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Road Soda Bar Creates Artisan Cocktails That Travel to Your Event

By Kathy A. McDonald

Road Soda Bar blends two ofthe-moment trends: vintage trailers and bespoke cocktails. The company can drive both right into your event, whether it’s an off-road or urban location, via its refurbished 1967 Airstream Land Yacht. The trailer is a traveling speakeasy with its atypical built-ins that include specialty ice and frozen-drink machines, dispensers for on-tap artisan cocktails and a kicky red VIP booth.

As Mark Wiseberg, Road Soda’s cofounder and director of design and logistics, explains, the genesis of the idea came from music festivals in which VIP areas are set up backstage with a complimentary bar sponsored by a liquor company. “Road Soda solves the problem of subpar drinks at events,” Wiseberg says. Instead of bartenders making do in a temporary tent setup, the specifically engineered mobile bar allows them to dispense high-end cocktails in any outdoor setting. Ingredients include topshelf spirits, fresh-squeezed juices, homemade syrups and seasonal infusions; all can be premixed in kegs and served much like draft beer.

Since its 2013 launch, the trailer has crisscrossed the country (pulled by an equally sleek Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van). It has, arguably, made its biggest splash in California, parking at such events as the Neon Carnival (a large Coachella after-party), Taste in LA, San Diego Spirits Festival, a Cinco de Mayo celebration for 300 sponsored by Don Julio Tequila in Venice, and providing a bespoke cocktail experience for The Jimmy Kimmel Show in Hollywood. The pop-up bar can serve 25 to 4,500 attendees (augmented by satellite bars). “We fill a small niche the event world was missing,” says Wiseberg, speedily delivering mass quantities of quality cocktails. 

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