Ross Simon realized in Scotland that he preferred booze over books. “I was better at working in a pub than I was at college, and I enjoyed it a lot more,” he says. In the early 2000s, he invested himself to learning and understanding the craft of the cocktail. And just five years later, Simon moved to the United States.

Now the principal barman & proprietor at Bitter & Twisted in Phoenix, Simon continues his story in his cocktails. In this episode of “Across the Bar,” brought to you by the Foodable WebTV Network, Simon reveals some of the challenges in the bar game, tells us what makes a great bartender, and whips up three creative cocktails — the Lime and the Coconut, the La Chocolat Sazerac, and the LIT Up — for mixology inspiration.