Meet the winner of the 50 Best Bars Roku Scholarship 2024, Calliope Draper, to learn more about her bartender origin story and mission to create a more representative world for the LGBTQ+ community
From the record-breaking number of applicants, just three remained, excitedly waiting to hear who would be named this year’s recipient of the 50 Best Bars Roku Scholarship during the live awards ceremony of The World’s 50 Best Bars.
The tension was broken by an explosive roar from the crowd as Calliope Draper’s name was announced. As Draper stormed the stage, tears streaming down her face, she was starting to realise that her life in bartending was about to change forever.
“I don’t think I stopped crying from the moment they said my name until about 4am that night. I knew at that moment, without a doubt, that my life was going to be different,” she says..jpg)
The moment Draper's life changed forever at the The World's 50 Best Bars awards ceremony in Madrid
For Draper, it was so much more than an individual award or recognition of her burgeoning status as a ‘bartender to know’. As one of the first transgender people to take home an accolade on the international bar stage, this was a win for an entire community.
Calliope’s cocktail calling
Draper’s entry into bartending was an unintentional one. The 26-year-old Canadian hails from snowy Edmonton in the state of Alberta. Come winter, it’s the type of place where you can walk for hours in blustery weather and feel like the only person in the world.
One evening, Draper stumbled into a spot where bartender James Grant was slinging cocktails. Despite never having set foot in the venue, she was treated like an old friend by Grant. “As someone who often struggles to feel like they are welcome or allowed to be in certain spaces, the level of immediate comfort and belonging was a revelation,” says Draper. As for the drink, “it opened up a world of possibilities of what a cocktail could be.”
That single experience made her fall head-over-heels for hospitality and its power to brighten the lives of others. Sure of her new direction, Draper spent the following months diving head-first into her new calling, becoming a self-confessed cocktail nerd in the process. 
The Canadian's very first cocktail experience set her new career path in motion
“I entered my first cocktail competition quickly, but was so out of my depth,” she confesses. The results, however, suggest otherwise, as she made it through to the final stages, helping her secure her first job in the sector.
Places and spaces
In this new world, Draper quickly noticed there weren’t many faces like hers. She took matters into her own hands with Places You Are Welcome: a self-produced cocktail-zine celebrating queer excellence in the hospitality world.
“I wanted to create a space where we could share our stories, work and cocktails,” explains Draper. Its first issue was released in spring 2024, containing 20 pages of recipes and insight from notable LGBTQ+ individuals in hospitality, with 100 per cent of the proceeds donated to the Skipping Stone Trans Affirming Legal Fund. A sophomore edition is already in the works.
Draper’s work has been well-received by the Canadian bar community and recognised with invitations to speak at events, such as the Toronto Cocktail Conference. “The people who care about this industry are making an effort to create spaces for us,” she says, “but it’s not all sunshine and roses.”
“I’ve had jobs in this industry where management have refused to use my name or pronouns or even look me in the eye after telling them I am trans,” Draper recalls. Outside of the bar, her experience can be equally bleak at times: “It’s also very common to be shouted at in the street while walking home. That’s just part of my day-to-day life.
Draper's dream is a safe space where people of any background can meet and mingle
“From experience, those who think they have a problem with the queer community have often never interacted with anyone on a personal level,” she adds. Through the provision of a safe space where people of any background can meet and mingle, she hopes that fables and misinformation will make way for humanisation of her community. “If you’re sitting at the bar with someone else, you already have something in common,” she says.
“We want people to know that we’re not just some monster lurking in your closet – we like to go out and have a drink. We then wake up the next morning in need of a coffee, just like you!”
Now, with the expanded platform afforded by her scholarship win, Draper is ready to widen her mission from Edmonton to the world.
“I just keep thinking how many doors this is going to open for other people who love this industry but might not see themselves in it – to showcase that we’re here, we’re proud and we can be in this industry as our authentic selves.”
Maintaining the momentum
In 2025, Draper will travel to Virtù and High Five in Tokyo, and Sydney’s Maybe Sammy. After previously living in Japan as part of an exchange programme, she is excited to return to east Asia and to experience the distinctive brand of Aussie hospitality served up at Maybe Sammy.
“Alberta bartenders will often just hand you a drink with a side of chit-chat before leaving you in peace. I’m looking forward to leaning into the big, boisterous energy that Maybe Sammy consistently delivers and to be pushed out of my comfort zone,” she explains.
Draper’s fierce, authentic and unapologetic mission to platform her community has seen her achieve a lot in a short career, and this is only the beginning. From Alberta to Japan, Sydney and beyond, Calliope Draper is set to become a bright star in the every-evolving constellation of hospitality.
The 50 Bars Roku Scholarship was open to any bartender over the age of 21 with less than five full years’ experience in the industry.
The list of The World’s 50 Best Bars 2024, sponsored by Perrier, was revealed at a live awards ceremony in Madrid on 22 October
