Christina Demas

National Spirits and Brand Director of Maple Hospitality Group,

Christina Demas, the National Spirits and Brand Director of Maple Hospitality Group, which includes some of the country’s highest grossing restaurants, never imagined she would be in the beverage industry, much less redefining cocktail culture as a whole. Demas began serving in college, working with the Dallas-based hospitality group Front Burner Society. She quickly established a name for herself, becoming a corporate trainer and traveling across the country to assist in opening new concepts for the company. Eager to continue to grow and learn in hospitality after a couple of years, she took up bartending at one of Front Burner’s concepts: Twin Peaks. She fell in love with the art, and began running the Sol Devils bar programs, one Arizona’s biggest college Alumni Groups. She then moved to doing the same for Scottsdale’s Asian-infused Mexican restaurant Sumo Maya, where she worked both behind the bar and as bar lead, expanding her knowledge of craft cocktails. It was there where she connected with Jim Lasky and Danny Grant from Maple & Ash, who were scouting out a new Scottsdale location for their lauded Chicago steakhouse. The team quickly hit it off and she began working with them for a series of pop-ups to integrate the new concept into the Scottsdale community. When the restaurant opened in 2019, she started as a lead bartender, learning the ropes of a chef driving luxury concept. At the end of 2020 she was promoted to bar manager and launched her first marketing campaign, a series of holiday cocktails which were an instant success. She transformed the restaurants program all of 2021, and became Maple Hospitality Group’s Beverage Director of Arizona, launching etta’s cocktail program and winning “Best Beverage Program” at the Arizona Foodist Awards for her work with the Maple brand. She went on to lead a series of activations and partnerships for the Maple concepts and earned her title as National Spirits and Brand Director. As her first project in the role she curated and relaunched an all-new beverage program in Dallas’ Kessaku and she is now putting her signature spin on both Monarch Dallas and Maple and Ash Chicago, growing Maple Hospitality Group’s beverage footprint across America, creating highly marketable, visually stimulating drinks that people will talk about for years to come.