Meet the Mixologists

continued

"Michigan is now up to third or fourth in the nation for craft beer," Zavisa says. "In ten years I think Michigan will be one of the top few states for craft cocktails too. And Zavisa knows his craft beer. Before tending bar at the Ravens Club, he spent nearly a decade working with the area's biggest names in beer, including Arbor Brewing Company and the Sidetrack in Ypsi. "It's part of the food and beer culture of Ann Arbor now," he says. "I think the state of the cocktail is strong, and the future looks extremely bright."

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Back at Knight's, the future of cocktails looks fairly similar to its past--which is pretty good, considering the venue. As Lorraine Woody, a Knight's employee of twenty-five years, muddles an orange and cherry for a notably stiff Old Fashioned, she confesses she's never heard the expression "craft cocktails."

"We've always had cocktails, since they started in 1984," she says. "Mr. Knight wanted it to be a supper club. That's what makes it so unique."

To be fair, there's a good chance the twenty-somethings suddenly showing up at Knight's to indulge their newfound interest in bourbon are likely to be just as unaware of the term "supper club" as Woody is of "craft cocktail." But those are just semantics, anyway.