No.68 Project

Derek Beres has devoted his life to exposing people to international music, yoga and mythology, and better nutritious choices as a means of creating both better individuals and a more understanding global culture. In the global music industry, he works as a journalist and DJ as well as producer and presenter. He has published five books, and has contributed to dozens of magazines and websites regarding the traditional and digital realms of global music, currently writing for Rolling Stone Middle East, National Geographic, Yoga Journal, Huffington Post, and Relix, among others. He is one half of global music producers EarthRise SoundSystem, which creates innovative contexts for 21st century music and cultures to be explored. He currently teaches eleven weekly yoga classes at Equinox Fitness and two at Pure Yoga. Derek has been featured in the NY Times, NBC Weekend Today, ABC Eyewitness News, Fox Business, BBC, and NY1, as well as in print and online by Fitness, Yoga Journal, Boston Globe, AOL’s Spinner, Newsday, MTV, NPR, and PRI.

Photo by Tracy Sham

The former Frugal Traveler columnist for the New York Times, Matt Gross now writes the “Getting Lost” series for the paper, the “Voyager” column for GetCurrency.com, and various other stories for Saveur and Afar magazines. Along with two other journalists, he also writes about parenting at DadWagon.com. Born in Concord, Massachusetts, and raised up and down the eastern seaboard, he now lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Jean, and daughter, Sasha.

Defying much of his formal photography training from the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, Jonas Lara has made a career tilting his camera towards the unconventional terrain of urban landscapes.

Lara strongly believes he shares a visual language with architects, engineers, painters and other artists who challenge the conventionality of gravity and space.

His fascination for and collaboration with other artists is evident in his emerging artist portrait series and his extensive portfolio of architectural photography. Lara’s camera has pointed its unique angled lens at structures on behalf of such clients as Escher Gunewardena, Patrick Tighe as well as Nike. He is now based in New York City.

Iowa native Jared Boller was introduced to bartending in 2004 while studying abroad in Costa Rica. Drawn to the beach bum lifestyle of Central America, Boller found his love within the hospitality industry, as he met new people and practiced his Spanish while slinging drinks along the coast. Finding passion in travel as well as bartending, Boller graduated from the University of Iowa in 2005 and began working fulltime in both front and back of house positions in a premiere Iowa City restaurant to support his travel habit. After traveling through Asia, with stops in Nepal and Thailand along the way, Boller landed in Vail, Colorado where he began to seriously hone his signature improvisational style behind the bar.

In the spring of 2007, Boller made the move to Denver where he began creating seasonal cocktail menus for Ocean and Nine75, where he met then-Executive Chef Troy Guard, whose own love of inventive, whimsical and seasonally inspired food matched perfectly with Boller’s fresh-faced improvisational style. When Guard decided to open his own restaurant, TAG, in downtown Denver, Boller joined him and created award-winning handcrafted cocktails inspired by Guard’s continental cuisine. Read More…

With over ten years behind the stick, on 4 continents, in over 10 countries, Justin Noel is a nomadic bartender if there ever was one. Justin started his bar career learning the flair game in the nightclub scene in some of New York and South Beach’s more established venues before making the shift to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company after graduating from college in 2003.

It was at the Ritz-Carlton Reynolds Plantation in Greensboro, GA that he learned the art of the cocktail and gained the passion that comes with learning the craft of serious bartending. After transferring to Miami to open the Ritz-Carlton South Beach, he had the pleasure to get to work at Skybar and came across another industry great, John Leyermeyer. From 2005 to 2008 Justin was a Brand Ambassador with Bacardi in New Zealand, Australia, South East Asia and Greece. In 2008 he returned back to the states and consulted on several projects, including Uptown Lounge in Atlanta, and Americas Backyard in Ft. Lauderdale. Justin has traveled with Bacardi’s B-Live music tour as the Bar Specialist, as well as Hennessy for the Hennessy Artistry concert series.

Justin is now back in New York, serving as a consulting mixologist for Contemporary Cocktails, Inc., representing Appleton Estate Rum as the New York Brand Ambassador and working on opening various notable bars and restaurants including The Breslin at The Ace Hotel and Forty Four at The Royalton Hotel. His current focus is on creating a menu of French Colonial-inspired cocktails for the upcoming opening of 1534 in Nolita. Justin was also a Division I soccer player in college and played professionally in Europe for a few years. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.