Shift Drink

A week ago I had the opportunity to visit KōHana Rum in Kunia, Oahu. And that visit was precisely what I needed to get my groove back. The trek to the distillery from Honolulu is a picturesque paradise. But the one thing that I didn’t see on that drive was sugarcane. Sugarcane used to be an important crop for Hawai’i, but the industry up and vanished – seemingly overnight. So sta...

Over the last decade, Sherry has increasingly become a drink of choice for bartenders and service industry professionals. It has started showing up on bar programs, in cocktails, and the used casks have become a distiller’s favorite way to finish different spirits. Although once as ubiquitous on the table as whiskey or rum, consumption dropped off hard in the late 19th and early 20th centuri...

Today I welcome Jennifer Matthewson , founder of Daily Blender ,to the show. As the ripple effects of the pandemic are now becoming clear, it looks as though we are losing her blog as another casualty of COVID-19.   Food journalism has been going a major transformation over the last decade. The early 2000’s saw the rise of message boards which I turn spawned food blogs. And this helped to usher in...

One in four Americans lives with some degree of disability – whether that is the need for a wheelchair, limited sight or hearing, or limited range of motion. Yannick Benjamin is one of those Americans. And he also happens to be the co-owner of one of New York’s hottest new restaurants. Contento , located in East Harlem, opened on June 10th of 2021 in the midst of a global pandemic. And...

Nick Kokonas has worked in some of the most well-known cocktail destinations in Chicago. But it was at Heritage that he curated a program that eventually led to an entire project. When his manager there told him that they’d do a book together once he had over 50 unique tonic recipes, Nick took it literally. His new book, Something and Tonic , came out in May of 2020 and it’s already se...

There are few things more confusing than the three-tier system controlling alcohol distribution in the United States. It’s a topic that is complex even for policy savvy bar owners and restaurateurs — and even more so for the average consumer that just wants to find a bottle of their favorite bourbon (or rum!). So, today I’ve brought in Adam Thierer , Senior Research Fellow from the Mercatus Center...

It’s been four months, but we’re finally back from break. And this week I have my friend Al Thompson on the show to talk his position as Beverage Director for Thip Khao and Hanumanh in Washington DC. This position is somewhat of a departure for him as he has spent the last several years working as the bar manager for Chef Jose Andres’ modernist cocktail destination, Barmini . But those techniques...

Sullivan Doh has seemingly done it all, and just seems to be garnering more respect from the community each time he shifts his focus. He became enamored with fine dining at quite a young age working at Michelin-starred restaurants in London. It was there that he decided that, if he were going to make a career of hospitality, he needed to get into bartending or cooking. Luckily for us, he chose the...

Charles Joly has witnessed and been a part of the craft cocktail renaissance since the beginning. After starting as a bar back in a high volume, underground Chicago club, he moved on and moved up – finally taking the reins at The Drawing Room in Chicago. And he realized that hospitality was his forever career. And he had a knack for it. After one of his regulars, acclaimed chef Grant Achatz,...

Bailey Pryor’s achievements are impressive. He is the recipient of several Emmy awards, has written, directed, and produced scores of movies and documentaries, and is the leading authority on notorious rum runner, Bill McCoy. And he’s barely over 50-years-old. F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said there are no second acts in life. But, Bailey’s years of research for the award-winning documentary, The...

It’s the return of André Darlington! The last time he was on the show we were discussing his now-bestselling cocktail book, Booze & Vinyl . And now he’s back to discuss his new book that took him around the world on a cocktail adventure, just months before travel restrictions and COVID-19 shut down the kind of trip he was on. Now he’s back and his new book, Booze Cruise: A To...

PLEASE NOTE: This episode mentions several links and articles. They are available at the bottom of these show notes. Sother Teague is no stranger to Shift Drink. We’ve been planning on doing a show together for years. But my first visit to his show, The Speakeasy , also included the venerable Simon Ford. So yours truly sat and listened. One does not interrupt Simon Ford. It’s the Eleve...

When Sother and I get to chatting, jaunts off-topic aren’t rare. So, here we’re offering this bonus material for you to eavesdrop. If you haven’t listened to I’m Just Here For the Shift Drink , check in to hear all about bitters!

Misty Kalkofen needs no introduction in the spirits community — or if you listened to my interview her on our last episode, Drinking Like Misty Kalkofen Pt. 1 . But regardless of whether or not you’re familiar with her work, you’ve likely encountered it. After spending the first half of her career behind Boston bars as a protégé of Brother Cleve, she met her soul mate… agav...

Misty Kalkofen has done it all. She was building craft cocktail menus in an era ruled by pre-mixed Long Island Iced Tea. While studying at Harvard Divinity School, she took at job behind the bar and ended up as a protégé of lounge legend and Tikiphile, Brother Cleve . Her dedication to hospitality and quality libations led her to focus her energy on the Boston cocktail scene rather than school. An...

Carrie Abbott started her candy company, Newfangled Confections , back in 2012. But that wasn’t the beginning. This hospitality industry veteran had been running the pastry and service side of a catering company (with my future business partner, Chef Micah Frank) when she made a confection that would alter the direction of her life. After two years and of research & development, she laun...

It’s been a wild ride for Vincent Pollard so far. As many bartenders out there, he started in the business with no real knowledge of the craft cocktail scene. But working in Canada for some of the best bars in the country put the hooks in him. He’s since been full speed ahead. His most recent project has taken him to Colombia to work on launching a new gin brand, Selva Gin – the...

As we wrap up the end of the year in our living rooms rather than bars and restaurants, I want you to take a moment and listen to this abbreviated episode about the impending collapse of the hospitality industry. YOU CAN STILL HELP! But that window is closing quickly. I’ve added links below as discussed on the episode this week. Please leave additional resource links in the comments, as well...

When Randy Prasse took the job to help overhaul the Kentucky Bourbon Festival , didn’t realize that a month later the world would shut down and no one would be able to gather in groups for the entire year. Like everyone, the organizers had to pivot and rethink what a festival could be while everyone was locked down in their own homes. This year, the event happened virtually, but the 30th Ann...

In the food and beverage world, it’s easy to dismiss companies with wide distribution as “sellouts”. We expect everyone to starve for their art and if they don’t, they become an object of our ire. Angry Orchard falls into that category. Their hard ciders have become so ubiquitous that it can feel (unfairly) that they’re the behemoth that crushes the little brands. But...

Pete Schmutte , owner and pastry chef extraordinaire of the newly-opened Leviathan Bakehouse in Indy, joins the show this week to talk about his path into pastry at a time when it seems that pastry jobs were disappearing and the career path might be dead. He persevered with the kitchen work he loved, progressing through the ranks in kitchens and bakeries in St. Louis and Chicago before ending up b...

I’ve mentioned my business partner numerous times on the show – perhaps ad nauseam (see Fear and Loathing with Beachbum Berry ). I always try to avoid doing interview with people within my circle because it’s awkward when we know each other so well. We’ve worked together on and off for 20 years, and directly for 10 years. Our partnership has allowed us to grow and build thi...

We may be witnessing the death of independent restaurants as we’ve known them. We all closed with the trust that we would have help recovering. That trust was misplaced. But many people are stepping up to help rescue the industry they love. One of the most important organizations is Thirst Group . They’re a grassroots collective of professionals that are working with legislators to ens...

It’s our 100th EPISODE! To mark the occasion, this interview was conducted in-person and… Arthur is back! And he’s brought a good friend with him this time. Elizabeth Cooper has spent her career around wine – starting in restaurants as a teenager before moving into management and finally into the sommelier program, where should would first meet Arthur. She worked in distrib...

For the first time in three years, I took a break. This week’s episode is a repost from an interview I did with Thomas Dean of Sipping with Somms a few weeks into the U.S. quarantine. It was a fun interview, and one of my first times doing any remote audio work. I have Tom to thank for helping me tweak and test the equipment setup I’ve been using for the last several months. It was fun...