Drinks worth remembering

CREATIVE DRINKS: Little Bitte Artisanal Cocktails owner Willa Van Nostrand offers one of her "garden to glass" cocktails, a unique creation she developed by combining her experience as a bartender and herbalist. / COURTESY PHOTOGRAPHY BY DIA/DIANE MEDEIROS
CREATIVE DRINKS: Little Bitte Artisanal Cocktails owner Willa Van Nostrand offers one of her "garden to glass" cocktails, a unique creation she developed by combining her experience as a bartender and herbalist. / COURTESY PHOTOGRAPHY BY DIA/DIANE MEDEIROS

With her Olympia Spritz and The Bitter Saint drinks, Willa Van Nostrand entered the family trade – bartending – with Little Bitte Artisanal Cocktails in 2011.

The daughter of an herbalist/midwife and bartender, she began mixing cocktails and experimenting with alcoholic-beverage recipes at 18.

Little Bitte, which takes its name from the German word “bitte,” which means please, thank you and welcome, is a small cocktail-catering company based out of Van Nostrand’s home in Providence. She preps her ingredients in a commercial kitchen in Cranston and, with her team of independent servers, offers tray, wine and food service.

“I put two and two together, my bartending background and my herbalist background, and started making cocktails using edible blossoms, herbs and fresh juices,” she said.

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Van Nostrand calls her creations “garden to glass” cocktails and, after several friends asked her to cater their events, she decided to turn it into a business.

“Working for yourself you get to focus on [what] really excites you,” she said of the fresh ingredients she uses and the relationships she forges with local farmers who supply them.

The 29-year-old, whose clientele includes WaterFire, Eat Drink Rhode Island and the Social Enterprise Greenhouse, has catered staff parties, open houses, fundraisers and weddings. She sees room for growth in corporate events.

“I think the corporate sector has a lot of room for artisanal services and products,” she said. “The more cocktails get a spotlight, the more people will understand the importance of appreciating not just good food, but good drinks.”

Van Nostrand commented that she has had word-of-mouth success when attendees from a nonprofit event or wedding approach Little Bitte and contract her to host their party. She hopes the good reviews spread to corporate-event planners and is looking into a storefront in her sixth year of business.

The best method to increase this end of her business, she explained, is through workshops at corporate social events and team-building sessions. One of the ways she is introducing Little Bitte to the Rhode Island corporate community is through mixology lessons, teaching employees how to mix a specific cocktail, something she said she’s been doing for a while.

The biggest challenge Van Nostrand has experienced is collaborating with other businesses during large, more than 200-person, parties – but, “I have yet to walk away from an event and feel defeated,” she said.

For Van Nostrand, the initial idea behind Little Bitte was “to have a creative profession that was a legitimate living and could support other artistic endeavors.”

Once an acting-school student, Van Nostrand carefully curates a costume fitting the theme of each event, often including bright, red lipstick and vintage clothing ranging from the Roaring ’20s to a 1950s housewife. •

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