A.J. Rathbun is a freelance food and entertaining writer and would like to have a drink with you. Yes, you. While fairly retired today, he’s the author of an array of books, including Ginger Bliss and the Violet Fizz, Good Spirits (winner of an IACP Cookbook award), Dark Spirits, Wine Cocktails, Luscious Liqueurs, Party Snacks!, Party Drinks!, Double Take (coauthored with Jeremy Holt), Champagne Cocktails, as well as the editor of In Their Cups: An Anthology of Poems About Drinking Places, Drinks, and Drinkers, and author of the poetry collection Want, a ZYZZYVA first book.  He is a past guest on the Everyday Food program from Martha Stewart Living/Sirius satellite radio, and past contributor to culinary and entertaining magazines such as Every Day with Rachael Ray, The Food Network Magazine, Real Simple, Eating Well, Seattle Magazine, and Wine Enthusiast, among many others, and has had poetry published and anthologized in numerous literary magazines that you should be reading, magazines such as Gulf Coast, the Indiana Review, Third Coast, and Willow Springs. For years he taught cocktail classes at spots like The Pantry at Delancey, the Institute for Culinary Education, and Dish It Up–one of latter’s was profiled in the magazine Traditional Homes. Today, he writes the occasional article, though mostly spends his time hanging out with wife Natalie and dog Ainsley.

See old and much-missed awesome dogs Sookie and Rory.