At this Boston bar, ‘Woman Crush Wednesday’ is more than a hashtag
The team at Lion's Tail is shaking and stirring things up.
“Let us praise badass women.”
That’s the statement greeting visitors to the webpage for Boston bar Lion’s Tail’s series titled Woman Crush Wednesday — #WCW for short. It also sums up how Lion’s Tail’s assistant general manager and director of events Jacki Schromm wanted to turn the social media trend into a partnership with women in Boston bartending, an industry where she believes “the light could shine on them a little more.”
“I’ve always been the type of person who believes in empowering other women and supporting other women, both in my own industry and other industries in the community,” Schromm said. “I wanted to create an event centered around women. … I started going around to local women who are inspirations of mine in the bar scene, and I was blown away.”
Here’s how the series, which began as a weekly event in October, works: A female guest bartender takes over the South End space, adding five specialty cocktails and a few bar snacks to the menu. Clairessa Chaput of downtown’s Highball Lounge, for example, added cocktails such as the Foliage Field Trip, made with rum, Oloroso sherry, amaro, simple syrup, egg white, and burnt cinnamon, all set on fire. Kayla Quigley of Fenway’s Citizen Public House introduced a cocktail named Dog Days, made with gin, Byrrh, lemon and orange bitters, rose water, vermouth, and simple syrup.
Fifty percent of the proceeds from the limited-edition menu items go to a charitable organization of the guest bartender’s choosing. Chaput wanted the proceeds to go to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), the largest anti-sexual violence organization in the country. Quigley is passionate about animals, so the bar teamed up with Last Hope K9 Rescue.
“I thought, ‘These women all come from different backgrounds,'” Schromm said. “‘Let’s let them choose something important to them.'”
Schromm planned for the series to end come November. Then Woman Crush Wednesday garnered enough enthusiasm from both patrons and guest bartenders that she decided to continue it on a monthly instead of weekly basis for the foreseeable future.
November’s event, with Quigley, took place on Nov. 1. Schromm said she has already booked bartenders for the next six months: Bartender-pastry-chef hybrid Kate Holowchik of South Boston’s Lincoln Tavern and Capo is slated for Dec. 6 from 8-10 p.m., and #WCW will recur at Lion’s Tail on the first Wednesday of each month after that.
