By Alison Bailin Batz / Photo by Claudia Johnstone
As a teen, Trish Ritchie set her sights on working in hospitality as a means to travel, taking a job at a golf resort in her native Florida. Upon graduation, she transferred to a sister resort in Durango, Colorado in 1989, where she met and started dating a handsome bellman named Brad Ritchie.
The couple married in 1995 and welcomed daughter Bren in 1999. In 2007, they made Arizona home. By then, Trish was rising in the ranks at Dave & Buster’s while Brad worked in sales and real estate. Over the next 15 years, the Ritchies raised Bren in the north Valley. “In 2021, Brad and I started talking about opening our own bar and restaurant,” Trish says. “As the conversation progressed, Brad began to fall ill. After a series of tests, he was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia.”
Brad underwent chemotherapy and was nearly cancer free by December 2021. “We started talking about the restaurant again at this time, but tragically Brad’s cancer came back, and we lost him in March 2022,” Trish says.
For the next year, the mother and daughter worked through their grief. In 2023, Trish began thinking about moving forward with the restaurant with Bren at her side. At the same time, Bren suggested they develop a private label vodka to honor her dad. By October 2023, they made both dreams a reality with the opening of One Handsome Bastard, Old Town Scottsdale’s only microdistillery (www.onehandsomebastard.com), in the space formerly occupied by Blue Clover Distillery.
“The name is a term Brad would use on himself with a wink while looking in the mirror,” Trish says.
They are working in partnership with Blue Clover to offer the brand’s popular array of premium, small-batch gin and vodkas. The industrial space also offers a full menu of craft cocktails and elevated bar favorites, flatbreads, salads, and sweets. “Bren has shown a real talent for distilling, so she is working toward becoming our master distiller as well,” Trish says. “We are also very proud to announce the launch of One Handsome Bastard, our hand-distilled vodka named for Brad.”
Ten percent of the sale of each bottle of One Handsome Bastard benefits a local cancer-focused nonprofit. “In June, we will distribute our first donation to The Singletons, which is devoted to meeting the needs of single-parent families battling cancer,” Bren says.
By Becky Antioco / Photo by Claudia Johnstone
Laura Linn Knight – parenting educator, author, mindfulness and meditation leader, mother of two, and former elementary school teacher – is devoted to equipping families with the tools they need to create a calm and healthy home.
In 2019, one of Knight’s daughters, who was 5 years old at the time, started experiencing anxiety and waking up in the middle of the night screaming. Knight, immediately recognizing that something was wrong, set out on a quest to help her daughter, leading her in an unexpected direction: on a journey to address mold exposure and its profound impact on physical and mental well-being.
To find out what was causing her daughter’s suffering, Knight started at ground zero, talking to other professionals, including child psychologists. A functional medicine physician suggested testing for mold toxicity and Knight was astounded to find that there were high levels of mold in her daughter’s body and in the family’s home. Even more shocking: An estimated 10 million Americans suffer from mold toxicity.
Then came the process of healing and education, which led Knight to author a book on the topic. Titled The Toxic Mold Solution: A Comprehensive Guide to Healing Your Home and Body from Mold: From Physical Symptoms to Tests and Everything in Between, the conversational book includes research, expert guidance, case studies, and her experiences with the devastating effects of mold. Though this isn’t the first book released on the topic, according to Knight, her book is meant to be an easier read.
“It’s difficult to read a scientific book when you’re in a stress state,” she says. “This is the book I’d want to give to a friend who has questions.”
While she never set out to be an expert in this area – and wouldn’t wish mold toxicity on anyone – Knight considers it a privilege to be able to give back due to her family’s experience. “I do believe that we get opportunities to show up in the world in a helpful way, and oftentimes, it’s our pain that helps us do that.”
Next, she plans to continue her series of picture books that help children learn emotional regulation, mindfulness and ways to cope with stress.
“We live in an age when so many people are struggling, and so many kids are having a hard time. I think that books can heal people,” she says.