Other
Ivy Mix
Bartender
- Discipline
- Other
i. Biography
Cocktail work at the bar level is built through repeated service, category fluency, and the ability to carry technique across different rooms without losing the requirements of each house. Ivy Mix’s record runs through art school, Guatemala, New York cocktail bars, advocacy, ownership, and agave-focused service, with the through-line remaining practical: make drinks, run rooms, build structures that support working bartenders.
Training and Lineage
A visual-arts education can train proportion, composition, and editing before it ever reaches a glass. At Bennington College, Ivy Mix studied art, a background that later sat alongside her bar work rather than replacing it. From 2004 to 2008, the working bar was Café No Sé in Antigua Guatemala, where bartending meant live service and repeated contact with the habits of a room. In 2008, New York City added another register: employment at Gagosian Gallery, followed by cocktail-waitress work at Mayahuel, where the demands of a serious cocktail program became part of the daily practice. New York cocktail technique is often learned by moving through houses with different standards, prep systems, and service rhythms. Fort Defiance, Lani Kai, and Clover Club gave Ivy Mix successive bar positions inside that ecosystem. In 2015, the work became operational as well as technical when she became head bartender and co-owner at Leyenda in Brooklyn, a role she held through 2025. The broader trade work also includes co-founding Speed Rack, a competition built around women in bartending, and co-owning Whoopsie Daisy, begun in 2024.
The Work Today
Contemporary bar ownership asks for more than a drink list: staffing, purchasing, guest flow, neighborhood fit, and a point of view that can survive service. At Whoopsie Daisy in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Ivy Mix works as co-owner within that operating reality. The beverage trade also extends through co-ownership of Fiasco! Wine and Spirits, keeping the work connected to retail as well as bars. Her current public position includes advocacy for the future of bars and restaurants, framed around the conditions that allow those rooms to keep functioning as places of community and creative work.
Signature
Signature cocktails include Say Anything, Peruvian Sling, and Pisces Rising.
Peer Recognition
Trade recognition has followed both the drink work and the service-facing structure around it. Ivy Mix was named Best American Bartender of the Year in 2015 and was nominated for the James Beard Award for Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service in 2026. Those recognitions sit alongside the bar record: service in multiple New York cocktail rooms, ownership at Leyenda, co-founding Speed Rack, and current work tied to Whoopsie Daisy and Fiasco! Wine and Spirits.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Ivy
What role does Ivy Mix hold?
Ivy Mix is co-owner of Whoopsie Daisy and Fiasco!.
Where did Ivy Mix train or study?
Ivy Mix trained at Bennington College.
What recognition has Ivy Mix received?
James Beard Award nominee for Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service (2026).
