In September last year, Mexico City’s celebrated Handshake Speakeasy popped up in New York City for a four-night stint at MAD Bar & Lounge at the NH Collection New York Madison Avenue, as part of its broader programme of international residencies. Reservation time slots were snapped up by cocktail enthusiasts within minutes of the portal opening, and those without a confirmed slot faced hours-long waits for potential cancellations or standing-room access. That a bartending team could attract such a level of attention, more commonly associated with music or film stars than with hospitality professionals, would have been nearly unthinkable just a few decades ago. Yet in recent years, notable mixologists have regularly crisscrossed continents for guest shifts and takeovers, much to the delight of keen cocktail quaffers.
“I think I did my first guest shift back in 2014,” recalls Andy Loudon, director of bars at Scarfes, one of the world’s most high-profile hospitality venues. Housed inside London’s Rosewood Hotel, the bar is known for its creative cocktails and rare whiskies. “At Scarfes we travel a lot and also host incoming bartenders frequently. From January to October, about 10 months of the year, we are almost constantly either hosting someone for a takeover at our bar or travelling somewhere to do one ourselves.”
Takeover events and guest appearances can take many forms, but the core idea is simple: a single professional or team travels to a host venue in another location and steps behind the bar for one or more shifts, stirring and shaking their own liquid creations, normally unavailable locally. These events have been an effective tool to build community among bartenders worldwide and share expertise, recipes, creativity, and broader approaches to hospitality. Crucially, they have also been providing valuable exposure and learning opportunities for bar professionals globally, which has over time significantly contributed to the development of entirely new bar scenes.
“Guest shifts have definitely had an impact on some emerging nations and regions,” Loudon points out. “Take Singapore, for example, where I worked for six years. Back in 2008, it didn’t really have a cocktail scene. Then a few places started to open like Tippling Club and Nutmeg & Clove. After that, 28 HongKong Street launched and really took the industry by storm. That growth came from several factors… but guest shifts definitely helped, especially when they were done with the purpose of sharing knowledge.”
It would be naive to view all of this travel simply as an opportunity for community building and professional growth. For some venues, guest appearances have become a tool to boost international visibility and support campaigns for coveted spots on prestigious competitions and global rankings. Influential lists like the 50 Best Bars, for instance, widely regarded as the bar industry’s equivalent of the Michelin Guide for fine dining.
“If you invite someone purely to chase votes for the 50 Best, people will see through it,” says Giacomo Giannotti of Paradiso in Barcelona, which in 2022 became the first bar outside the historic London-New York transatlantic mixology axis to claim the top spot on the list. “If guest bartending doesn’t add any value for the people involved, then for me it is a missed opportunity. If it is just an excuse to party or take a free holiday, that’s missing the point entirely. For me, travelling to another bar should always be about creating, maintaining, and strengthening relationships within the industry, and building community.”
The potential for exposure of takeovers and guest shifts isn’t limited to venues. Early in the rise of bartender stardom, major whisky and spirits makers realised that sending a top mixologist to a new market could be far more cost-effective and impactful than traditional advertising. Many jumped on the opportunity and today, sponsorship has become standard practice.
“Most of the time, the bar reaches out to a spirits brand to help support or cover expenses,” Giannotti explains. “At a minimum, that usually means travel and accommodation but sometimes there is also a fee attached to it to make it viable. In other cases, producers themselves come to you with an event idea.”
Admittedly, the involvement and significant investment from producers has further contributed to the vibrancy of the bartending scene and its expansion into a truly global phenomenon. But it has also turned countless guest shifts into largely marketing-driven activities that offer little real value to bartenders and, crucially, to their guests. The diminished appeal of takeovers within parts of the bar community is leading some in the industry to advocate for these events to be more authentic, community-driven experiences that bring true benefit to everyone involved. “It is important to remember that a guest shift is a collaboration first and foremost,” says Loudon. “The host bar, the travelling bartender, and the brand form the trinity of collaborators that’s always present in these events, and all three sides of that triangle need to gain something from them.”
Some spirits makers are taking note of the changing attitudes among bar professionals. By developing exchange projects that prioritise genuine benefit and relevance for the community, they are gradually helping to usher in a new phase of the travelling bartending phenomenon. Spanning cities across multiple countries, the Woodford Reserve Bourbon Global Bar Exchange programme ensures that while mixologists collaborate on creating bourbon-forward drinks, they are also fully immersed in the host city’s flavours and culture, exploring anything from local ingredients to traditional rituals. Nidal Ramini, advocacy director at Woodford Reserve’s parent company, Brown-Forman, explains that the takeover is not the project’s focus, just the cherry on top. “The programme is centred on giving each participant a guided flavour tour of their host city, led by their peers in the industry, with Woodford Reserve curating the experience alongside them,” he says. “It is about the experience, building connections, fostering community, and inspiring the future of the industry through the exchange of ideas and cultures.”
As part of the project, for example, London’s Nightjar team visited Brisbane to collaborate with Death & Taxes, and vice versa. On each trip, local bar teams acted as hosts, creating itineraries designed to immerse their guests in the city’s culture, visiting the best coffee shops, galleries, restaurants, and getting involved in other local experiences. Meanwhile, when a team from Berlin travelled to Tokyo, they took part in a traditional tea ceremony wearing the official attire. The guest shift acted as the culmination of the trip.
“Our goal is to create advocates,” says Ramini frankly. “If bartender A turns to bartender B and says, ‘What these guys are doing with Woodford Reserve is really amazing,’ they start to see us as more than just the spirit itself. We can almost become a [human] presence in the industry, rather than just another whiskey.”
Yet modernising the guest shift and bar takeover model isn’t just about the bar community; these events should also enhance the experience for the drinker. “Guest shifts are here to stay, but the key question is how to make them more guest-focused,” says Loudon, arguing that new and alternative formats should go beyond the standard guest shift, offering experiences that are more immersive, nuanced, and layered, giving people a real reason to walk in when a guest bartender is in town. “We might bring over two members of a visiting team, one working in the bar making cocktails, and another in a more hidden, speakeasy-style space elsewhere in the hotel,” he says about Scarfes’ future projects. “Guests could start with drinks in the main bar, then receive a token inviting them to a second, more discreet location (perhaps accessed through a back entrance) where they can enjoy another cocktail from the visiting team in a completely different setting.”
Giannotti, too, has gradually moved away from the standard guest shift model — hosting bars once or twice a month “just for the sake of it” — toward a more intentional, curated approach. After running a non-stop guest bartending series for a decade, he now only hosts fellow cocktail makers when he feels there is a clear, specific purpose to the partnership. During the latest Barcelona Cocktail Fest, for example, he relocated pop-up bars into a dedicated “lab space” to emphasise experimentation and create a more intimate, behind-the-scenes experience for both drinkers and visiting bartenders, rather than a typical busy night at the main bar. “I think we should always do something different from what we have become used to, or at least make sure it is always for a clear reason,” he explains. “The last event we did was for our anniversary: we just invited two bars and two people we really admire. That was the reason.” Pulling off more nuanced collaborations requires more careful planning, sharper ideas, and the selection of partners who genuinely complement each other. Most importantly, they demand a revised approach to the very meaning and purpose of guest shifts and takeovers, one whose aim isn’t simply to attract transient crowds, but to truly maximise the experience for cocktail lovers and for the global bar community alike.
