A Great personalities make great bartenders.

Q Any unusual challenges with a Marin County restaurant?

A Marin is predictable. I think that’s what makes it challenging. You have to anticipate what the community is looking for.

Q What qualities did you look for in your staff at Mijo?

A I look for people who I would want to hang out with. A good bartender will create an environment where the guests want to spend their time engaging with them. If I want to be around them, the guests will want to be around them, too. I also seek out staff who emulate qualities that I want to become better at in the future. It’s important to me to surround myself with people who I can learn from.

Q When you design cocktails, or bitters, what elements are you looking for?

A Things that are approachable. My life is busy and full. I want things to be simple and wonderful in the times that I have to enjoy them. Cocktails can often be a reward that we give ourselves and they shouldn’t have to be complicated to be delicious. I want the drinks and bitters that I make to be something that I would use often, or drink often, in my day-to-day life.

Q Conversely, what elements are you trying to avoid?

A I always go into a cocktail idea with a vision. If it takes me more than a few times to make something work, then it isn’t going to work. I step away from the project for the moment and wait for a new idea to come to me. I avoid doing work without results. If the flavors aren’t working, I don’t push the idea.

Q You’ve done this for nearly 20 years. What keeps you going into work every day?

A The people. It’s a profession that can show the worst and best in humanity in the time span of one cocktail. As bartenders, we literally take the good with the bad in every moment. But the good in the guests at the bar always outweighs the bad. Over the years, the people who I have met have supported me in many ways. It isn’t always easy to put on a face and get through a day of work, especially in the service industry. Some days we just can’t. And on those days, when the guests at the bar allow us to be human, we are reminded that we get to connect to people every day. We become part of their celebrations and sometimes failures. And in return, they become a part of ours. I have a job that allows me to spend every day trying to make life feel a little bit more special to someone who sits down at my bar and allows me to do so. I have to remind myself of that often because it gets easily forgotten between the shaking of so many cocktails.

Q What do you feel needs to be said about cocktails, bartending or the restaurant business in general?

A Good things shouldn’t be complicated but should require hard work. It takes more skill to make a delicious cocktail with four ingredients than one with 10. And that too is the service industry.
 

Recipe

Mijo’s Pink Gintonica

Ingredients

2 ounces Rives’ strawberry-infused Pink Spanish Gin

4 ounces Fever-Tree Premium Tonic Water

3 dashes Bitter Girl Bitters’ Bitter Rose

1 dried dragon fruit segment

1 dried blood orange wheel

Directions

Combine the gin, tonic and bitters in a large wine glass half-filled with ice. Stir and garnish by submerging both dried fruit segments. The fruit will slowly leach into the drink, causing it to change color over time.

Note: Dried fruit is the perfect way to minimize fruit spoilage and increase garnish longevity. The Cocktail Garnish Co. is a great place to source dehydrated fruit garnishes if you don’t have the time to invest in doing it yourself.