Mix Master

Photo: Marvin Shaouni

Dave Kwiatowski

Related stories

• The great beer tour
• Beer is the new wine
• Vodka Visionary
• Pour vous
• Cold gin
• Why rye?
• Just like honey

Mixologist is the fashionable term for a cocktail craftsman, but it doesn't exactly describe Dave Kwiatkowski's skill with the mixed drink. With nearly every shelf and ledge in his Corktown flat taken up by obscure specialty liqueurs and glass jars of homemade bitters, infused syrups and other homemade concoctions, some may even call it obsession. No, Kwiatkowski is more like a cocktail Santa Claus, handing out magical and tasty liquid packages of classic cocktail cheer. And he aims to bring his talents to a new bar in Detroit.

Stirrings

Tall, strapping and square-jawed, Kwiatkowski's outward appearance initially suggests a football hero turned stern banker or Cabela's catalog model more than a good-natured bartender. But he'll freely admit that he's more far more comfortable with a bit of grease beneath his fingernails and wearing a pair of cargo shorts and a T-shirt. Regardless of his outfit, he is visibly serious in his mixing endeavors, at least until he sees your approval of his latest creation, and then it's all smiles and raunchy humor.

Born in Dearborn Heights and raised in Bloomfield Hills, Kwiatkowski's first dream was to design cars. He did a year at what's now the College for Creative Studies before graduating from the University of Michigan Business School in 2000.

Raised by self-employed parents, Kwiatkowski has always had an entrepreneurial spirit. A typography geek, he and a friend started a font company while still in school. At one point he started a mortgage company that eventually imploded violently. For a few years, he traded options in Chicago, eventually hooking up with his brother, James, who was working in California for Exile Cycles. They both moved back home and opened Detroit Brothers, a custom motorcycle shop in Ferndale.

In 2004, the brothers did an episode of Biker Build-Off for the Discovery Channel. This eventually turned into a full season of Motor City Motors. Kwiatkowski's distinctive mix of creativity, engineering and analytical talent is part of what drew the audience in.

Kwiatkowski admits that someday he may retire to making furniture in Portland or becoming a fireman in Nashville. "My life has an interesting trajectory," he says, as if he is guided by some outside metaphysical force held together by welded steel, providence and molecules of ethanol. For now, he's committed to opening a bar.

Cocktail epiphany

It's all Lowell Dubrinsky's fault. A lifelong friend, cocktail geek and former assistant to Robert Altman for nearly a decade in New York, Dubrinsky introduced his pal to finer mixed drinks at Sasha Petraske's infamous Milk & Honey cocktail bar during one of Kwiatkowski's many visits.

The original craft cocktail bar on Manhattan's Lower East Side, one of Milk & Honey's rules prohibits "name-dropping and starfucking." There is no food menu; reservations are required; and the drinks are pretty much bartender's choice. If you're there, you're there for the cocktails.

> Email Todd Abrams