It was a celebration in NOLA’s French Quarter as the seven regional champions of Hennessy’s Pave the Way cocktail competition shared their stories of sustainability by shaking, stirring, and chatting directly with guests.
The winners included Victor Uceda-Vereau of Bar Kaiju (Miami, FL) representing the Southeast; Lauren Pellecchia of Merchant’s Club (Newport, KY) representing Northcentral; Michael McGee, Jr. of Tallboy (Oakland, CA) representing the Northwest; Joshua Bender of Fish Gaucho (Paso Robles, CA) representing the Southwest; DJ Ballard of Press Club Cocktail Bar (Washington, D.C.) representing the Northeast; Tiffany Trotter of Follies (Mobile, AL) representing the Southern; and L. Scott of Blue Crawfish Boutique Hotel (New Orleans, LA) representing Southcentral. They all showcased their cocktails at the historic Arnaud’s restaurant, where the Hennessy Pave the Way event took place.
Created by Another Round Another Rally and supported by legacy cognac house Hennessy, the Pave the Way program is an educational initiative and cocktail competition that aims to empower hospitality workers by giving them tools to better expand their knowledge of cognac, build their brand, and further commit to a practice of sustainability in their communities, careers, and cocktail creation.
It was this trifecta of opportunities that drew participants to apply, regardless if they’d had three years or several decades of experience behind the bar. It provided the chance to travel to Tales of the Cocktail beverage industry conference in New Orleans as winners representing their specific region behind a dedicated personal bar at the Pave the Way Final Showcase event, as well as a rare scholarship trip to Cognac, France to learn about the grapes and Hennessy’s history firsthand.
Oakland bartender Michael McGee felt the pull to participate in Pave the Way because of its educational and mentorship components. “I’m always down for good education, and I appreciate when people make a point to share the things they’ve learned so others can run with it,” he says. McGee built his Sidekicks cocktail with Hennessy VSOP, favoring the expression’s floral brightness, candied sweetness, and delicate spice to create an overall balance between complexity and mellowness.
“Hennessy has a brand legacy of luxury and aspiration. It also has a wide appeal and has created lots of opportunities for access,” he adds. “To demonstrate commitment across those areas at the same time is difficult, and it’s noteworthy that Hennessy has been doing it for some time.”
DJ Ballard of D.C. says he wanted to participate in Pave the Way to become more conscious of how to implement sustainability in his day-to-day life and career. He views sustainability practices less as a badge or brag, and more of something that needs to be done. “I think we should just find easy and seamless ways to incorporate it into our lives,” he says. It was with this ethos in mind that he created his highly dialed-in Hennessy highball called Lemonade — a cocktail intentionally easy to replicate, while still feeling elevated, using clever ways to get the most out of the lemon, pepper, and cognac in the drink.
Even with over 20 years behind the bar, Louisiana-born-and-raised Scott was prompted to apply for the program because she never wants to feel like she knows everything. — a fitting echo of the Hennessy brand’s ethos of bringing things to the best possible evolution of what they can be. She says, “It challenged me to look beyond whether a cocktail simply tastes good and examine what I am actually trying to say through the glass.” One of the biggest takeaways for her was learning to understand sustainability as more than a trend or buzzword. ”For me, it became about respect and gratitude.”
This year’s inaugural Pave the Way program unfolded in three phases, with applications opening at midnight on March 12, 2026. Phase one began on April 8th with the first virtual educational component on cognac followed by a second class covering sustainability April 15th. Participants were then asked to complete a multiple choice test on cognac production, the Cognac region, Maison Hennessy, and different meanings of and paths toward sustainability. Finally, they submitted one original cocktail — captured by showing their bartender skills in a video application — highlighting Hennessy and each entrant’s personal take on sustainability.
Bender’s cocktail leaned into the fact that Hennessy V.S.O.P. is a blend of several eaux de vie from different crus, including Petit Champagne and Grande Champagne. Each eaux de vie adds character and dimension to the blend. The result is a soft, subtle, and creamier flavor profile that works brilliantly in cocktails with finer bubbles.
“I love Hennessy because there is a signature method of blending — there’s a woody, floral nose on every blend that transforms from bright, juicy fruit to degrees of vanilla, caramel, and spice on the palate,” Bender says. For his cocktail, Skin Contact, he paired specific notes from the different eaux de vie to build adjacent flavor pairings.
When asked about the value of the educational component, Miami-native Uceda-Vereau was mostly inspired by the sustainability processes he learned. Uceda-Vereau then put these skills into practice, where he wowed the judges with his Burbujas en été cocktail entry, a peachy-fig cocktail using Hennessy V.S. that minimized food waste by being conscientious with ingredients, like using figs in multiple ways throughout the cocktail, swapping out out-of-season peaches for peach oolong, making syrup with the leftover tea, and using acid and carbonation to make the drink more shelf-stable.
“Learning about the different ways Hennessy helps communities as well as the sustainability practices and techniques like force carbonation, acid adjusting, clarification, and so much more that could and should be implemented into our bar programs was a key takeaway.”
Next, phase two saw 10 semi-finalists from each region go head-to-head in a live cocktail competition in front of a panel of judges. The semi-finalists took turns sharing their new knowledge and skills to practice as they built their story of sustainability in a glass in front of judges and fellow competitors.
“I was the last competitor to present my cocktail, so the nerves were real,” says former pre-school teacher-turned-bartender Pellecchia. “But the judges were so kind and supportive, it felt like I was chatting with guests at my bar.” A tribute to her daily routine, Pellecchia’s cocktail, Full Circle, focused on ways to reuse and repurpose existing ingredients, a sustainability practice at the heart of every step of Maison Hennessy’s production.
In 2020, Hennessy began trialing the use of repurposed second-generation biofuels from frying oils and leftover distillation biogases to fuel their transportation and production processes. They also work with local glass producers to collect and reuse Hennessy’s glass bottles. As a leader of sustainability in the category, the maison aims to be 100 percent powered by biofuels and recaptured carbon.
“Sustainability is built on everyday changes that are simple to implement and simple to build on,” Pellecchia says. “So I look for sustainable options that are maintainable, in both my bar and personal life.”
Her Full Circle cocktail features a coffee-banana syrup Pellecchia makes from her morning coffee grinds, leftover frozen banana peels from breakfast, and honey powder from a local honey farm. Using the rich, fruity, and nutty notes in Hennessy V.S. as an anchor and to balance out the bitterness of ingredients like the rye, dark chocolate, and coffee creates a dessert-style cocktail that isn’t cloying or overly sweet, but still feels deeply indulgent.
For New Orleans local L Scott, competing live was emotional. Upon hearing her name called as the Southcentral regional winner, she cried.
“I talked about stewardship, history, and why gratitude was so important to the story of my cocktail,” she says. Scott’s Flesh & Spirit cocktail was a very personal interpretation of a Brandy Crusta, designed to pay gratitude to the idea of flesh as it applies to fruit, such as the Ugni Blanc grapes used to make Hennessy (and over 98 percent of all cognac) and the mango in the cocktail. “I looked at the skin, the flesh, and even the kernel as different parts [of the mango], and I wanted to show gratitude to the entire ingredient instead of taking the sweetest part and discarding the rest. For this cocktail, the mango is the flesh, Hennessy is the spirit — that relationship is the heartbeat of the cocktail.”
Nearby in Mobile, AL, Trotter’s first-ever cocktail competition made her a first-time winner when her name was announced as a Pave the Way regional champion. A longtime follower of Another Round Another Rally and Hennessy, Trotter felt it was the perfect competition to beef up and showcase her skills.
“Being tasked with a theme of sustainability added a layer of turning scraps into a small luxury — how I imagine Hennessy redefining their portfolio to celebrate everyday luxuries, not just the rare occasions,” she says. For her tiki-inspired Driftwood Provision cocktail, Trotter intentionally turned away from using fresh produce, instead giving new life and delicious purpose to leftover scraps from the bar’s kitchen. “Saving a bottle of cognac for a ‘special occasion’ may not be promised, so create your own reason to celebrate!”
A common thread shared by all seven regional champions was their admiration for their fellow competitors. “The best part about competition day was watching the other presentations, so many of them were mind-blowing in concept and technique,” says Trotter.
As guests walked through the doors of Arnaud’s, a symbol of NOLA hospitality and bastion of Creole cuisine since 1918, they were greeted with a live jazz band that filled the air with a lively, festive tone.
The event unfolded across a handful of Arnaud’s 14 dining rooms with guests encouraged to move at their own pace through spaces thoughtfully designed for mingling, networking, educating, and quiet connection. Although casual and convivial, the experience was as intentional as every bottle and blend of Hennessy.
More than just a cocktail event, the Pave the Way Final Showcase celebrated each winner as an individual and the future of the hospitality industry as a whole by way of craftmanship, mentorship, and multiple takes on sustainability.
Attending guests left with a beautifully designed Hennessy Pave the Way compendium book fit for display, while the seven regional champions left with core career memories and feeling empowered with new ways to implement sustainability into their work in the glass and behind the bar.
“I think this is a key purpose of the Pave the Way program,” Trotter says. “It’s to encourage people to expand their minds, and to return home with the skills and confidence to impact their local scene and create new channels of mentorship.”
This article is sponsored by Hennessy.
