The Goto Bartender's Guide

Born and raised in Tokyo and now based in New York, bartender Kenta Goto is the owner of two New York City cocktail bars. After a seven-year tenure at Pegu Club, Kenta opened his first solo bar, Bar Goto, in Manhattan’s Lower East Side in 2015, followed in 2020 by Bar Goto Niban in Brooklyn. Bar Goto has been recognized with two James Beard Award semifinalist nods for Outstanding Bar Program and Bon Appétit magazine’s Bar of the Year award, among other accolades. Kenta was named U.S. Bartender of the Year at the Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards in 2011.

From the Arctic Circle to the agave fields of Mexico to Scotland’s whisky distilleries, Noah Rothbaum has traveled the globe in search of a good drink. He’s one of the world’s leading authorities on cocktails and spirits as well as a Kentucky Colonel, a James Beard Award winner, and the author of the acclaimed drinks books The Whiskey Bible, The Art of American Whiskey, and The Business of Spirits. Noah is also the associate editor of the Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails, which won the American Library Association’s prestigious Dartmouth Medal for the best reference book of 2021.