Derek Brown is a leading spirits and cocktail expert best known for his work at Washington, D.C.'s 2017 Spirited Award-winning Best American Cocktail Bar, Columbia Room. He is the author of Spirits, Sugar, Water, Bitters: How the Cocktail Conquered the World--which earned him Author of the Year at the 2020 Nightclub & Bar Show Awards. Equally recognized for his palatable non-alcoholic creations, Derek has become an advocate of non-alcoholic cocktails and the sober curious movement as a whole and, in 2020, joined Spiritless to serve as a brand champion and advisor for the budding distilled non-alcoholic spirits brand. Brown is also a Distinguished Fellow at Catholic University's Ciocca Center for Principled Entrepreneurship and, in 2020, Drinks International named him one of the Bar World 100, a list of the top beverage figures effecting positive change in the global bar industry.