The Team

A frozen buffet. No power. Non-flushing toilets. A rogue sprinkler system. The Music to Your Mouth Team has a plethora of hilarious and stressful behind the scenes moments. You can read the full story here, and get to know the team a little better.

Kirk Gilbert | Executive Chef
Kirk Gilbert is Executive Chef at The Inn at Palmetto Bluff. Gilbert oversees the Inn’s signature River House Restaurant and all culinary aspects of the award-winning resort, recognized as the “#1 Best Resort in the Continental U.S. and Canada” in Travel + Leisure’s 2009 World’s Best Awards.

With nearly 20 years experience in the restaurant industry, Gilbert honed his skills working with The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company including The Ritz-Carlton St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, The Ritz-Carlton Amelia Island and The Ritz-Carlton Sarasota in Florida. Gilbert most recently served as Executive Chef of the AAA Four Diamond Ballantyne Hotel and Lodge, a Starwood Luxury Collection resort in Charlotte, North Carolina. During this time he was instrumental in leading the signature Gallery restaurant to a Mobile Four Star rating and served as a guest chef highlighting his take on “new Southern cuisine” at the James Beard House.

Courtney Hampson | Marketing Manager
Courtney migrated South six years ago trading her 80-mile, one-way commute to work for a five-mile drive to her office in Palmetto Bluff, where she is responsible for the community-wide marketing and community relations efforts. With fifteen years of experience working in marketing, public relations, and special events, Courtney is a stickler for the details and avoids clip art at all costs.

As Marketing Manager, Courtney also heads up the organizational aspects of the Music to Your Mouth events. She’s the one who handles the spreadsheets, the budgets, the vendors, the bios, the pictures, the event schedules, the travel arrangements, the print materials and the red pen.

Courtney will be blogging about the events, guest chefs, media, festival ticket sales, and all of the other juicy Music to Your Mouth details.

Favorite libation: Margarita, rocks, with salt
Favorite plate: Pizza. Hey, I’m from Jersey!

David Mason | Beverage Manager
David moved south from New Hampshire seven years ago leaving behind the cold for the warmer climate. Growing up in his family's restaurant business, David has worked in every position - from dishwasher to line cook - but always felt most at home behind the bar concocting crazy cocktails. He became a member of the Palmetto Bluff team in 2007, and worked with Jason Carlen to develop a Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence award-winning wine list and developed the Inns specialty cocktail program

When it comes to Music To Your Mouth, David is responsible for our year-long wine dinner series, Buffalo’s First Friday dinners, and coordinating all things beverage for festival events -- which involves lots of tasting!

Jeremy Walton | Food & Beverage Director
As the team’s native southerner and Director of Food and Beverage for the Inn at Palmetto Bluff, Jeremy works each day to ensure that the traditions of the South maintain a presence on Palmetto Bluff’s menus and tables, year-round. When it comes to Music to Your Mouth, Jeremy works with over two dozen chefs to coordinate the tastes of seventeen event menus. But, he isn’t just in the kitchen … he dives into all aspects of planning and helps to build the events from soup to nuts … we’ve seen him carry tables on his back, tap kegs, and polish wine glasses.

Born and raised in a small town in Alabama, Jeremy has an undeniable connection to the people, the food ways, and the hospitality of the South. “So much of what I have done professionally has been a celebration of, or inspired by, growing up southern. For over 20 years, I have had the privilege to play a role in developing some very amazing places … I have had the opportunity be a part of creating some of the most special memories for people.”

Jeremy’s time at Palmetto Bluff has been spent shaping the food and beverage experiences here – perhaps none more fun or more southern than Music to your Mouth - which helped to earn Palmetto Bluff’s #1 Best Resort ranking from the reader’s of Travel + Leisure magazine.