After trading in various factory jobs in his home state of Iowa, Matt Wallace hit the road for the City of Angeles. However, he isn’t the typical fresh-faced Midwestern cliché: he didn’t come with stars in his eyes hoping to be discovered for a TV show or Calvin Klein ad. He explains it this way: “The short version is that I was living in South Jersey [and] had a friend offer to move me out here. The really short version: I had nothing better to do. That was almost 10 years ago.”
Since his arrival, Wallace has held down positions ranging from delivering kegs of beer; to working as a teaching assistant; to a barback position at the Hollywood Star Lanes so he could get free drinks. However, since early 2009 Matt has been showing off his skills behind the bar at Seven Grand. Although he started “bartending” at home a couple of years ago, this is his first “official” bartending gig. He explains, “I needed a cool job to keep me going until I could re-apply to graduate school for linguistics and decided I liked this a lot better than lecturing and grading papers as a teaching assistant. Besides, I can talk to people about cocktails and spirits... people outside of Linguistics don't want to hear about morpho-syntactic theory, but everyone can talk about drinking.”
His next step in cocktail education was as a barback at Seven Grand. He credits John Coltharp as instrumental in his development as a bartender, saying “He used to stare over me as I was making drinks to the point where I wanted to kick him in the neck, like, a lot... but it made me a better bartender. George at the Seven Grand has also been a big influence by keeping me grounded when I needed it, and telling me probably the most important thing I've heard in my career, ‘Don't be afraid to do things your own way.’”
When asked about his own bartending style Matt quips, “Ummm... I cuss a lot, if that counts as a style? [And] I would say I'm a bit obsessive. I like to find one liqueur or spirit or ingredient and just go to town with that. One of my favorite cocktails came from buying a bottle of Lillet Blanc and just staring at it thinking, ‘What can I make with this?’”
He also actually likes to be put on the spot and gets off on fellow workers handing over a bottle “just to see what we can pull out of our asses.” Apparently, he’s impressing the clients and even got a Yelp review about one of his own cocktails, The Lily Blossom. “I think it's just wicked cool to have someone tell strangers about something I've done,” he beams.
Wallace is quick to point out that “even those of us stuck in a Midwest mentality can grow out of Jack and Cokes. I started liking better food, so that obviously led to a desire to drink better. But don't get me wrong, I'm still just as happy with a Schlitz and a shot of Old Granddad... All in all, I just like what cocktails and bars especially bring to the table as far as socializing and creating common cultural ground.”
Matt advises guests at Seven Grand and beyond to have an open mind about spirits and cocktails. He says, “Order something you can't get at your local bar because at Seven Grand, you can do better than a Jack and Coke.” He also requests that customers stop referring to a Mint Julep as the ‘boozy snow cone,’ adding “That ship has sailed...it's not funny anymore.”
If he could drink with anyone in history, Wallace would pick Hunter S. Thompson because, in his words, “I think he proved that you can be a successful professional at something and still be a raging drunk…I'd probably shut down the bar and just pull out a bottle of Wild Turkey from the back. Then spend the next three weeks recovering and writing about it.”
On a night off, he and the missus frequent sister 213 venues, or he experiments in his home bar. He’s also working on a writing endeavor called “The Rocky Mountain Project.” See his blog. Wallace explains, “The bar just provides an endless list of characters that you just can't make up...and probably wouldn't want to. I'm also pretty into baseball (Go RED SOX!!) and spend a good deal of time at Casey's watching and drinking beer. “
As for future goals and as-yet unfulfilled fantasies, Matt leaves us with this: “If I could be any mythological creature, I would be a Griffin. I would forever be known as the guy on the front of the Coors beer can...and I'm sure I could get bitchin' residuals from that. I could also turn it into a Kung Fu style. (Your unicorn style is no match for my Griffin style) Ask John Coltharp...he agrees with me...”