For more than a decade, one night each fall has brought together South Pasadena’s builders, business owners, neighbors and a few local legends over pours of serious bourbon. This year, Dark Spirits is back under new leadership, with a new location, and with every dollar aimed at one target: getting foster youth into careers in the skilled trades.
TICKETS: Dark Spirits 2026 Dark Spirits is Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026, 5:50pm, at BurkeTriolo Studios, 538 Mission St., South Pasadena. Tickets and sponsorships are at fate.foundation/darkspirits.
The Baton Has Been Passed – The Tradition Is Kept Close
Dark Spirits was built by Bill Cullinane, Odom Stamps and Phil Putnam, and for years it lived in the charmed property grounds of the Stamps home. The event now belongs to a new generation. Kris Maines and Dylan Burke, both South Pasadena High School class of 2008, sit on the Dark Spirits board and run the event alongside their fellow founders of the F.A.T.E. Foundation – the nonprofit the night now funds.
Both were brought in by their fathers, longtime regulars.
“He wouldn’t let me come for like three years,” Kris Maines said of his dad. “I finally got invited in 2019 and I was blown away. The caliber of people that were present that I hadn’t met before, the quality of the food, the quality of the conversation, all in South Pas, all for a good cause. This is the coolest thing ever. That’s been our goal, to keep that energy going while keeping the same impact.”
“Dark Spirits is an over-a-decade-long annual South Pasadena event,” Maines said. “All proceeds go toward funding foster youth having successful careers in the trades.”
What Happens At “Dark Spirits”
Strip away the mission for a moment and the night stands on its own. This year’s featured distiller is Angel’s Envy, whose team will pour a range of bourbons and whiskeys, including a top-shelf expression finished in peach schnapps barrels. Past years have brought Suntory, Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark, Basil Hayden, Wolves and Willett – just to note a few.
Dinner is an elevated sit-down affair. Dessert comes from South Pasadena’s own Sakura Kashikawa, another SPHS 2008 graduate. Cigars from Fair Oaks Cigar Shop close the evening. A private chocolatier, Marsada Chocolate, infuses the night’s whiskey into chocolates that are sampled at the table and then auctioned.
New this year: Angel’s Envy plans to bring an engraver, and a run of commemorative Dark Spirits 2026 bottles will go up for auction.
“It’s a whiskey and bourbon experience that brings together a lot of the core members of society in South Pasadena and the surrounding cities,” Dylan Burke said. “But it’s a social experience more than anything. You get to talk to a lot of really great people. It’s hard to describe fully. It’s like a festival.”
The organizers are clear that this is not a trade show with a product table. The distillers who come are people who love what they make and like to talk about it. Guests end up on the inside of that conversation.
“Even though we’re delivering on our impact for the foster youth, that’s our real product, this event is how it’s interfacing with our customers,” Maines said. “It’s an enjoyable experience. All-you-can-drink pours of the best whiskey, amazing food, cigars at the end, the best conversation.”
This is the first Dark Spirits not held at the Stamps residence. The new setting is a partly open-air space, keeping the outdoor feel that regulars expect.
Guests will also hear from F.A.T.E.’s partners in the foster care space, who will have speaking roles during the evening. Rep. Judy Chu is expected to attend in support of the mission, along with one or two members of the South Pasadena City Council.
Who And What Is F.A.T.E.
F.A.T.E. stands for Fostering Ambition Towards Excellence. It became a 501(c)(3) in June 2024, founded by five South Pasadena friends who were already volunteering on the Dark Spirits board: Carlo Thorborn, president; Justin Bowman, vice president; Brooks Burns, treasurer; Kris Maines, secretary; and Dylan Burke, chief technology officer. Thorborn is credited with landing the name after a round of rejected ideas.
The idea came together over a pint at Griffins of Kinsale Irish Pub on Mission Street.
“What’s the biggest area that we can make impact?” Maines said. “What’s the most vulnerable demographic? Lets talk foster youth. It’s children who could use dedicated advocates.”
The second half of the equation was the labor shortage. “Skilled labor, my God, we’re a dearth of that, especially after the fires,” Maines said. “Construction needs galore.”
Kris mentions, up to half of foster youth face homelessness at some point in their lives, a figure the founders cite often. Pairing that population with some of the most stable, well-paid careers available struck them as three birds with one stone: a vulnerable group, a real need in the economy, and young adults who, once established, can come back and mentor the next ones through.
Burke’s own family history shaped it. His parents both came up through the trades, his mother in culinary and his father in photography, and his mother went looking for a place to give that would help average students rather than only the 4.0 kids. She ended up donating directly to Pasadena City College’s trades programs because nothing like F.A.T.E. existed.
“These are average people that haven’t had the same opportunities,” Burke said. “They might not be the 4.0 students, but they deserve an opportunity as well.”
From Scholarships To A Pipeline
The founders are candid that the first plan was naive. Throw events, hand out scholarships. Then came the hard questions: scholarships for what, to whom, and how does that actually land a foster youth in a job?
“We realized this is a pipeline we’re building,” Maines said. “This isn’t just a scholarship system.”
The foundation’s first concrete result came through the Flintridge Center in Pasadena, which runs a 10-week pre-apprenticeship program that ends in a union apprenticeship. The cost to put one person through is about $7,000. F.A.T.E. funded a young woman from the foster system to complete it.
In the past year the board has added partners that reach the youth directly. Sycamores, near JPL in Pasadena, provides mental health and family services for foster youth and is looking for internships and job placements its clients find challenging on their own. First Place for Youth brings housing, education and employment support and is connected to the same kind of apprenticeship track. When F.A.T.E. asked First Place what it needed most, the answer was specific: a newly hired female carpenter had just sent in a $1,500 bill for work clothing, boots and gear. F.A.T.E. is now building a grant to cover exactly that kind of start-up cost for trades workers coming out of the foster system.
The bigger plan is a four-year program, now in year two, aimed at moving 50 to 200 young adults a year through the pipeline. It starts with what the board calls a combine: a trade fair where participants try HVAC, carpentry, electrical and other trades, then shadow working professionals in the ones that fit. Feedback from both sides goes into a database of aptitudes, and targeted scholarships follow.
“You can’t just hand out money to anybody for any reason,” Burke said. “You have to really target it. We want to make the best impact that we can with the money that we have.”
The founders say the hardest part has not been money or expertise. The board is deep in construction professionals. The challenge has been connecting programs to the youth themselves, which is why the partnerships matter more than any single check.
“We’re brand new. Volunteer board,” Maines said. “We’re building those relationships with the foster youth, with the trades, and figuring out where we can step in. Be the glue between all the pieces.”
The night after this interview, the board was set to host an advisory dinner with about 14 partners and mentors to pressure-test the plan. Outreach to Los Angeles Trade-Technical College is on the list for the next two years.
The Long Game
Ask what success looks like and the answer is not a dollar figure.
“Our goal is to get a pipeline,” Burke said. “Helping mass amounts of local foster youth go through the program, be shadowed by contractors, figure out what part of the trades they like, find a job, make good money and find a good purpose in life, and then come back and mentor the next generation.”
The F.A.T.E. board has a clear vision in mind: One year soon, they want to see a graduate of the program, a former foster youth now working in the trades, to take the microphone at Dark Spirits and tell the room what the night made possible.
TICKETS: Dark Spirits 2026
Dark Spirits is Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026, , at BurkeTriolo Studios, 538 Mission St., South Pasadena. Tickets and sponsorships are at fate.foundation/darkspirits.
The South Pasadenan is honored to be a sponsor of Dark Spirits 2026.
