The term mixologist held little meaning when Tom "Tiger" Ziegler started bartending at the Hotel Congress Tap Room in the late 1950s.
The regulars at the Tap Room weren't looking for fancy; they wanted their beer cold and a hard pour on their rum and cola or gin and tonic.
The Tap Room “was cocktail central and a staple of downtown,” said Hotel Congress owner Shana Oseran, and the reason why had a lot to do with the dapper little man in the bolo tie tending bar.
For 60 years, Ziegler poured the drinks and curated the conversations at the Tap Room, rechristened Tiger’s Tap Room in honor of his 80th birthday in 2013.
“He was the constant, the thing that gave the soul to the place,” Hotel Congress’s former entertainment director David Slutes said Friday, hours after Ziegler’s family announced that he had died. “He was Hotel Congress’s soul.”
Tom "Tiger" Ziegler and David Slutes
“The love of his life was the Hotel Congress and the Tap Room,” said his sister-in-law, Bea-Ann Ziegler. ” “The way that the people of the Congress had taken care of him and loved him as family was wonderful.”
Ziegler died on Dec. 21, two weeks after he had entered hospice care. He was 91.
Bea-Ann Ziegler said Ziegler had suffered a stroke two years ago that left him with balance issues that led to a series of recent falls.
Ziegler was born in Dubuque, Iowa, on May 28, 1933, the youngest of four kids — two boys and two girls. He graduated from Dubuque Senior High School and worked an office job for a couple of years before he moved to Tucson in 1953.
He lived with his aunt and uncle, Don Vosberg, a former NFL player who was an assistant University of Arizona football coach from 1947-51 and a charter member of the Tucson Conquistadors. Ziegler got a job as a trucking company dispatcher and spent weekends working in a bar at a Mount Lemmon lodge.
“That’s where he got his bartending experience,” Bea-Ann Ziegler said.
He went to work at Hotel Congress in 1959, initially as a part-timer doing whatever needed to be done around the hotel before landing in the Tap Room.
But it was in the Tap Room that he found his true joy.
“He was that bartender that he was friendly with absolutely everyone,” said Oseran. “He ruled that bar like it was his. He got Christmas cards from everybody.”
Ziegler was a snazzy dresser, donning bolo ties and colorful shirts and jackets, often accentuated with a bolo-style hat.
“He loved attention. He just loved people making a big deal out of him,” said his niece, Mindi Ziegler Johnson, who lives in Gilbert. “He would always wear his sparkly hat and jacket.”
Ziegler had a reputation for respecting his female customers and expected his male customers to follow his lead. When they got out of line, he was quick to show them the door, no matter how big or bad they were, Oseran said.
“He could kick out the burliest, meanest guy in the room by pointing at the door,” Slutes said.
Tom “Tiger” Ziegler, center, stands by the bar waiting for more patrons at the Tap Room inside the Hotel Congress in 2009.
But Ziegler never really caught on to the whole mixology movement with its creative concoctions and newfangled techniques.
“He was never a real bartender. He was just a guy behind the bar and he was just that guy,” Slutes said. ”He was the counselor, the laugher and crier with people. He was no mixologist, but everyone would rather have a drink made by him than anyone in the world.”
Ziegler worked full-time at the Tap Room until about 2017, when he went down to part-time. During the pandemic when the bar was closed, Ziegler would come to the hotel and stand outside, greeting passersby with his big smile and signature bright outfits.
Slutes said having Ziegler in the Tap Room was the connective tissue to the hotel’s historic and storied past and its presence. Ziegler was the face and personality of the hotel for more than half of its lifespan.
Tom "Tiger" Ziegler on Jan. 25, 2010.
“You had this great old place like Congress and this person there that made the historical context so real,” Slutes said. “He would tell you he had the best job in the world and he’d tell you how happy he was.”
“He was always just happy,” recalled his niece, who said she got to know her Uncle Tom from sitting at the bar as a young girl, drinking Shirley Temples and slipping quarters in the jukebox. “He didn’t have a lot of things; he had a lot of people and i think that is a true testament to a great life. … He loved people and truly lived a great life.”
In addition to his sister-in-law and niece, Ziegler is survived by numerous nieces and nephews.
The family will hold private graveside services followed by a celebration of life event at Hotel Congress, 311 E. Congress St., from 2-4 p.m. on Jan. 11.
