Hire a Bartender for Your Party in Philadelphia
Spirit Forward is a Philadelphia based craft cocktail bartending team. We bring the high end drink-making experience you'd find at your favorite cocktail bar and set it up wherever your party is happening, in your kitchen, out in the backyard, or across a rented floor downtown.
We have been doing this since 2014. Philadelphia Magazine named us Best of Philly, Best Party Bartender.
Most of our work is private parties. Birthdays, milestone anniversaries, graduations, engagement parties, holiday parties, and unnamed excuses to just have cocktails and a really fun night. This is what we do.
No need to worry, we have the hard part covered.
If you are throwing an event and you just wish you could have a master bartender put together an awesome bar for you, I'm glad you found us.
We build your menu with you beforehand, highlighting both guest preferences and seasonality. Every ingredient is made fresh in house by our team, from squeezed-that-day citrus to house syrups and cordials. If we want your guests to try a new autumn apple bitters we just perfected, we might just find a great excuse to use them! We have crystal clear ice and even antique glassware when the night calls for it. Our drink-makers obsess over every element in the glass, and they are genuinely good company at a party, which matters more than people expect.
Your guests will experience the exact thing they do when visiting their favorite bar, where the bartender already knows their favorite drink and has that really cool shake, not a batched vodka lemonade poured out of a jug.
The kind of night we're built for
Here is a party we've now done twice.
A client in Wynnewood goes all the way in on Halloween. She flips her whole house. The second year, she turned her kitchen into a mad scientist's laboratory, so we showed up dressed as mad scientists and served her ninety guests out of beakers. Somewhere in the middle of it, a bartender sets a bubble on top of a drink, full of aromatized smoke, and hands it over so the guest can pop it themselves.
She booked us again. So did the client in Gladwyne who runs his own Halloween party every year. So did the host who has us back every summer solstice, and the one who has us back every New Year's Eve. The text is usually some version of "hey, we're running it again this year." We bring it bigger every time.
There's something special about a guest telling you they're glad you're back for another year, and being able to greet back guests by their first name.
How it works
We build the menu with you. Custom cocktails designed around your occasion, your space, and what you like drinking. Menu design and printing included.
You buy the alcohol. Pennsylvania liquor law requires it, so the spirits and the wine are purchased or provided by you, then we take it from there. We hand you a precise shopping list of exactly what to buy and how much of it. The hardest part is choosing your favorite tequila.
We bring everything else. Fresh juices, mixers, cocktail-ready ice, bar setup and equipment, and of course the full breakdown and clean up at the end. We could (and have) literally throw an amazing event in the middle of a field and it would be unforgettable.
We staff it properly. Expert bartenders who can hold a room. These are mostly working bartenders from around Philadelphia, so speed, efficiency and FUN is their profession.
Where we work
Philadelphia is home. We work across Montgomery County and the Main Line, Chester County, Bucks County, Delaware County, and into South Jersey.
Some of that has been in private homes in Wynnewood, Gladwyne, Ardmore, and Chestnut Hill. Some of it in venues you'd know, including The Deacon, Bok, Location 215, the Guild House Hotel, and the Crystal Tea Room. We have set up in a backyard in Phoenixville for a hundred and sixty four people, and in a kitchen in Flourtown for thirteen.
We handle rooms of any size with grace.
Who trusts us with a room
Brands hire us to represent them in front of their own customers. Casamigos, Patrón, Bacardi, BetMGM, McLaren, Louis Vuitton, and Estée Lauder have all had us behind the bar at their events.
Corporate clients bring us back on a schedule. One office campus in Chesterbrook has had us back every year for holiday parties, tenant events, and summer happy hours, for three different companies on the same property.
Owner Dan Hamm has built, directed and opened over a dozen cocktail programs, from scratch, in the Philadelphia area, in such locations as Alpen Rose, Midnight and the Wicked, 1 Tippling Place, Giuseppe and Sons and Palizzi Social Club (President's Room).
A few things people ask before they book
Do I tip the bartender?
There's a jar on the bar and guests use it if they'd like to. It's never expected, and gratuity isn't built into what you pay us. Your guests decide.
How far ahead should I book?
Sooner is better for the busy stretches, which are the holidays, graduation season, and late spring and fall. December fills first. If your date is close, ask anyway. We can almost always make it work.
Can you do beer and wine only?
Yes. We'll pour whatever you've bought and keep it running smoothly.
What if I don't know what I want to serve?
Good. That's the fun part. Tell us about the occasion and we'll come back with a menu.
Do you have a bar cart or a truck?
Not yet. We build the bar in your space, using your surfaces or ours, and design the setup around the room you actually have.
Let's plan it
Want a full cocktail package? We can do that. Just need excellent bar staffing for a night? We do that too.
Tell us the date, roughly how many people, and what you're celebrating. We'll take it from there.