Anthony Caporale is an award-winning beverage author, educator, and consultant, as well as an Off-Broadway and online producer in the virtual and live event worlds, internationally known for being the first to bring mixology to both YouTube, with his seminal web video series Art of the Drink, and then to the New York stage with his groundbreaking Off-Broadway musical comedy series, The Imbible. There are few educators who combine such a long history of creating critically-acclaimed online video content with the experience of mounting a series of successful and long-running New York City theatre productions.

Anthony began his media career as the Producer and Host of Art of the Drink in the summer of 2006, just months after YouTube first opened to public content. Art of the Drink was the first online show about cocktails and spirits, and quickly garnered millions of loyal viewers worldwide with over 90 award-winning episodes available on every major web video site.  The series was an iTunes top-twenty-five Food Podcast, was named Best Instructional Podcast by The New York Times Online, and has been nominated for four Taste Awards for beverage programming.  Art of the Drink is frequently cited by many of today’s leading bartenders as a formative influence on their careers and one of the harbingers of the craft cocktail movement. Anthony has since gone on to create and host Broadway Bartender which was distributed by BroadwayWorld and nominated for two Taste Awards, ultimately winning Best Drink or Beverage Program Online, and he also wrote and hosted Spoon University’s acclaimed Mixology 101 series.

For the stage, Anthony has written and produced four hit Off-Broadway musical comedies about the history of cocktails and spirits, and starred in over 600 performances of the original show, The Imbible: A Spirited History of Drinking. Playing for six years including a long-running engagement at New World Stages, New York’s premiere Off-Broadway theater complex, The Imbible: A Spirited History of Drinking sweeps audiences along a 10,000-year journey through history and across the globe accompanied by craft cocktails and the vocal stylings of The Backwaiters acapella group. The Imbible became one of the 100 longest-running Off-Broadway shows of all time, and has been a smash-hit among both audiences and critics. Hailed as “remarkably compelling” by Time Out New York and “an absolute must-see” by The Huffington Post, The Imbible treats audiences to a completely original and thoroughly enjoyable evening of theatre utterly unlike anything they’ve ever experienced. The second chapter of the series, The Imbible: Rum And Pirates premiered on Hornblower’s Alive After Five New York City harbor cruises in 2015 before returning by popular demand for consecutive summer runs in a much-expanded version. The holiday chapter, The Imbible: Christmas Carol Cocktails played for five seasons in NYC, and will soon be embarking on yuletide runs across the country. The latest edition, Day Drinking: The Brunch Musical which tells the story of brunch and brunch drinks, also enjoyed a long run at New World Stages with well over 200 performances. All four shows are currently booking national tours.

Anthony is also well-known for his long career in restaurant management, consulting, and education, specializing in beverage programming and training. To date, Anthony has been involved in the opening of well over a dozen restaurants in roles ranging from Consultant to General Manager to Owner. During the more than two decades of his career, Anthony has also served as the Beverage Manager for Bobby Flay’s flagship Mesa Grill restaurant, the Launch General Manager of Forty Eight Lounge in New York City’s Rockefeller Center, and he’s been retained as a Management Consultant for numerous other bars and restaurants.  Anthony’s qualifications include:

In addition to fixing struggling restaurants and bars, Anthony is the Director of Spirits Education and Beverage Research at New York City’s award-winning Institute of Culinary Education, where he also sits on the Restaurant & Culinary Management Faculty. He has served as the U.S. Brand Ambassador for Drambuie® Scotch Liqueur, the U.S. Cocktail Ambassador for Truvia® Natural Sweetener, and the Managing Editor of Chilled Magazine, one of the leading trade publications for cocktails and spirits. Anthony recently completed curating an exhibit on Temperance and Trade for Mystic Seaport Museum, the nation’s leading maritime museum.

Anthony is also a popular speaker at cocktail shows and industry conventions such as Tales of the Cocktail , ELEVATE, and Portland Cocktail Week, and he is a favorite guest on many TV and radio shows including:

  • The Dr. Oz Show
  • The Better Show
  • FOX Money
  • Good Morning New Orleans
  • The WPIX-TV Morning Show
  • The WDSU-TV Weekend Morning Show
  • Martha Stewart Living Radio
  • Bloomberg Radio Taking Stock

Additionally, Anthony has given two Talks at Google, and he has appeared in a number of national television commercials including as a judge in The Food Network’s Chopped: Open Basket series and as a Chef Instructor in KitchenAid’s Diamond Blender commercials. Working with IBM’s Watson supercomputer, he created the cocktail recipes for the groundbreaking cookbook, Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson: Recipes for Innovation from IBM & the Institute of Culinary Education. He has twice served as coach for the U.S. Team at the Calvados Nouvelle Vogue International Trophies, the Ryder Cup of Calvados cocktails. In 2008, Anthony was commissioned a Kentucky Colonel by Governor Steven L. Beshear for his work promoting and educating consumers about Bourbon. Most recently, he was the featured Mixology Historian in The Smithsonian Channel‘s Searching For Secrets: New York episode.