for me at every job I’ve ever applied for.”
McDevitt’s first full-time job was in a
newsroom in Idaho Falls and, according
to him, was similar to a bootcamp. After
surviving some tough editors, he left the
position with a sense of discipline. “I’m sort
of a perfectionist now,” laughs McDevitt.
“Journalism is a tough business and my first
experiences gave me a thick skin.”
Today, he is a full-time journalist for the
Somerset Daily American and does freelance
work for a number of publications in the
Pittsburgh area. “It’s hard for me to pinpoint
the moment I decided to be a journalist,”
McDevitt recalls. “After majoring in it in
college, I did it briefly as a career in my early
20s before pursuing other endeavors, and
then came back to it in my late 20s when I
realized it was what I was meant to do.”
Most recently, McDevitt can add “author”
to his list of jobs. His book “Pittsburgh
Drinks: A History of Cocktails, Nightlife and
Bartending Tradition” actually began as two
works, one by McDevitt and the other by his
co-author Sean Dwyer Enright. “I was writing
a cultural history while Sean was working on
writing a bartending instruction guide,” he
explains. The two met through social media
and, after sharing ideas, decided to meet at a
coffee shop to collaborate.
Enright, 46, is a well-known bartender
throughout Pittsburgh, working at Embury,
Carmella’s Plates & Pints, 1947 Tavern, Lava
Lounge, Tiki Lounge, Club Cafe and Spirit.
He’s also the general manager at Cafe Allegro,
Spoon, Mio, Andora, Sienna and Carrick
Lit Club, and is the wine director at Casbah,
Soba and Eleven. Originally from Norwell,
Massachusetts, Enright has two children,
Alexis and Colwyn.
“At our initial meeting, our individual
ideas morphed into a historical
narrative accompanied by a
compendium of recipes,” says
McDevitt, who wrote and edited
the historical section of the book
as well as the profiles of featured
bartenders while Enright
collected recipes and decided
which bartenders to feature. “Sean is truly the
driving force behind the promotion of our
book,” adds McDevitt. “His contribution of
the tough-to-find recipes that are a part of the
book was invaluable.”
“Pittsburgh Drinks” is a cultural history
of Pittsburgh’s nightlife, written from 125
years of microfilm research and dozens of oral
accounts from the past 60 years. The book
takes readers into speakeasies, cafes, cocktail
lounges, discotheques and nightclubs from
Pittsburgh’s past.
McDevitt consulted a number of online
newspaper databases as his primary research
in addition to the Carnegie Library’s
collection of alt-weeklies including In
Pittsburgh Newsweekly and City Paper. This
information, along with interviews of club
owners and bartenders, drove the writer’s
process. “The book basically consumed
my entire free time for the course of four
months,” says McDevitt.
The book was edited by George
Fattman, McDevitt’s writing coach
and a two-time Pulitzer Prize
panelist, and also influenced by
Eric Boyd, who edited the “Belt
Magazine Pittsburgh Anthology”
in which McDevitt