The reason a great tasting event works for team building is not the alcohol. It is the shared experience — a room full of colleagues learning something new at the same time, building a small vocabulary they didn’t have an hour earlier, and laughing at each other’s tasting notes. All Spirits Events designs team-building tasting events in New York City and at venues across the United States that do exactly that: bring people together around something real, with a working spirits, wine, or beer expert leading the room.
We work with corporate teams of every size and seniority level — from new-hire cohorts and engineering offsites to executive retreats and 50-plus-guest sales kickoffs.
Led by a recognized spirits authority
All Spirits Events is led by founder Adam Levy, founder of the International Beverage Competitions Group — one of the most respected trade-judged alcohol competitions in the world — and the editorial voice behind The Alcohol Professor, quoted in Bloomberg and Wall Street Journal. When Adam or one of our hand-picked hosts leads your team-building event, your group is getting an actual industry expert — not a contracted bartender working from a script.
What makes our tastings actually build teams
A guided tasting is not, by itself, team building. The format is. Every event is designed around one or more of the following structures — chosen with you ahead of time to match your team’s culture:
- Blind tasting competitions — split the team into groups and score them on identifying styles, regions, or price points. Friendly competition surfaces personalities fast.
- Iron-Bartender mixology face-offs — teams design a cocktail to a theme; the room votes the winner. Loud, fun, and competitive.
- Tasting flights with guided discussion — structured pour-by-pour with a tasting-note exercise. Quieter team members often shine here.
- Themed storytelling tastings — a regional, historical, or brand-story arc that gives the team shared cultural reference points.
The goal is the same across all of them: get every guest contributing, learning, and remembering.
Spirits, wine, beer — and food pairings
Not every team responds to the same thing, so we are not a whiskey-only or cocktail-only company. We design team-building events around any beverage category:
- Spirits — whiskey, tequila, mezcal, gin, rum, or a multi-category flight.
- Wine — old world vs. new world, by region, by varietal, or blind food pairing.
- Beer — craft brewery showcases, style flights, or beer-and-snack pairings.
- Cheese, chocolate, and full pairing dinners — Adam is also the founder of The Cheese Professor and The Chocolate Professor, so we routinely build cheese pairings, chocolate flights, and full pairing dinners alongside the tasting.
Group sizes & nationwide reach
We design team-building events for as small as 5 guests — perfect for senior teams and high-trust cohorts — up to 50 or more for sales kickoffs, holiday parties, and full-department offsites. In New York Metro Area and nationally, we travel to Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, San Francisco, Austin, Boston, Washington D.C., and beyond — drawing on a network of local working experts in each city.
Your venue or ours
Run it in your office, a private dining room, a hotel meeting space, a loft, or a venue we recommend. We can supply the beverage, glassware, tools, and staff — or work entirely within your venue’s setup and bar program. Whatever the room, we will make it feel built for the night.
How it works
Tell us the date, headcount, city, budget, and the kind of team energy you’re after. Within one business day we come back with a recommended format, beverage direction, and quote. From there, one short call locks the details — and we handle the rest.
Ready to plan your team-building tasting event?
Contact us and let the Alcohol Professor design an experience your team is still talking about at the next all-hands.