I've spent most of my life behind a bar

I'm Izabella. I pour at Chicago Prime Italian in Schaumburg, five nights a week, and I've been doing this long enough to know that the best drink of someone's night is almost never the one they walked in planning to order.

That's the whole job, as far as I'm concerned. Not memorizing a hundred recipes — reading the person in front of you and putting the right glass in their hand.

I grew up around hospitality and came to bartending the long way, through fine dining and a stretch in luxury retail. Both taught me the same thing from different angles: people remember how an evening felt long after they've forgotten what was in the glass.

Away from the bar I'm usually at someone else's, on a Sunday, taking notes I didn't mean to take. Pour Society is how I bring the same thing to private events — a working bartender behind your bar, not someone pouring from a folding table.