Amy Zavatto

Amy Zavatto writes about spirits, wine, and food for InsideHook, Wine Enthusiast, SevenFifty Daily, the New York Post, Fortune, marthastewart.com, Imbibe, Liquor.com, and a mess of others for the last couple of decades. A former book editor, she is the author of several cocktail books, including The Big Book of Bourbon, Prosecco Made Me Do It: 60 Seriously Sparkling Cocktails, Forager’s Cocktails, and the Architecture of the Cocktail, and, on the topic of wine, The Renaissance Guide to Wine & Food Pairing. She very enthusiastically judges the liqueurs category annually for the American Craft Spirits Association (it’s where all the fun is) and spent several years judging wine and spirits for the New York Wine & Grape Foundation’s New York Wine Classic. She earned her Level III Certification from the Wine & Spirits Education Trust with merit, and has traveled to distilleries and wineries in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Scotland, Ireland, Sweden, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, and a multitude of regions in the United States (including rising before dawn in 13 degree weather to harvest grapes for ice wine in the Finger Lakes—worth it!). Amy has emcee’d at Brooklyn Bar Convent, moderated numerous panels on wine, spirits, and industry trends for Tales of the Cocktail, Les Dames d’Escoffier’s The Next Big Sip, Food Lab, the Philadelphia Wine & Food Festival, among many others. She is a member of the New York chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier, where she has chaired the Mentorship Committee for four years, helping young, aspiring women entering professions in hospitality to find long-lasting, meaningful mentors within their field of interest. She also sits on the board of the Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden, where she volunteers at the 2-plus acre Heritage Farm, the largest working farm in New York City, and sometimes fashions tinctures and drinks from the things she harvests. She grew up on Shelter Island and is the proud daughter of an Italian butcher. If you can’t find her in a vineyard or on a distillery floor, she’s probably making mayhem in her kitchen, running circles around Silver Lake Park, or hanging out with her very cool husband or sweet hound-lab mix, Daisy. Follow her @amyzeats on Twitter and Insta.