SB meets… Steve Olson, Lifetime Achievement Award winner
While working in Cape Town, South Africa, Steve Olson, spirits educator and co-founder of Del Maguey mezcal, speaks about the importance of the on-trade and how he intends to continue championing the creativity and skill of bartenders worldwide.
Steve Olson, co-founder of Del Maguey mezcal, was bestowed with the Lifetime Achievement Award at The Spirits Business Awards 2025.
Olson has had a profound impact on the mezcal category over his illustrious career. Spend five minutes in his company and you’ll quickly learn his ethos is all about enriching the wider communities linked to the spirits world, be they agave farmers, local distillers, artists, or bartenders. From Cape Town in South Africa, he speaks about the importance of the on-trade and how he intends to continue championing the creativity and skill of bartenders worldwide.
Tell us about the on-trade scene across Africa right now.
The cocktail scene is really Cape Town, Johannesburg and Nairobi. On the eastern beaches of Nairobi, there’s a whole bar scene out there, and then Lagos has more of a club kind of scene. There’s a bartending renaissance going on down here, guys. It’s like London in the 1990s, Paris in the 2000s/teens.
The world is a bit of a disaster right now, sales wise, and companies, instead of going, “Well, maybe we should turn our attention to markets where we could increase our sales”, they unfortunately have no choice but to manage their companies more like a hedge fund, because they’re responsible to their shareholders. They have no choice but to cut costs, cut advocacy, PR, cut education – the things that really matter the most are the things that get cut first. A lot of companies have pulled out of Africa and I’m down here seeing these people need support. It’s an exciting market, it’s going crazy, and they’ve found a way to incorporate local ingredients and elevate classic recipes. I’m doing a lot of work here with the bartending community because there’s a lot of work to be done. I’m working harder now than I ever have, but it’s a different kind of work.
How are bartenders reacting to mezcal?
When Ron [Cooper, co-founder of Del Maguey] and I were starting in the 1990s, nobody knew anything about mezcal. And as we grew and as we started educating people about mezcal – people who were really interested to learn – markets started to grow. I remember Portland and New Orleans when they were just happening, Atlanta, Lafayette in Indiana, Gunnison in Colorado; there are pockets of interest and opportunities in every market. There are people reading the books, watching the videos, seeking actual information. Wherever you go, you will find bartenders who want to learn more, find new flavours, and that’s incredibly exciting.
Unfortunately, for the first time in 21 years last year, we had to postpone our BAR [Beverage Alcohol Resource, founded by Olson] school for a year because we had nine students lose their visas when Donald Trump decided people couldn’t come on student visas [to the US] anymore. With the market being depressed, we lost about another eight scholarships that were already being given to students.
We had to regroup, and we were able to host the BAR School programme in the first week of February [2026]. We lost some scholarships, but we picked up others from, interestingly enough, mostly smaller companies that are trying to stay alive, realising education is the ticket.
We’re about demonstrating that every single minute of your life, you’re dedicated not to bartending; you’re dedicated to hospitality. We agree with everybody on the first day that we all have a sickness that is to make other people happy. Once you accept that – that it’s cool to make other people happy – then you can start working on being a good bartender. If you’re not in this because you like to make other people happy, there’s no place for you. This is a career and a profession where you spend every minute of every day not thinking about how great you can make that drink – that’s part of it, but that’s the basics. It’s about thinking of others.
Who do you think is doing really great work in the bar industry at the moment?
I could name 50 of them, in every country, on every continent. That’s how widespread this has become. There are so many bartenders opening dive bars with great cocktails, music bars with great cocktails, sports bars with great cocktails, where people come to have fun and enjoy great drinks. Part of what’s driving it too is virtually every chef on the planet has realised if they don’t have a great cocktail programme, it’s hurting not just their revenue, but the overall feeling of their restaurant.
Cape Town, to say it’s Hong Kong five or 10 years ago is a silly analogy, but rather imagine it as kind of a fledgling version of Hong Kong, where the food is just insane and diverse because it comes from all over the globe, and the bartenders do too. Young bartenders are owning the scene here right now, it blows my mind. The top 10 cocktail bars in this city, seven are owned by people in their late 20s to mid-30s, it’s awesome what they’re doing.
We have to, of course, talk about your Lifetime Achievement Award from The Spirits Business Awards 2025. What has life been like since that recognition?
I was pretty emotional when I got back to my table, I couldn’t really talk. It was very intensely humbling. It really made me sit back and think. I never designed my path or had a vision to get a lifetime achievement award some day. For me, I just work really hard and I care a lot about what I do – I always have since I was young. I’ve always believed that everyone on this planet has a purpose and everybody is equal, so if I’m lucky enough to succeed, then it’s my duty to either bring people with me or give back – or both, and I do both.
I had someone recently at one of the BAR School lectures ask what it meant to me and how it felt. And I said: “You know, what’s more important is what it meant to the families in Oaxaca, what it meant to my faculty at BAR because there’s no such thing as success in this business unless you’re sharing it with a team.”
I still genuinely feel in awe of the greats of this industry. Like Dale DeGroff, Dale is king, right? And Dale has been one of my closest friends for 40 years. We came up together, we are brothers, we are partners in the school. And I swear to God, when I stand next to Dale on stage, I pinch myself. I did a seminar at BCB last year, and Dale was in the front row, and it wasn’t just him. It was Dave Arnold, Charlotte Voisey, Julie Reiner and Franky Marshall. I was so nervous because they’re past students of mine, but also the most important people and bar experts on the planet.
And I think back on what Ron Cooper and Michael Gardner [Del Maguey partner] and I did together. We all worked hard, we all were together bringing this beautiful elixir to the world. Without that, all of my work would never have been noticed. I remember at one point Michael came to Ron and I, and just said: “Guys, I’m not afraid to have a company for profit that is also for good.” Those words have resonated in my head ever since.
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