It’s been more than five years since Audrey Saunders opened Pegu Club, giving cocktail culture another benchmark in its authentic historicism and launching Saunders into a position of leadership in mixology. Saunders got into mixology—as she knows it now—in one decisive night. While bartending at the Brooklyn Heights Waterfront Ale House in 1996, Saunders took a one-night seminar with the legendary Dale DeGroff at New York University; she was so enthralled by his presentation that she approached DeGroff and offered to work for free in exchange for further training. By 1997, she partnered with DeGroff for special events for The Rainbow Room, and in 1999 she worked with him at Blackbird.

After Blackbird, Saunders worked as bar manager at Beacon Restaurant and beverage director of The Tonic, and in December 2001, she joined The Carlyle as beverage director for the reopening of the hotel’s legendary Bemelmans Bar, where she reinvented the beverage program that Forbes has since voted one of the top 20 bars in the world.

Saunders doesn’t just share her savvy behind the bar. She’s appeared on American and British television and radio shows and has been covered in myriad publications, including The New York Times, The Times (UK), New York Magazine, Wine & Spirits, Food Arts, Food & Wine, and Saveur. Awards and recognitions include “Best Bar 2008” from Cheers Benchmark Awards and “Best American Cocktail Bar” from Tales of the Cocktail in 2009. Saunders is on the StarChefs.com Advisory Board, a member of the advisory panel of The Museum of the American Cocktail, and the beverage chair for New York City chapter of City-Meals-On-Wheels, as well as Share Our Strength.