Murray Stenson Needs Your Help With Medical Bills

Everybody's favorite bar man, Murray Stenson, is suffering from heart troubles. One of the first announcements came from the Twitter feed of Canon's Jamie Boudreau, followed quickly by a post from Paul Clarke on The Cocktail Chronicles,

Clarke points out that Stenson has had an outsize influence on the cocktail scene in Seattle, including "Bartender of the Year" honors from his colleagues at Tales of the Cocktail, and that anyone who's ever sipped a Negroni in this town owes him a debt of gratitude. But Stenson isn't part of an industry that routinely provides health care coverage to hourly employees, so his medical needs aren't covered by insurance.

Stenson's old buddies at ZigZag Café are throwing a series of fund-raising parties to pay for open heart surgery (if that's what's needed) including one on November 4, and the folks at Canon, where he's been working for the past year, are also planning some sort of fundraiser. Clarke's post has links to several other sites and suggestions for helping the man he called the "Chartreuse-pouring Cardinal of the Pacific Northwest" in the New York Times.

These collective efforts have raised over $11,000 so far, but if surgery is required, a lot more money will have to be raised. Evan Wallace, who is managing the Murrayaid Facebook page reports, "Murray is tremedously gratified by the outpouring of generosity, and I am sure it gives him great peace of mind to know that so many people have his back."

· All Murray Stenson coverage on Eater [-ESEA-]
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[Ronald Holden Photo]