Meet Eliza Woodman, San Diego’s newly crowned cocktail queen

San Diego bartender Eliza Woodman says she was born with a competitive nature, and that trait has helped her win three top prizes this summer at local, national and international cocktail competitions.

In June, she was crowned the West Coast champion in Bushmills Whiskey’s national Bushmills (High)Ball competition. In July, she won first place in the Bartender Battle at the Tiki Oasis convention in San Diego. And on Aug. 25, she won Myers’s Rum’s World’s Best Mai Tai competition in Las Vegas.

Woodman is the lead bartender at 1-year-old Communion in Mission Hills, where the rooftop restaurant-bar’s owner Jacquèe Renna has encouraged Woodman’s competitive spirit.

“We are thrilled to see Eliza recognized on such a global stage,” Renna said. “Her creativity and skill embody the spirit of San Diego’s vibrant bar community, and we’re proud to share her achievement with our guests.”

Woodman started entering cocktail competitions about 18 months ago as a way to push herself. Along the way, she said she realized that creating a great cocktail was only half the battle. Presentation is just as important to the judges, if not more.

“The best drink doesn’t always win because it’s not the whole picture,” Woodman said. “The big part is is how articulate you are and how you weave your story for the judges. You’re not just making a drink for a person … you’re entertaining them. We describe ourselves as chameleons, something different for each guest. We want our guests to have fun and we want the judges to have fun, too.”

For the Myers’s mai tai competition, Woodman was among several hundred entrants who submitted drink recipes and stories in the first round of competition. After making her way through the qualifying rounds, she competed against 23 other bartenders at the finals in Las Vegas last month.

Her winning mai tai, named Three Little Birds after the Bob Marley album, includes three varieties of Myers’s rum, as well as her own house-made salted peanut jerked spice orgeat syrup and her Scotch bonnet tiki bitters.

“I like a savory note to run through my cocktails,” she said. “I like them to be layered so they open up as you drink them and because I work at a restaurant I like my drinks to complement the food.”

Woodman’s mai tai contest win came with a cash prize of $15,000. She plans to use the money to pay off her car, take some trips to Tokyo and Mexico City and visit her family back East.

Woodman grew up in Rhode Island where she played competitive lacrosse, then spent a decade in Boston before moving to San Diego four years ago. She has worked in the restaurant industry since she was 15 years old, working a wide range of front-of-house positions while she earned her college degree in graphic design. She said she was drawn to bartending because it indulged her artistic side.

“When I got my foot in the door making craft cocktails, I fell in love because it stoked the part of my brain that was creative,” she said. “It reignited a passion in me that I hadn’t had for the industry in a while and it set me on this trajectory of wanting to be as creative as possible.”

A big fan of fitness and working out the gym, Woodman said she moved to San Diego after the pandemic because she wanted to take advantage of this city’s active lifestyle offerings. She lives in the Moreno area of Mission Valley with her cat Tony (named after famed chef Anthony Bourdain) and says she enjoys hanging out with her supportive industry friends in North Park at bars like Happy Medium, Swan Bar and Crafted Coupe.

Her first local bartending job was on the opening team at SDCM Restaurant Group’s Captain’s Quarters speakeasy in Pacific Beach, followed by jobs at two other SDCM properties. Her success in cocktail competitions last year attracted the interest of Renna, who hired Woodman to create the bar program at Communion. Besides choosing the beers and alcohol served at the restaurant, Woodman has created 18 craft cocktails at Communion.

Some of Woodman’s long-term career goals include include becoming a beverage director for a restaurant group, becoming a beverage consultant or possibly opening her own bar down the road.

Woodman’s award-winning Three Little Birds mai tai cocktail has been added to Communion’s brunch menu, which is served from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sundays only, at 901 W. Washington St., San Diego. 619-606-5568, dinecommunionsd.com/menu