Connor Perry

Service at The Last Word in Ann Arbor, Michigan asks for pace without hurry, and Connor Perry works in that register: measured, exact, and attentive to the small adjustments that shape a drink. His role there places him in a room where technique has to hold up in real time, glass after glass, while still leaving space for a personal point of view. In 2025, Perry became a USBG Shake It Up National Classic Finals finalist, a national placement that sits alongside his day-to-day work at The Last Word. The recognition reads less like a departure from the bar than an extension of it, with the same standards of control and follow-through carrying into competition. Today At The Last Word, Connor Perry builds from revision. His competition cocktail, the Cot to Life Crisis, carries that instinct in the name alone, turning a recent period into a drink that can be repeated, judged, and shared. It is the sort of naming that keeps the work grounded in a specific moment without softening the technical labor behind it. The drink also reflects the value of critique and pushback in bar work. Perry described a process of holding onto a recipe long enough to improve it, rather than dropping it at the first rough edge. That kind of persistence is part of the craft: tasting, reworking, and returning until the drink has a clearer shape.