Bleeding Heart was founded in 2020 during a time filled with uncertainty that surprised us all in ways that felt bittersweet. However, I finally started to find my footing as a professional behind the bar and the pandemic gave me the space I needed to lean into it even further.

I’m SJ! I’ve worked in the service industry since the day I could fill out an application. I started as a host, then quickly found my way behind the expo line in the kitchen, and eventually in the cockpit of a bar. I became engulfed in the movement of a restaurant, even when it would often test my patience and stamina.

I moved from New Jersey and Philadelphia to Southern Colorado at 19 to find something more than a career. Adventure. I got a shift as a lead bartender at the local ski resort and not only did I fall in love with the mountains, but also the immeasurable knowledge and history that the bar provides.

After moving to Denver a year later, I found myself working in some of the most popular bars in the city along with some of the most classically curated cocktail programs that I still reference today. My colleagues became not only friends, but sherpas to an unlimited library of recipes and spirits.

We would spend hours sliding glasses along the bar to each other with a humble, “here, try this.” It was in these moments I quickly realized I didn’t know enough about cocktails. I started reading all kinds of books and eventually came across a few about bitters that peaked my interest. They fused different herbs, spices, medicines, stories, religions, and cultures and all had some common ground. They’ve been used for centuries as cure-alls and I had to know more.

After going into lockdown, I started making my own bitters in my mom’s kitchen at home back in Philly. I learned about how and why these little potions are so important and can be as simple or as complex as you make them.

Missing the mountains after moving back east during the pandemic, I uprooted myself once again and moved to the Catskill Mountains in Upstate New York and have been lucky enough to work with some of the most talented bartenders I’ve ever met. I have been trained under Sasha Petraske’s and Dutch Kill’s ‘Milk and Honey Way’ Program and gained confidence tending bar at Wm Farmer & Sons in Hudson, NY. I have truly felt supported in my endeavor to provide cocktail bars with the best bitter product I could create.

I became different versions of myself at each bar I stood behind, but one thing that remained a constant is the fact that I always wanted to take care of everyone. On my side as much as on the other side on a barstool…my heart was wide open. And from that emerged Bleeding Heart Cocktail Co.