Manny Sofios
33, RPM Steak and Slippery Slope
What he’s serving: Manny’s gin- and amaro-based cocktail, International Anthem ($13 at RPM Steak), is so named for its American and Italian ingredients and for the Chicago-based record company he recently became involved with. “It’s a low ABV drink, so it’s not super-aggressive. … It’s low-impact so you can have more than one and enjoy it.”
Gross bartending story: After years of bartending at different venues in party-hard River North, Manny has a few vomit stories that just can’t be erased from memory. One particularly cringe-inducing encounter involved a young lady who ralphed right onto her plate of chicken wings. “The busboy was taking them to the back, and this super-drunk guy walks up to him, sees the chicken wings and says, ‘Aww, there’s my chicken wings!’ And takes two of them and just starts eating them. The poor busboy tried to tell him no … but the guy just walks off eating these puke-covered chicken wings.”
A whiskey and beer connoisseur: At home, Manny has a growing collection of about 75 different whiskeys and bourbons, including George T. Stagg, Elijah Craig 23-Year and vintage Jim Beam animal decanters that he nabbed from his parents’ house. But it’s a small hoard compared to the 200-something barrel-aged beers he keeps around. “It’s really out of control,” he said. “I’ve been working on [it] for about five or six years.” If he were a spirit, Manny said he would be bourbon, “because I can be aggressive but also sweet at the same time.” (He’s open to people stealing that for a pickup line.)
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