Murray Russell Stenson (July 29, 1949 – September 22, 2023) was an American

bartender A bartender (also known as a barkeep or barman or barmaid or a mixologist) is a person who formulates and serves alcoholic or soft drink beverages behind the Bar (establishment), bar, usually in a licensed bar (establishment), establishment as ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

, Washington. Stenson was an instrumental figure in the

cocktail renaissance The craft cocktail movement is a social movement spurred by the cocktail renaissance, a period of time in the late 20th and early 21st century characterized by a revival and re-prioritization of traditional recipes and methods in the bar industr ...

of the early 21st century, most notably behind the bar at the Zig Zag Café where he reintroduced the pre-

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic b ...

cocktail The Last Word. In 2010, Stenson was named "Best Bartender in America" by

Tales of the Cocktail Tales of the Cocktails (sometimes shortened to Tales or TotC) is an annual trade conference, festival, and gathering of cocktail and Distilled beverage, spirits industry professionals in New Orleans, Louisiana. The conference was founded in 2003 b ...

Life and career

Stenson was born in

Colville, Washington Colville is a city in Stevens County, Washington, United States. The population was 4,917 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Stevens County. History John Work, an agent for The Hudson's Bay Company, established Fort Colvile near ...

, and grew up in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland. After dropping out of Shoreline Community College, he worked a series of service jobs before being hired as a bartender at a Seattle restaurant called Benjamin's. He was dissatisfied with what ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' called "the sickly sweet ocktailconcoctions of the 1970s", and began reforming the bar's drink offerings with new ingredients and styles. Stenson later worked at Il Bistro and the Zig Zag Cafe, where his reputation grew among cocktail enthusiasts from the 1990s onward, and lifted the profiles of each establishment. He left the Zig Zag Cafe in 2011, unfavorably comparing it to

Disneyland Disneyland is a amusement park, theme park at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. It was the first theme park opened by the Walt Disney Company and the only one designed and constructed under the direct supervision of Walt Disney, ...

due to the amount of attention he attracted; he explained in a 2020 interview that he "only ever saw imselfas a bartender" and disliked the fame. He worked for short stints at a variety of establishments thereafter, before retiring due to poor health and the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

Personal life and death

Stenson was married to Cynthia Carson from 1980 until divorcing in 1982, and to Antonia Busto from 1982 until divorcing in 1984. He had two children. Stenson died from complications of

Guillain–Barré syndrome Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS) is a rapid-onset Paralysis, muscle weakness caused by the immune system damaging the peripheral nervous system. Typically, both sides of the body are involved, and the initial symptoms are changes in sensation ...

at his home in Seattle on September 22, 2023, at the age of 74.

References

1949 births 2023 deaths American bartenders People from Kirkland, Washington People from Seattle {{bartending-stub