Born and raised in Texas, Nico Martini is a best-selling author of the 2018 release, Texas Cocktails and the 2021 release, Texas Whiskey (both with Cider Mill Press Publishing) as well as the Co-Founder of Grayson Whiskey. He is also a regular contributor to American Whiskey Magazine. He is also the Co-Founder of Bar Draught, a draft cocktails solutions company. Nico has become a thought leader and innovator within the spirits industry and has presented at numerous events, including Tales of the Cocktail, San Antonio Cocktail Conference, BevCon, Catersource, Nightclub & Bar Show, Bar Institute, several USBG conferences, and Portland Cocktail Week. He holds a master’s degree in Emerging Media & Communications from the University of Texas at Dallas, where he was a Guest Lecturer, teaching Digital Marketing Design and Self-Branding Through Social Media. Prior to his transition to spirits, Nico worked in a variety of fields. He was a Program Director and afternoon drive for CBS Radio's Indie-verse 100.3 HD2 in Dallas, he became a member of the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab, directed Off-Broadway, toured the US with crazy hippie jugglers (The Flying Karamzov Brothers), managed a laser-tag arena, performed in wild west comedy gunfight and pirate shows across the nation, is a former drummer that toured the US in a band you've never heard of, has voiced numerous japanime characters. He also received, but didn’t accept, a hockey scholarship to Penn State and recently gave a TEDx talk on cocktails and is the biggest Texas whiskey apologist you’ll ever meet. And yes, Martini is his real last name.Specialties: spirits consulting, spirits marketing, social media, cocktails and cocktail culture, social networking, producing, directing, understanding and connecting people, ideas that may be too out there but you'll wish you had, in fact, listened to me