Pip Hanson Departs Marvel Bar and Minneapolis for London

He gave us nori steeped Scotch. He spread the gospel of great ice. He was the first locally to utilize saline to heighten a drink's flavor. He built one of the most innovative bar programs in the Midwest and now he is leaving for a new adventure. One of the best ways Pip Hanson's cocktail technique has ever been described was by his friend and collegue Nicholas Kosevich (of Bittercube Bitters.) "Bartending isn't re-inventing the wheel... Well, except for Pip. He's reinventing the wheel over at Marvel."

Trained in Tokyo, he's worked at La Belle Vie, Town Talk Diner and Cafe Maude locally. In 2011 when Eric and Andrew Dayton opened The Bachelor Farmer and the sub level, speakeasy Marvel Bar, they hired Hanson to lead the bar program. In that time, the bar has received several local and national accolades.

Now, a chapter comes to an end. Hanson said that the decision to leave came because the timing was just right. He said, "Any sooner and I would have worried about how Marvel would do without me; any longer and I would have gotten a bit restless. So it just kinda worked out right. I'm lucky that Eric and Nathan are confident enough in the team that we have built that they have no concerns about me stepping away for a while; it's win-win."

The reigns of the bar are being handed over to Peder Schweigert who trained with molecular mixologist Dave Arnold and counts Allinea as a past employer. Sweigert has already been head bartender at Marvel since 2013 and the move seems like a natural progression for him.