The Telly Awards is the premier award honoring video and television across all screens. Established in 1979, The Telly Awards receives over 12,000 entries from all 50 states and 5 continents. Entrants are judged by The Telly Awards Judging Council — an industry body of over 200 leading experts including advertising agencies, production companies, and major television networks, reflective of the multi-screen industry The Telly Awards celebrates.

Earning a Telly Award is a significant creative achievement. Based on the ratio of winners over the past several years, approximately 7 to 10% of entrants are chosen as Silver Telly Award winners.

2023 Silver Winner: Series — Online

Credits

Executive Producer: Kerry Moynahan, 1st Reel Entertainment
Editor: Margaret Howell, 1st Reel Entertainment
Host: Jonathan Pogash, The Cocktail Guru
Co-host: Jeffrey Pogash, The Cocktail Guru
Producer: Philip Dobard, Center for Culinary Culture

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If you are serious about improving your knowledge and receiving GUEST/IAMI certification and accreditation leading to career advancement, then look no further!  Certified interior yacht crew instructors The Cocktail Guru have been supplying some of the yachting industry’s best talent the education they need to successfully execute a Wine and Mixology Program on board their boats.  These courses are appropriate for beginners or those with prior training.

Jonathan and Jeffrey Pogash, the only GUEST Program/IAMI accredited instructors in the U.S., offer two-day fun-filled classes on Mixology and Wine.

The first 8-hour long class is devoted to Mixology & Bartending, during which you will learn all the tricks of the trade from “The Cocktail Guru” himself, Jonathan Pogash, and his team of experiences bartender-instructors.  Bartending technique, mise en place, cocktail construction, history, and mindfulness are just a few of the topics we cover.

Day 2 is an 8-hour session devoted entirely to wine tasting and education, taught by author and educator Jeffrey Pogash, whose career spans 45 years at every level of the wine industry. Taste and learn about wines from the world’s major wine regions: grape-growing methods, soil, climate, and how they affect the flavor profile, along with tasting techniques and “How To Read A Wine Label” will be covered.

On-Board Classes

We can travel to wherever your boat is docked in the Ft. Lauderdale and Northeast US regions!  We will bring all of the necessary supplies needed (liquor, mixers, tools) to provide you with Mixology and Wine education courses.  You may choose either accredited or not, and each class (Mixology and Wine) is 8 hours long with lunch and snack breaks.  Contact us for more info.

In-Classroom

We try and schedule multiple sessions in person at various training facilities in and around Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

Our upcoming live classes are:

April 26th and 27th, 2023

Blue Oceans Yachting

Advanced Bartending & Mixology Module 1

Advanced Wine Appreciation Module 1

Email Adrienne Gang for more info and to sign up:

adrienne@blueoceansyachting.com 

Virtual and Hybrid Classes

A virtual or hybrid course allows us to lead you through our certified educational sessions anywhere in the world.  Just ask us!

Private Events

You, too, can have a Cocktail Guru mix up delectable craft cocktails at your next event.  Check out our Special Events page for more info.

*Discounts apply if you sign up for both classes or if multiple members of your crew signs up.  Remember, you will each receive GUEST/IAMI program certification for each class.
So why not advance your career with some additional education?!

Email us for more information and to book.

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Our Virtual Cocktail classes are still going strong, and our U.S.-based team is at the ready to mix and shake up some holiday-themed cocktails for your next gathering.

The safest way to gather large groups, especially when the team is spread out, is Virtually.  Our talented Gurus show you the tricks and tips, while adding in dashes of education and fun.

Our amazing Cocktail Box kits provide you with everything you need to mix up 3 specialty cocktails alongside your Guru.  We can also send cheese platters and gourmet chocolates along with your cocktail ingredients.  Consider this an end of the year Thank You to your team and clients.  They’ll surely appreciate it!

** In-person also available (anywhere in the U.S.)!

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Join us on our epicurean journey as we embark on this great voyage!  New episodes will be released on a regular basis, with amazing guests from the culinary, drink, and entertainment world.

Check us out here.

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At The Cocktail Guru, we’ve always relied on in-person presentations to restaurant and bar staff as well as for Corporate Team Building events. As soon as the pandemic hit, our president and CEO Jonathan Pogash, saw the necessity to shift gears, and so began a dramatic change in the way he conducted business and in the priorities of the company. Virtual Cocktail Classes with The Cocktail Guru became the priority and suddenly, demand for such classes went through the roof. According to Jonathan, business has never been better and has even surpassed Pre-pandemic levels. “No one was more surprised than I was when I received requests from past corporation clients and a host of new clients, asking for Virtual Cocktail Classes. This happened at the beginning of Covid, but business continues to be brisk. I anticipate that demand for Virtual Cocktail classes with The Cocktail Guru will continue in the foreseeable future.”

If past is prologue, it appears as though Virtual Cocktail Classes, like a fine Bourbon, Rye or Cognac, will never go out of style.

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The undulating gold chain drapery, that moved with the flow of air, was so bright and sparkling as to be distracting and quite intimidating, but the man I was there to meet walked toward me, shook my hand warmly, and put me at ease. When I introduced myself, he proclaimed proudly and with a smile,  “you are Hungarian, like me”. This was the first time that anyone mentioned Hungary as my family’ s homeland, but he explained that rather than being from Ukraine, my last name was the word for a type of bread, a ‘pogacha’. This came as a complete surprise to me, since my grandparents and uncle, who emigrated from Ukraine in 1905, never mentioned Hungary as the birthplace of our family and to that point, I had never heard the word pogacha. But I trusted the fellow with whom I was speaking. His name was Paul Kovi, the co- owner of The Four Seasons Restaurant. He had bought the place from the prolific Restaurant Associates, a company for which he had previously worked. Joe Baum, who worked his way up the ranks of Restaurant Associates, had created The Four Seasons in 1959 and by 1973, the company felt that the once popular watering hole had lost its luster and decided to unload it Paul Kovi and business partner Tom Margittai, both former employees of ‘RA’, took it over and restored its image and it’s bottom line.

The restaurant’s signature ‘New American Cuisine’ that changed with the seasons, remained the order of the day, but Kovi took the approach to new culinary heights by hiring Swiss chef Seppi Renggli who quickly received praise from the legendary restaurant and food critic Craig Claiborne of The New York Times, assuring a successful revitalization. Generally positive reviews by Claiborne, Mimi Sheraton and influential business publications, along with aggressive marketing by Kovi and Margittai, expanded the customer base well beyond the out-of-town tourist trade, attracting a heavy hitting business and celebrity clientele that led to the coining of the term” Power Lunch”. It was not unusual to see Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Henry Kissinger, Sandy Weill (CEO of Citigroup), Martha Stewart, Truman Capote and David Rockefeller, and it was here that I first met fashion designer Bill Blass. This was an era when classic, once fashionable French restaurants were beginning to close. These fine dining establishments had attracted a high-profile clientele. Among them were Le Pavillon, Cafe Chauveron, and Voisin. As fate would have it, Voisin was located at street level of the Montana Apartment Buildings, at 375 Park Avenue. The restaurant was forced to move when the land was sold and the building demolished for construction of the Ludwig Mies van de Rohe/ Philip Johnson designed Seagram Building, a no-frills modern “International  style” office building that became home to The Four Seasons Restaurant.

• Jeffrey Pogash for The Cocktail Guru

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It was about 10:00 a.m.  Hesitantly, while quaking in my boots, I approached the imposing doorway covered by the iconic white and black Le Cirque awning. As I opened the heavy glass doors, I spied a most elegantly dressed tall, thin man with an intimidating chiseled face standing behind the Maitre d’ stand. He reminded me of a wooden statue, but smiled politely (probably because I was dressed in a suit and tie and might have been perceived as a potential customer), and introduced himself as Sirio Maccione, the owner. In a quivering voice, I told him that I was there to talk about the wines of Alsace, after which he invited me to sit down and offered me a coffee. I am sure he could see that I was totally intimidated, so he put me at ease by sharing his enthusiasm for the wines I represented and we had a pleasant fifteen minute chat. As a twenty-five year old novice wine promoter, I was flattered that this soon to be legendary restaurateur, formerly of the iconic Delmonico’s and The Colony, treated me with a kindness, gentleness and elegance that I had not experienced from the rest of the industry. His knowledge of wine was impressive in that I could have a real conversation with him about Alsace, the wines, the people and the region. Mr. Maccione was from Tuscany, he knew his wines and he knew that many of the world’s greatest chefs were from Alsace, so he had a deep appreciation and understanding of what I was trying to accomplish.

Attempting to get into his good graces after our cordial chat, I asked Mr. Maccione if he had a table available for lunch. Without missing a beat. and with his usual charm and elegance, he escorted me to a two top.That was my very first meal at Le Cirque, but it was not to be my last. Sitting alone within the dining room of this bastion of high society and haute cuisine, I was basking in the glory of this newly established celebrity haunt, which succeeded because Sirio himself had a coterie of loyal celebrities and dignitaries from the famed Colony Club, long before Le Cirque served its first meal. Wherever Sirio went, the faithful would follow.  As I recall, I shared the dining room that afternoon with Henry Kissinger and a group of his cohorts. After lunch, I was introduced to Chef Jean Vergnes, the first of Le Cirque’s famous chefs and like Sirio, an alumnus of the Colony Club.

Over the next nine years, my meetings with Sirio continued, but not as frequently as during that first year, since the focus of my work turned nationwide. But the relationship continued and I followed as Le Cirque moved from The Mayfair to the glitzy New York Palace Hotel in 1997, where it was renamed Le Cirque 2000, and then again when it moved from the Palace and opened in the Bloomberg Tower condominium complex in 2006.

In 1986, Sirio and I collaborated on the Statue of Liberty’s 100 th Anniversary Celebration during which we placed Chef Marc Haeberlin from the great Alsace restaurant L’Auberge de L ‘Ill at Le Cirque for a one week stint as guest chef. This was a celebration not only of The Statue, but of the Alsatian who sculpted it, Auguste Bartholdi, and helped to raise awareness of the wines and the great cuisine of the region. Once again, he was gracious and appreciative that he was asked to participate in this city-wide culinary extravaganza, that brought the greatest Alsace chefs together with the great chefs of New York.

My last conversation with Sirio was in 2010 when I organized a Dom Perignon, Krug and Veuve Clicquot champagne white truffle dinner in the Le Cirque kitchens at One Beacon Court on East 58th St.  The kindness and warmth that I remembered from those very early days were still there, as was Sirio’ s larger-than-life stature. He was not as vigorous as he had been, but his strong presence and control were obvious.  As I was leaving the restaurant that evening, I reminded him of the encouragement he gave to a young wine promoter in 1977, helping to launch him on a career that had spanned thirty-four years. It was a fitting adieu.

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Jonathan has begun leading a series of short live on-line mixology tutorials, with a focus on positive news from around the world and creative cocktail recipes using at home ingredients. The tutorials, now called “Some Good Booze,” launched on March 14th, and continues every day at 5pm EST on FB Live, as well as posted to The Cocktail Guru Instagram and YouTube channels. The idea, inspired by actor John Krasinski’s launch of his YouTube show, “Some Good News”, will follow in ‘The Office” star’s footsteps: “stories that have made you feel good this week or the things that just made you smile.” Of course, Jonathan will throw in a dash or two of cocktail and spirit-related inspiration to round things out.

In addition, a separate Virtual Team Building/Virtual Happy Hour program is being offered to corporations and organizations, so that The Cocktail Guru can continue with its comprehensive nationwide team building that it created seven years ago. Some of the nation’s largest companies, including Facebook and Google, have enlisted the help of The Cocktail Guru team to bring their employees together for an educational and fun-filled activity that encourages cooperation between colleagues.

For more information about our Virtual Team Building/Virtual Happy Hour program, please contact us.

Visit The Cocktail Guru on Facebook, Instagram, or Youtube.

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1 1/2 oz Barsol Pisco

3/4 oz honey chili syrup (1:1 honey and warm water + small hot pepper – infused overnight)

1 oz watermelon juice

Top with Q ginger ale

Method: Shake first three ingredients very well with ice and strain over ice into rocks glass. Top off with the ginger ale and toggle.

Garnish: fresh mint leaf

“Creamsicle Cocktail Duo”

National Creamsicle Day is tomorrow!

1) Clarified Creamsicle –

In a mason jar, add:

1 oz Van Gogh Citroen Vodka  1 oz Van Gogh vanilla vodka

2 oz orange juice

1 oz simple syrup

1/2 oz orange curaçao

Combine ingredients, then add 2 oz whole milk to “milk wash”

(Which will “clarify” the drink)

Refrigerate for 12 hours

Remove from fridge and fine strain through cheese cloth

Serve cold over ice.

2) Beer-sicle –

1 oz Van Gogh vanilla  vodka (Infused with 1 cinnamon tea bag for 10 mins)

1 tbsp blood orange (or regular orange)sorbet

1 tbsp vanilla ice cream or soft serve soft serve

Shake well with ice and strain into martini glass. Top off with cold New England style IPA beer

Garnish: freshly grated nutmeg

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