Bedford, New York
I'm Adam Liscia. I tend bar at Bedford Post Tavern, and on my nights off I work private events across Westchester and Fairfield County. This is the part of the site where I tell you why that's worth what I charge.
The room I work in
Bedford Post Tavern is a Relais & Châteaux property. That tells you the tier. What it doesn't tell you is what working in a bar like that actually does to a bartender.
It's a program that treats a cocktail as a process, not a performance. Every drink has an order of operations worked out in advance — what gets built first, which motion happens while the shaker is going, when the glass comes off the ice. Nothing is free-poured; every ingredient goes through a jigger. Every syrup is weighed on a scale rather than eyeballed, so the batch made in March tastes like the one made in November. It is a level of deliberateness most people have never seen at a bar.
Your backyard is not that bar, and I'm not going to pretend it is. There's no glass fridge on your patio, and I'm not going to make eight people wait while I jigger a vodka soda. What travels isn't the equipment — it's knowing exactly what a drink is supposed to taste like, and having built it correctly enough thousands of times to land there without stopping to measure. Years of not free-pouring are what buy you the right to free-pour and still be correct.
I led the batch program at the Tavern for a stretch, and now the whole bar team shares it — the cocktails we build in volume ahead of service. When a hundred drinks have to taste like the one that got approved, that's the job. That part transfers to your party completely, and it's the single skill that makes fifty guests work with one bartender and no line.
How I bartend
Here's what carries over.
The reason your party can have one bartender and no line is that most of the work happened yesterday. A batched cocktail isn't a punch bowl — it's the drink built to spec at volume, diluted to exactly where a shaken drink lands, and chilled so it pours in four seconds instead of ninety. Done right, no one can tell. Done wrong, everyone can.
At a party I'm not going to jigger a vodka soda while eight people wait — I'll pour it, and it'll be right. That's what the day job buys. Where the ratio actually decides the drink — anything shaken, anything batched, anything with citrus in it — it gets measured, every time.
A good bar is boring to watch. Ice where it belongs, garnish cut ahead, tools in the same place all night, nothing scrambling in front of guests. Whatever chaos there is happens before the doors open — and your kitchen gets left the way I found it.
People come to a bar to talk to somebody. Twelve years in dining rooms teaches you to read a room — who's had enough, who's standing alone, who wants to hear what's in the glass and who just wants the glass. At a private party that's worth more than any technique.
Experience
2024 – present
Bartender at a Relais & Châteaux inn. I batch cocktails for service and make the house syrups, and I led the batch program before the whole bar team took it on.
2023 – 2024
Head bartender. Ran the cocktail program end to end — seasonal menu development, ordering with the executive chef, and training the bar staff.
2018 – 2023
Bartender, then assistant manager, at a high-volume waterfront restaurant on the Hudson. Where I learned to work fast without letting anything slip.
2014 – 2018
Front waiter leading a three-person service team. Where I learned French service and how a real dining room actually runs.
Before all that
I taught math in New York City schools, and I still tutor. It's probably why I'd rather explain what's in your glass than perform at you.
Planning something?
The rate card, what's included, and the questions hosts usually ask are all on the events page. No obligation and no deposit to ask — I answer every inquiry within a day.
Check my availability →
