Bio
Thomas Máthé is the son of Hungarian immigrants to the United States. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and raised in southern New Hampshire. He spent the better part of his twenties on the North Shore of Boston, and has lived in Brooklyn, New York, since 2015.
Tom started telling stories by making comic books at age six. He graduated to a word processor at ten, saw a ghost when he was twelve, wrote a terrible novel in Junior High, and made some entertaining short films in high school. In lieu of focusing on his regular classwork, Tom spent his undergraduate years making a short film that was shown on campus, and writing a short story cycle alongside the band Caspian to accompany their 2007 album The Four Trees. In 2011 he completed an M.F.A. in Creative Writing at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. He is currently writing a trilogy of novels.
Tom started in the service industry as a host at The Portsmouth Brewery in 2008. He worked his way onto the floor as a busser, then became a server. In his time at the brewery, and under the guidance and tutelage of Head Brewer Tod Mott and Brewer Tyler Jones, Tom became passionate and knowledgeable about beer.
Tom started bartending in 2009 at a haunted dive bar and music venue in New Hampshire where he poured beers, made mixed drinks, ran the sound board, and hosted a trivia night. He worked at a craft beer focused pizzeria in Kittery, Maine where he collaborated with the owner in selecting the 20 rotating beers on tap and taught "Beer School," a monthly event that drew upwards of 100 people a night into the restaurant where he led them through craft beer and food pairings. One night after work he went to The Black Birch for a drink and Gavin Beaudry made him a Sazerac. The incongruousness of the color, aroma, and flavor of the cocktail sparked an interest in Tom that still drives him. He soon thereafter became Head Bartender at a craft cocktail bar in Salem, Massachusetts, where he became a fixture and developed his style on a team of passionate and driven collaborators. He moved to New York City in 2015. Since then, he has run beloved and successful craft cocktail programs in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, on the Upper East Side, and in Midtown, while also spending a year making custom drinks inspired by WNYC’s impressive lineup of podcasts for their live podcasting venue, The Greene Space. In January 2019 he joined the opening team at L’Avenue at Saks, a two-floor restaurant and bar located inside the flagship Saks Fifth Avenue store, where he became Head Bartender. After working directly under the tutelage of famed world-traveling bartender Nico de Soto for the first year of operation, Tom has taken over running the cocktail program for the restaurant and event space.
As a result of his literary passion, Tom is able to weave intricate narratives subtly into his drinks, making connections with ingredients that imbue their already delicious qualities with irreverent intellectualism. As a result of his bartending, he is perpetually immersed in story, and is able to complement the quiet, solitary work of a rich writing life with an inherently social career, leaving Tom feeling as well-balanced as a Daiquiri.