How It Started: Speed Rack

It’s hard to remember what the drinks world was like before Speed Rack co-founders Ivy Mix and Lynnette Marrero. The cocktail luminaries have had their hands in nearly all facets of the movement to improve the drinks industry. In addition to creating Speed Rack, they’ve built award-winning bars and cocktail programs, mentored countless bartenders, worked as brand ambassadors, and co-authored, with Megan Krigbaum, A Quick Drink: Winning Cocktails for Every Mood. According to Marrero, the new book, which is inspired by years of Speed Rack competitions, is “the largest collection of cocktails by the femme bartender community,” with creative and fun cocktails beautifully photographed by Megan Rainwater. (See a couple of recipes from the book below.)

The all-women bartending competition, which was conceived in 2011 out of the constant frustration of working in a male-dominated industry, has proven their most impactful legacy. For more than a decade, the global competition has championed women behind the bar while also raising money for breast cancer organizations. We checked in with Mix to revisit how and why she and Marrero started Speed Rack.

Ivy Mix:

[Lynnette and I] started Speed Rack after both living in NYC going to the “best bars” in the world and not seeing a whole lot of diversity there. Basically a bunch of dudes, dressed in suspenders and arm garters and big mustaches. I personally had been trying to break into the cocktail scene after bartending in a more “normal” beer-and-shot-type environment for nearly four years. The general response was, “No, you’re a cocktail waitress.” Not a lot of open arms for someone who looked like me. Granted this was 2009-2010, and “cocktail bar” was synonymous with “speakeasy.” Everyone was trying to be their own version of Jerry Thomas. Not a woman, by the way. 

I’d ask people, why don’t you have women working here and the response I’d get was, “We don’t know any.” So we started SR to create a platform for women to stand on, bartending like badasses, so people couldn’t have an excuse anymore. Like, here’s a stage, with women! Now you can find us. 

I’d ask people, why don’t you have women working here and the response I’d get was, “We don’t know any.”

The idea first came when I was on a boat in the San Francisco Bay with a few fellow bartenders, including Rhachel Shaw. We thought of making a few cheeky videos of women bartending and calling it Speed Rack, to almost make fun of the lack of women. From there it grew into an idea to not make fun so much, but to support and promote. That’s how it started.

I was a member of LUPEC [Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails] and sat down next to Lynnette during the 2011 Super Bowl at a bar in Williamsburg. Lynnette was quite established and someone who I was like, “Look! It’s not impossible to make it as a woman in this industry.” I told her about the pea-sized idea of Speed Rack, being a competition for women to raise money for breast cancer research and prevention. The next week we had a meeting. The rest is history.

It wasn’t all easy. But with Lynnette’s established place in the industry, she called in some favors for our first event and we got sponsorship. Halfway through the first event at Astor Center in NYC, Lynnette looked at me and said, “I think we’re onto something.” She was right! SR had a momentum of its own. And Lynnette and I did it all but also were kinda swept up in the movement.

That first competition was completely ad hoc. Our judges donated their time: Julie Reiner, Audrey Saunders, Dale Degroff, and Jordana Rothman. We just put out an open call and so many women showed up. Who knew there were so many of us at that time in NYC? I remember going in that Yael Vengroff was the one to watch. She was working at the industry hotspot Painkiller at the time, and she was amazing to watch. In the final round of Speed Rack that day, it was Yael against Karen Jarman, and Yael won. It was amazing. She also went on to be our first ever national champion. Yael is now in LA continuing to kick ass in everything she sets her mind to.

Of course, a lot has changed in 13 years. Our careers have certainly changed, the industry itself has changed, feminism has changed, the concept of what “female” is or isn’t has changed, and bartending has changed. Oh, and there was a global pandemic. That changed.

We are still fighting for what we’ve always fought for: diversity in bars and ending breast cancer. But our mission statement and what we say has morphed.

We’ve gone all over the world doing Speed Rack, and now we have this book. The book is meant to highlight a handful of these amazing women+ who’ve competed over the years. It’s a recipe book, yes, but it’s also a manifesto. WE CAN DO IT. This book is proof.

—As told to Caroline Pardilla