Johan Evers

The Path

Bar training often starts where the guest cannot see the work. Early in his career, Johan Evers began as a barback at nightclub, learning the rush, reset, stock movement, and pressure that allow service to look easy from the other side of the counter. The move behind the stick as a bartender put pace, precision, and personality into the same live frame, night after night. Bar leadership widens the craft from drink-making to operating conditions. As bar manager and food & beverage manager, Johan Evers worked across teams, timing, stock, service, and the small decisions that shape how a venue feels. That progression gave the drinks a clear operating standard: intention in the build, generosity in flavour, and no extra noise. Venue authorship turns those standards into rooms. A Bar Called Gemma, where Johan Evers has been co-founder since 2019, Bar Othilia, which he has created since 2025, and Jokes Aside, which he has founded since 2026, mark a path from floor work to bar construction. The through-line is not scale for its own sake; it is the attempt to make drinks, design, ingredients, and service read as one system.

The Work Today

Well-balanced, tasty, and simply presented is a plain description, and a useful one. At the Stockholm bar associated with Johan Evers, the emphasis is on flavour arriving cleanly, structure doing its work, and presentation staying out of the way. For working bartenders, that is a technical choice: less cover for weak balance, more demand on the drink itself. Signature work shows how that restraint is applied. Copper Rights, Johan Evers’s twist on a classic Manhattan cocktail, keeps the classic in view while moving it through a personal lens. Pearly is the signature cocktail he wanted to show, a drink chosen to carry an idea rather than fill space on a list. Gemma, an emblematic signature, features gin, 24-hour macerated pistachio saké, ginger, and apple cider-vinegar preserved grapefruit and lime. The build points toward contrast: brightness against texture, lift against depth, with complexity kept accessible. A wider current chapter connects bar craft to setting. Since 2026, Johan Evers has also been founder at Jokes Aside in Stockholm, Sweden, where he and the team combine Scandinavian design, local ingredients, and world-class mixology. The claim is broad, but the working direction is clear: a Stockholm room where place, drink-making, and hospitality are designed to meet in the glass and in the service around it. Product curiosity functions as part of the method. For Johan Evers, new products and flavours are prompts for structure: a way to open a classic, redirect balance, or start a different build from the ingredient outward.

Signature

Johan's signature cocktails include Copper Rights, Pearly, and Gemma.

In Their Words “I’m an explorer and get excited about new products and flavours. So I guess, new ingredients can be anything that gets my brain going.”

Acclaim

Competition recognition for Johan Evers includes Art of Italicus, global competition winner (2018), Absolut Invite, global competition winner (2016), World Class, Top 10 (2016), Beefeater MXNLDN, World Top 4 (2016), and Bartender of the Year, Sweden (2016).