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Ed Delmon has been working in the liquor biz since he was a 14-year-old in 1951, pedaling a bicycle through the Marina delivering hooch from Demartini Liquors on Chestnut Street.
When asked if his former place of business is still there, Delmon laughs to the point he induces a coughing fit and blurts out, "No, no, my God, no." But he's still here -- for now. Delmon, 72, has served as Maker's Mark bourbon's "diplomat" (that's what it says on the business card) for San Francisco for more than a dozen years. Now he's decided that it's time to whiskey-a-go-go, and he's personally choosing his successor. And, yes, it could be you.
Delmon's job ostensibly takes him from Fresno all the way to Crescent City, though he manages to spend around 70 percent of his time right here in San Francisco (he still lives in the Marina, where he was born and raised). He drives around 25,000 miles a year attempting to get every bar, restaurant, or store that sells top-shelf alcohol to push Maker's Mark -- and keep the brand in the outlets he's already won over. Last year he organized 91 bourbon events -- "they don't just fall out of the sky, y'know?" -- though he notes that such events "are not a blinky-loud-girls in short dresses kind of thing. We don't hire models to go around and give shots away. This is not a Jägermeister approach -- not that there's anything wrong with Jägermeister, they've chosen to market themselves that way. But we go for a more subtle approach." (
Still interested in the job? Click on the jump for more).
While salaciously dressed young women handing out trinkets and liquor aren't par for the course at an Ed Delmon event, unusual things do still happen. One night in the Green Room on Van Ness at a charity symphony event, Delmon recalls trading drinks and closing the place down with none other than former Secretary of State George Schultz. And, not long thereafter, at a film festival gala, he was shocked to see a man wandering through the event, playing the fiddle, and wearing no clothes at all (Delmon does not recall if the man drank any bourbon or even how good his fiddle-playing was. The incident took him somewhat aback).
And, coming right down to it, if you follow in Delmon's footsteps, yes, you will be coming up with novel ways to dissuade drunk people from drinking anymore of your product. Delmon's preferred approach is to pepper the inebriate with conversation -- "I just start talking to them, I don't give them the chance to ask [for more]." Failing that, he might note that he's not serving at the moment. And failing that -- well, you'll have to work out your own system.
Applicants -- and you can apply for the job here -- will flunk straightaway if, according to Delmon, they display "timidity" and "do not grasp the essence of Maker's Mark." Delmon, for one, believes that the filtering process employed by Jack Daniel's means "it's not bourbon."
Maybe you should brush up on that before you apply, no?
