“Max was interesting to watch. He wasn’t the fastest bartender I’ve ever seen, but he was meticulous in his detail and just had a really good rapport with guests, so I picked up a lot from him.” – Edward Winfield

“[Max] was good and he did a good job with that drink. He was friendly. He said hello. You remember things like that when you go to a place, and if you don’t get that, you don’t always go back…I think that’s why he is remembered.” – Roger Baylor

Max Allen Jr. came from a family of bartenders. His father, Max “Scoopie” Allen, worked the bar at the legendary Seelbach hotel. Along with a set of bar tools, Max inherited a love of history and a passion for cocktails. For years, he worked at the old Louisville institution Hassenour’s; when it closed, he was recruited to follow in his father’s footsteps, tending bar at the Seelbach. Max was a bartender’s bartender. He knew names, stories and drinks, and made everyone who visited his bar feel like a regular. As he mixed their favorite cocktails, he plied them with tales about Louisville and the history of bourbon. He made an impression on the people he served, as well as on those he worked with behind the bar. Max passed away in 2000, but his memory lives on.

Edward Winfield arrived in the United States from his native England to study English. He got at the Seelbach to make some extra money. As he made his way through the ranks, he worked alongside Max Allen Jr. at the Seelbach Bar. Max imparted his knowledge and some of his stories to his young protégée. Edward remembers a knowledgeable and jovial bartender who made the best Manhattan in town.

Roger Baylor got to know Max when he was working at a liquor store in New Albany, Indiana. Max lived in New Albany and would stop in the store to talk shop with Roger’s boss. Eventually, Roger and Max struck up a friendship. Before getting into the microbrew business with his New Albanian Brew Company, Roger was affiliated with the local Home Brew Club. Max was a member, too, and over the years, Roger came to know the man behind the bartender.

People in Louisville still talk about Max Allen Jr. This is our toast to the man, his craft, and a well-made Manhattan. Cheers, Max.

EDITED TRANSCRIPT

Two interviews, Edward Winfield (fellow bartender) and Roger Baylor (acquaintance), are featured on this page. Jump to Roger Baylor interview.

EDWARD WINFIELD, FELLOW BARTENDER

NOTE: What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

Subject: Edward Winfield, Bartender at the Seelbach Hilton
Date: January 16, 2008
Location: Seelbach Bar
Interviewer & Photographer: Amy Evans

---

Amy Evans:  This is Amy Evans on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 for the Southern Foodways Alliance. And I’m in Louisville, Kentucky, at the Seelbach Hotel and the Seelbach Bar with Edward Winfield, bartender here tonight. And Edward, if you would please state your name and your birth date for the record, if you don’t mind?

Edward Winfield:  Edward Winfield, 21st of February 1974.

How long have you been a bartender?

I’d say about ten years.

What got you into the business?

Well I was in college and in Louisville and needed a job that would fit in with my school schedule, so started working at the Seelbach roughly around May [nineteen] ’95, started working banquets, and then I worked room service and then served in the bar and eventually became a bartender.

How did you make your way to Kentucky?

I came over here on a scholarship from England to study English, of all things, [Laughs] in Louisville, so that’s how I ended up here…It was a huge cultural change for me, but I fell in love with the place and after graduating, just decided to stay.

And so tell me about when you first got behind the bar here at the Seelbach.

Well, I was initially a server in the bar, and it’s very hard to get hired as a bartender, I think, in any town, so the best way, I thought, was to just serve and pay attention and ask the bartender what he was making and what went into it. And I think if you have a natural interest in bartending, if you pay enough attention, that’s the best way to become a bartender, just by watching other bartenders and show an interest, and then before you know it, you’ll get one shift, probably a Sunday that no one else wants to work, and then just move up from there.

You worked with Max Allen Junior, and so was he one of the bartenders you were watching?

Yeah, Max was interesting to watch. He wasn’t the fastest bartender I’ve ever seen, but he was meticulous in his detail and just had a really good rapport with guests, so I picked up a lot from him.

Can you tell me a little bit about his personality?

He was a real genial—just a real welcoming guy, talked to everyone, treated everyone the same, and people just loved to come in and talk to him.

And, as I understand it, he’s a third generation not only bartender, but bartending here at the Seelbach. Do you know much about his family history?

Yeah, I believe his father worked here but also worked at Hassenour’s, which was a local institution. I know he was a third generation. I know he used to tell me that his dad [Max “Scoopie” Allen Sr.] used to have to make ice for drinks from just a huge block of ice, and he’d have to chip it off that way. But yeah, it was certainly in the family, and he was third generation, I believe.

So what about Max behind the bar. Can you describe his approach to bartending and that kind of thing?

Extremely unorganized [Laughs] but just great with guests. And he was just all about taking his time and making each drink correctly, which, in the long run, the guest wants the drink to taste right, so he knew what he was doing. It was just like organized chaos behind his bar.

And I’ve heard a lot of people, you know, one of the first things that comes out of their mouths when they’re describing him is that he was old-school.

Definitely old-school, didn’t pay a lot of attention to his superiors telling him how to do things, and he had his way, and that’s the way he did it. But he did know what he was doing, and it showed because people came just to see him.

And I heard, also, that he used some of his own bar tools that maybe belonged to his father or his grandfather?

Yeah, I believe the muddler he used to use for making Old-Fashioneds and such, I think he handmade or his father made it and passed it down to him. But yeah, he came with his own tools, which is rare these days.

-----

I had read somewhere about Max that he was very proud of his Manhattan and dared [people] to find a better one somewhere else. Can you talk about that?

Yeah, he was. That was kind of his signature drink. It’s quite a simple drink, but it’s actually quite easy to mess up, if you either use too much sweet vermouth or you shake it too much, because it shouldn’t be too cold because whiskey, unlike vodka, has a lot of flavor elements to it, so if you shake it too hard, then you just get—all you taste is the cold. So yeah, he stirred his Manhattans, and I think he infused his own cherries with bourbon, too, which was a nice touch. So yeah, he was very proud of that.

Are there some things that you do behind the bar that are personal expressions in your drinks and some kinds of creative things that you do with drinks?

Well, carrying on in Max’s tradition, myself and Jerry [Slater] use the fresh bourbon-infused cherries, and we don’t use the sweet and sour mix that pretty much everywhere else uses. We try and use fresh lemon juice and fresh lime juice and fresh oranges. We have a bunch of fresh fruit behind the bar and raspberries and blackberries and things like that. We try to have good fresh twists to drinks.

Working in a hotel bar, can you talk about how that’s different from working in a restaurant bar or a freestanding bar and what kind of clientele you get here and how you serve them differently?

Well, the clientele is different because you don’t get many—well only a few regulars, so it’s a lot of transient business. So each night you’re pretty much serving different people so you only have a few minutes or a few drinks to gain that rapport that otherwise you would have with regulars.

----

I wonder if there are any stories that [Max] told of his days bartending at Hassenour’s or here that stand out in your memory.

You know, I can't think of one particular thing. He had so many stories. Most of them were anecdotes or just outright jokes. But he’s just, you know, he’s fondly remembered. He was great with customers; everyone liked him. I know I went to his funeral, and it was standing room only, hundreds of people turned out. So it was a few years ago, so I can't remember any specific stories. He used to talk about his father a lot and how when he bartended, he used to have to use a massive block of ice and just chip off the ice as he needed it. So he was just a great guy and always bartended like he was on stage and he was a real performer. He was just a great bartender.

And I understand, when he was recruited to work here when Hassenour’s was closed, that a lot of his clientele from there followed him here?

Yeah, which is unusual for a hotel because it’s hard to get people that live locally just off the street. But, yeah, he brought a big following with him and wherever he went he always had a crowd. So yeah, he was very popular.

Do you have any idea where those people might be going now that Max isn't around anymore? Did some of them stick around here and still come to the Seelbach Bar?

I heard that a lot of them still come and eat in the Oak Room [at the Seelbach], which still pulls in a lot of people and a lot of regulars, so I think they still frequent the Oak Room.

Can you tell me about the Oak Room Bar up there? Have you worked that bar before?

You know, I haven’t worked it. It’s kind of like a little service bar, and it’s very tight in there but they do have a great range of bourbon and if anything is needed from upstairs and they don’t have it, they just come down to my bar, and we kind of trade off on supplies.

There is that plaque up there that says it’s Max’s Bar. Did he spend an equal amount of time up there in the Oak Room and down here, or how did that work?

He was mostly up there because it afforded him more time to talk to the guests. Because they would often order drinks before dinner, and then he could go out and entertain them up there, whereas down here it’s more—somewhat more of a fast-paced affair. I’m trying to think what the bar was called before they called it Max’s Bar. But I know that the day he died, we only served bourbon that night down in this bar. All the other bottles were covered up out of respect, and we only served bourbon, which was his drink of choice, so that was nice.

And what do you think Max’s legacy is? I mean, I’m obviously a handful of years after his passing here talking to you, but what do you think he’s left behind, as far as a legacy behind the bar?

I think anyone that was fortunate enough to work with him just really gained a lot from his approach, as far as details and making the drink properly and not worrying about how fast you make the drink but how accurately it’s made. And also just that you’re also there to entertain the guests and, even if you’re having a bad day, you know, you just got to put it behind you and entertain. I think that was what he would want to be remembered for.

-----

Well is there anything about Max Allen that maybe I haven’t asked or wouldn’t know to ask that you’d like to share?

I don’t know. Just, you know, Max was a great guy. Whenever I think of him I—just seeing him, you know, he was always laughing He was always having a good day. And I know he was often quite sick but never let that influence his work, and he’s certainly a great role model for anyone in this business. So yeah, he’s fondly remembered and sadly missed.

ROGER BAYLOR, ACQUAINTANCE

NOTE: What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

Subject: Roger Baylor, Owner, Rich O’s Public House/New Albanian Brewery in New Albany, IN
Date: January 18, 2008
Location: Rich O’s Public House
Interviewer & Photographer: Amy Evans

---

Amy Evans:  This is Amy Evans on Friday, January 18, 2008 and I’m across the river from Louisville in New Albany, Indiana—still considered part of the Greater Louisville Metro Area—and I’m with Roger Baylor at Rich O’s Public House, part of the New Albanian Brew Company. And, Roger, would you please introduce yourself for the record and, if you don’t mind sharing your birth date also?

Roger Baylor:  Well my name is Roger Baylor, and I was born on August 3, 1960.

Are you a native of New Albany or this general area?

I have lived in Floyd County my entire life, New Albany for the past fifteen, sixteen years. I lived in the country before this about eight miles from here.

And we’re here to talk about Max Allen Jr. because I found you online and your beautiful blog post [http://potablecurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2005/12/remembering-max-allen.html] you wrote in memory of him. And when I spoke to you on the phone before I came to town, you mentioned that Max, who bartended in Louisville, lived in New Albany. Can you tell me how you came to know him?

Well Max lived, I think, out in what we call Edwardsville, which is just a really small hamlet between here and Georgetown, where I grew up. I didn’t know Max before probably the early 1980s. And I didn’t know him from living up near him, which I lived near him, and I didn’t know him from that. But I was actually working in a package liquor store in New Albany, and he used to come in, and we gradually sort of made acquaintances, and then I learned about him from that. That would have been about 1984, ’85 probably, when I first got to know him.

What would he buy when he came to the package store?

Well, actually, the thing about it was Max would very seldom buy anything. When I was thinking about our interview here, I thought that I’m not even sure I can attest to ever seeing him drink alcohol. I know he did; I think he was a very moderate drinker, but I don’t recall him—. What he would come in the store and just chat with the fellow who was my boss at the time, who was named Lloyd Cunningham, and he was the manager of the store. And I was the night guy working nights and an occasional day and I think that how I got to know Max was that he would come in there and just shoot the breeze with Lloyd. So I believe that’s why he came in there but I don’t really—. He’d look at the bourbons…He just wanted someone to talk to about that because that was his knowledge base, and since I was always interested in that sort of thing, we just hit it off at some point. And he would come in, going to work or coming back, or if he had some spare time, and just stand and chat. And that’s when we talked about alcohol.

And so in that date and time he would have been still bartending at Hassenour’s, which is no longer in operation?

Yeah, I believe so. My mind is hazy on when Hassenour’s ended and when his gig at the Seelbach started. He also spent some period there for two or three years doing something totally different and I’m—again, I’m hazy about the reasons for that, but he undertook a different line of work for a while, and I always had the impression that it was because his wife wasn’t completely enamored of his career choice. And I think that, for a while, he owned his own business and—but I don’t think his heart was ever in it. And then he went back to Hassenour’s, and then they closed, and then he was at the Seelbach after that for a few years.

When he came into the package store and was talking about bourbon and all, do you remember, you know, any kind of information or anything that he imparted to you during those days?

Well anything that he imparted to me about liquor, in general, and bourbon, in particular, was news to me because I didn’t know very much about it at the time. I was in my early twenties and so my general default strategy when dealing with people who obviously know quite a bit more than I do is to shut up and listen, which is what I generally did. And Max could go on and on. I just liked to ask questions, rather like you’re doing right now. I just wish I would have recorded it, but if there had been some way of doing that, that would have been helpful. He really was a walking encyclopedia of bourbon knowledge. He collected a lot of books on the topic, which makes me think that one of the true losses in all this is that I’m aware that he had this big library of books and objects pertaining to liquor and pertaining to his job, and to my knowledge that all just—maybe it’s still at his house someplace. I don’t know. Maybe—I don’t even know if his wife is still alive, but I knew he had a son, too, and I’m hoping maybe somebody inherited all that and kept it because the—we used to talk about that and wonder if anybody would ever protect that treasure trove that he had amassed. He was just—I just, you know, the topic would be, well, the history of the Heaven Hill Distillery, let’s say, and so then he would talk for twenty-five minutes about that. And then, of course, we’d get interrupted because I had to wait on customers and things of that nature, but if we were lucky, then I could just listen to it. How much of that do I remember today? I’m not sure. I tell stories of about liquor to a lesser extent because I’m in the beer business now, but I know, certainly, it was important to me at the time to hear that.

Do you remember how he would speak about bourbon and what kind of, either emotion or excitement or anything that he would attach to those conversations?

I think that there was no doubt at all that Max really loved that topic, and I think that it was a very passionate thing with him. He could just go on and on and he was—I have been hanging out at bars for a long time and people have, you know, maybe somebody is interested in lawnmower engines or somebody is interested in something else and they really just could discourse about it, but with a lot of feeling, a lot of passion. It was obvious it was something that was really important to him. It was not a dry recitation of facts. It was telling stories, and I think that was rather of an influence on me when I got into the beer business. Now I wouldn’t make too much out of the connections with Max and I because we were just casual acquaintances really that coincided often. But I think that one thing that I took with me into the beer business was this idea that explaining all this is not about—he didn’t talk about the intricacies of the distillation process. It was more stories about the people who did it and the places where it happened, and that’s where I’m at now. That’s what I enjoy about this business is telling stories about it, not so much the exact composition of the molecules. I’m helpless; I’d never know that. I don’t think—Max may have known that, but that’s not what he talked about. It was really this story telling, very much the story telling.

Well and speaking of storytelling, there’s a wonderful bit in your blog post about him about your FOSSILS [Fermenters of Special Southern Indiana Libations Society] group and him coming to a meeting and recording an oral history, basically, with one of the guest speakers. Can you talk about that?

This is really one of the things that I remember the most about Max because we had a meeting in the very early days of the Home Brew Club. Max was a member, always paid his dues, but he didn’t come to very many meetings. I think because it conflicted with his work schedule. But it so happens that on this occasion we unexpectedly—and this has always been a matter of craziness to me because I don’t know how he would have known—he didn’t—wouldn’t have known. No one knew that this guy was going to be coming. Max showed up for the meeting that night with a tape recorder…You know, I don’t know how that happened but he shows up—or one of the few times he ever came with a tape recorder. And meanwhile, this elderly fellow at the old folks home downtown had contacted one of the club members about “Come get me because I want to talk about the time I worked in the brewery in New Albany. I see you guys are talking about beer.” So Barry went and got him and brought him here, and Max was here with the tape recorder, so voila, we had Virgil Hosier’s testimony about how he worked on the bottling line at the Ackerman Brewery in downtown New Albany in 1935, how it closed, and then the flood swept it away at some point after that, and it never reopened. And Max recorded the whole thing, provided the tape for us, and then we were able, then, a few years after that to turn it over to a couple of guys who were writing a book about the history of breweries in New Albany.

So I understand, too, that Max was a member of the Filson Club Historical Society downtown.

I believe that’s true, and I don’t know as much about that. I know that he did try to attend those meetings and he was interested in history, in general—area history, in general—just his core specialization was bourbon [Laughs] and all the liquors and the bartending and the bars and the places. I know he was.

-----

So in the years that you knew him, when he was bartending at Hassenour’s and then at the Seelbach, did you ever go visit him at his bar and drink with him?

I actually only went once to Hassenour’s, and I wish I could remember exactly what it was. I had him make me a drink; I can't remember what it was. I don’t know if it was a bourbon drink. I wasn’t there for long. It’s one of those things that I saw him semi-regularly, and I wasn’t really going to places like Hassenour’s…And there wasn’t really that much at Hassenour’s; it was a very imperial old American [nineteen] ‘50s-type bar. But I do recall going over there once and chatting with him and saying, you know, “Make me what you would have,” and he made me something. I wish I could remember it was. I can't. I never saw him at the Seelbach, though. And then at some point he wasn’t working anymore, and then at some point he died and I regret that. And I didn’t see him for probably three or four years before he died.

Do you remember his demeanor behind the bar and kind of his performance there?

The thing that always impressed me about it was that it was just consummately professional, and that’s something that I don’t think we see anymore and that’s—that’s one of my major themes here, I believe. You know I don’t get around much to major metropolitan areas, and I don’t get around much to high-dollar places. I get the impression you would still find that sort of professional attitude in those places. I know I do see it in Europe, when I go to Europe. Really, it kind of harkens back to some era when there was some value to this profession, that it was something that you could actually go into and become good at and make a little bit of money and not just mercenary sort of treatment. Because I know Max didn’t move around from place to place. He had a relationship at Hassenour’s with the family that ran that, and that’s where he stayed for a very long time. When he was behind the bar, then he was dressed for the part [Laughs]—straight out of central casting. He had the well-trimmed mustache and wore glasses and always wore—he had—I guess it was a white shirt, dark pants, bowtie, suspenders I seem to recall, perhaps, at times—very, very well-groomed, hairs not out of place and was just very professional. Had a knowledge of the drinks, had a knowledge of the liquors, kept some books around in case he needed to look it up, tried to anticipate what people wanted, and tried to be attentive without being overbearing—all the things that I would associate with a professional bartender, which I regret or that I lament the passing of. I don’t think that we do that anymore. I think it’s more of a—it’s a weigh-station to something else. You can certainly make money at it, but it’s not the same atmosphere now. We don’t drink that way quite the same.
-----

Do you remember talking to him ever about the drink recipes he used and the tools that he used behind the bar?

I remember talking to him some about the tools. That’s something that interested me…I know he had stories to tell about the way things came about and the shakers and how to make a martini the right way. And he’d—I had these incredible academic discussions about things like that, you know—used to joke with how much vermouth do you use in a martini. And nowadays this all seems like a really archaic discussion because there’s chocolate martinis and all these different sorts of martinis, and I’m fairly confident he wouldn’t have approved of that. I think he would have been interested in it; I think he would have said, “Well there is, of course, the classic way of doing this; here’s where it originated and here’s how it should be done and you know let’s do it the right way and then we’ll go from there.” I would imagine he would feel that way about it.

-----

Tell me about some of the things that he kept behind his bar.

Well he was fairly fabled for having this entire notion on this. And what he would explain to me was that as a bartender, as somebody who is going to be there trying to give somebody a good evening, that he had to not just be good about moods and trying to read people and knowing what sort of mood they were in. You don’t want the bartender talking, if you don’t want to be talked to; you do want the bartender talking if you’re in a chatty mood. And reading people was important, but he wanted to keep behind the bar—he wanted to anticipate anything that a customer coming through might want to know. And I think that that’s another sort of lesson that I learned from knowing Max was he kept a sewing kit behind the bar in case he had to sew a button on somebody’s jacket. He kept maps of the area so, if he had to give directions, he would know he was right. He kept index cards with people’s names on them and what they liked and the regulars—who their children were and what their wife’s name was so he wouldn’t forget things like that, so he’d know when there were birthdays and anniversaries and—I mean that’s just an incredibly professional thing that we probably say, well, okay you can keep an index like that on your iPod, something of that nature now in the computer revolution, but that was all—all analog; that was all pre-digital. Everything was written down someplace—notes and—and anything, you know—shoe polish, if you needed to touch up the scuff marks on your shoes, he could do that—would do that, happy to do that, thought that was part of—that was what the job implied was to be complete sort of concierge, in addition to being a bartender. I think that’s how he viewed himself.

Do you remember him sharing any stories about some particularly memorable guests or things that happened in the bar?

He had a lot of [Kentucky] Derby stories. That’s the big thing in Louisville is that you can tell who comes in during the Derby—the Derby Festival, the week before Derby every year…I know that there are a fair number of famous and well-heeled people that came through the doors. Hassenour’s was a landmark restaurant in its time, probably [nineteen] ‘60s, ‘70s, maybe into the early ‘80s and then it never really got reinvented and the family got older, and it just sort of withered away after that…I remember something about some member of the Rat Pack being there once, but I can't remember which one it was; I’m going to say it might have been actually Peter Lawford or something but I can't—I don’t remember that for sure. I do remember the Rat Pack…I know he had sort of a fascination for overall American culture, too, and that was sort of the period that he would have come of age. I think all the things that kind of Vegas, early ‘60s, Rat Pack, imperial America, I think that was definitely right up his alley. He enjoyed that sort of thing.

And so Max passed away some eight or nine years ago. Do you remember the year he died?

I think it was 2000, sometime in 2000. I think it’s been seven years now. Like I said, I was not in touch with him. He had retired. I know that he had some heart problems. I don’t know exactly what he died of in the end, but I think he had some heart disease…But I probably didn’t seem him after about ’96, ’97. He used to come into our pizza place with his son, even after his son was really grown out of high school.

Do you remember his son’s name?

I believe it was also Max, yeah. I haven’t seen him for a long time, either.

Do you have an idea about how old Max was when he passed?

I should know this. I’m going to say—I don’t think that he was seventy. I think he would have been mid-sixties. I’m going to guess sixty-five, thereabouts.

Did you attend his funeral?

I did not. In fact, I believe I might have been out of town. I usually go to Europe a couple times a year, and I don’t think I was here when he died, if I recall correctly. I came back and looked through the papers and saw it, “Oh, damn, yeah, Max died.”

Well it’s so incredible to be in a place and have people still be talking about a bartender who hasn’t worked in ten years and isn't around anymore. Can you kind of try and sum that up a little bit?

Well, then, I think it’s because, to me, you know in an establishment like this, in a place where someone is going to come in and spend some money, they’re coming here because—in our place because the beer is good or they’re going to go to the Hassenour’s in the old days because that’s where they hung out or whatever the reason was. It’s not just about that product that you’re getting, it’s not just that you make good drinks, and it’s not just that you have good beer and it’s not—even just that you have good food or whatever it is. There’s a lot more involved to it than that, and you’re looking for the greatest true cliché in the history of my business and the reason why that television show lasted for as long as it did was because Cheers was right about that: that everybody wants to go someplace where you know their name. And that is a cliché and it’s a truism, but it’s absolutely dead on 100-percent accurate. Everybody wants to go someplace where they get treated well. And I think Max in his time in a place like Hassenour’s or the Seelbach was the face of that place. Whoever the family is that owns it or the corporation that owned the Seelbach or anything else, you know, they weren't always there. Somebody like Max was there, so his whole concept of professionalism behind the bar was that he was a concierge, as well as being a bartender, but he was going to know everybody’s name; that he was going to know things about them, and he did that, I think, out of a sense of professional propriety, but he also did it because he liked people. I mean he was a people person, and he liked that and you really need to have that and he provided that. And so I think that it’s not a coincidence that people would remember him because in his chosen profession that is something that, even though there are still professional bartenders, professional bartenders today, for the most, part don’t run things like they did when Max was in his prime. It’s just not the same. I’m not saying it’s better or worse. I don’t really have an opinion about that, but it’s just not the same. And it’s something that sticks in your memory. This guy was, you know, he was good and he did a good job with that drink. He was friendly. He said hello. You remember things like that when you go to a place, and if you don’t get that, you don’t always go back…I think that’s why he is remembered.

---

To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

Use the search function below to browse the Southern Foodways site for oral history topics, people or places we've featured, or general information about your favorite foods and foodways.