Dive Bar Jukebox with Hayley Wilson
"With every one of those late-night stations playing songs bringing tears to my eyes."
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Welcome back to Dive Bar Jukebox, where every Friday bartenders, writers, chefs, musicians, and a host of dynamic people answer the question: If we were hanging out at a bar together and I put ten credits on the jukebox, what songs would you punch in and why? Their answers reveal thoughts on their favorite dive bars along with a hand-picked, annotated 10-song playlist for your weekend listening pleasure. And stick around after the last song for a cocktail recipe for a bittersweet seasonal sour.
This week’s special guest is bartender, bar industry activist, and all-around music geek, Hayley Wilson.
In 2018, Wilson moved from Boston to Portland, Maine, and has been behind the bar at Portland Hunt + Alpine Club ever since. You’ll find Wilson at the Scandinavian-inspired bar and restaurant, owned by Andrew Volk and Briana Volk, where, in addition to tending bar, she also works to spread the message of Hunt + Alpine’s distinctive northern hospitality to a larger audience in her role as Events Coordinator and Pop-Up Collaborator. This involves running large-scale on- and offsite events and collaborating with brands, bars, and restaurants around the country.
Her combined love of cocktails and music is on full display with Jimmy Drinks World, a New England-based, pop-punk pop-up she co-founded and co-hosts with her husband, “certified Emo Boi" Zack Wilson, that marries their love of the hospitality industry and the DIY music scene “in the name of pop punk and community building.” Their mission statement of Cocktails, Community, and Rock and Roll finds them partnering with local bars and small music venues for an evening of nostalgic pop punk, specialty cocktails, and limited-edition merch that helps raise money for charities, artists, and small music venues. My favorite way I’ve heard Wilson describe Jimmy Drinks World is, “It’s a guaranteed good time if you shopped at Hot Topic in the early 2000’s and it wasn’t a phase.” Over the past year, through events like emo karaoke events and pop-punk drag performances, Jimmy Drinks World has raised over $4,000 for charities such as Indigenous Women Rising, an organization honoring Native and Indigenous People’s inherent right to equitable and culturally safe health options through accessible health education, resources, and advocacy.
When I interviewed Wilson in 2021 for PUNCH, she talked about the parallels between the hospitality and the DIY music scene, which are amplified by the fact that most musicians she knows have supplemented their passion by working in bars: “Hard work and late nights are inherent to each, but helping to make it all worthwhile is the community of support that defines both industries.”
Read on to hear about some of Wilson’s favorite dives, an eclectic playlist with pop punk rockers and some jukebox singalong classics, and a recipe for her original cocktail, Color in Your Cheeks, a cold-weather sour bolstered with Fernet-Branca and applejack.