Into The Barchive

In Episode 22 of Into the Barchive, Blake and Tim dive into the story of America’s most-ordered cocktail: the Margarita. From its debated origins and connection to the Tequila Daisy to the rise of Tex-Mex restaurants, frozen drink machines, and the cocktail renaissance, this episode explores how tequila, lime, and orange liqueur became one of the most recognizable drinks in the world. Along the wa...

Episode 21 of Into the Bar-Cive dives into one of the most iconic cocktails of the last 50 years: the Cosmopolitan. 🍸💖 Often dismissed as just a trendy pink drink from the 1990s, the Cosmo actually played a pivotal role in bringing sophisticated cocktails back into mainstream culture. From its debated origins in San Francisco and South Beach to its explosion in popularity through Sex and the Cit...

The mint julep isn’t just a drink—it’s a ritual, a symbol, and a story layered with centuries of history. In this episode of Into the Barchive , we go beyond the silver cups and Kentucky Derby traditions to uncover the deeper origins of the julep. What started as a medicinal syrup in the Middle East evolved into a colonial American staple, shaped by agriculture, innovation, and the often-overlooke...

Welcome back to Into the Barchive , where every drink comes with a past. This week, we’re asking a deceptively simple question: when is a martini… not a martini? 🍸 Step into the neon-lit world of the 1990s, where anything cold, colorful, and served in a V-shaped glass earned the “martini” label—whether it had anything to do with gin and vermouth or not. From Appletinis to the now-infamous Porn St...

Welcome back to Into the Barchive, where every drink comes with a past. April 19th marks National Amaretto Day, making it the perfect time to revisit one of the most misunderstood bottles behind the bar. Often dismissed as overly sweet or stuck in the disco era, amaretto’s reputation says more about how it’s been used than what it actually is. In this episode, we set out to change that. We start b...

The gin and tonic may be rooted in British history, but its story doesn’t stop there. In this episode of Into the Barchive , we follow the G&T beyond its origins as a medicinal drink and explore how it has been reimagined around the world. From its beginnings as a quinine delivery system in colonial outposts to its evolution into a global symbol of refreshment, the gin and tonic has adapted to...

Welcome back to Into the Barchive, where the past comes alive. As we move deeper into spring, we turn our attention to a category of cocktails that feels both fresh and misunderstood—floral drinks. For some, floral cocktails can feel overly perfumey or too sweet. But historically, flowers weren’t added for decoration—they were functional. Long before cocktails were crafted for menus, floral ingred...

This week, in honor of Women’s History Month, we take a deeper look at the stories cocktail history too often leaves out—the women who helped shape the bar as we know it today. While the narrative is often centered on legendary male bartenders, this episode widens the lens to reveal a richer, more complete story. Women weren’t just present behind the bar—they were innovators, leaders, and culture-...

This week on Into the Barchive , Dr. Blake Jones and Tim Wright give vermouth the attention it deserves. For a lot of home bartenders, vermouth becomes a question mark. You buy a bottle for one martini or Manhattan, tuck it into the fridge door, and hope it is still good the next time you need it. Or worse, it sits on the bar cart getting dusty and oxidized while the drink gets blamed when things...

This week on Into the Barchive , Dr. Blake Jones and Tim Wright take on St. Patrick’s Day without the green beer, gimmicks, or Irish car bombs. Instead, they dig into the real history behind the holiday and build two cocktails that reflect two very different sides of Irish and Irish-American drinking culture . First up is the Tipperary , a historic Irish whiskey cocktail with roots in the early 20...

Few phrases in cocktail culture are more famous or more misunderstood than “shaken, not stirred.” But behind the pop culture reference lies a much deeper question bartenders have wrestled with for over a century: What actually changes when we choose one technique over another? In Episode 12 of Into the Barchive, we run a controlled experiment using the classic Gimlet as our case study. Same histor...

On Into the Barchive, we dig through the footnotes, forgotten names, and overlooked pages of cocktail history to better understand what’s actually in our glass. And for Black History Month, we’re spotlighting a figure whose name deserves to sit alongside Jerry Thomas and Harry Johnson. Tom Bullock. Bullock was a working bartender at the highest levels of American hospitality in the early 1900s, an...

In Episode 10 of Into the Barchive, Dr. Blake Jones and Tim Wright slow things down and explore the quiet ritual of the nightcap. Not dessert drinks. Not last-call chaos. But intentional, spirit-forward pours meant to signal that the evening is winding down. Because a nightcap is not about indulgence. It is about closure. This week’s builds keep it simple and contemplative: 🥃 Rusty Nail Blended S...

This week on Into The Barchive , the beads are flying, the brass bands are rolling, and Mardi Gras is in full swing. So there is only one drink that makes sense to tackle. The official cocktail of New Orleans. The Sazerac . Blake and Tim dive deep into the history, myth, and ritual behind one of America’s oldest cocktails, a drink that sits right at the crossroads of medicine, culture, and celebra...

February can feel like the longest month of winter: cold, dark, and still a ways from spring. In Episode 8 of Into the Barchive, Dr. Blake Jones and Tim Wright turn up the heat and explore the often overlooked world of hot cocktails, drinks that long predate cheap ice, refrigeration, and even the word “cocktail.” Blake builds the classic Hot Toddy, a comfort-first template that started as simple s...

Usually on Into the Barchive, we talk about spirits like gin, rum, tequila, and whiskey, the ingredients that give cocktails their backbone. But as Dry January winds down, Dr. Blake Jones and Tim Wright ask a different question. What makes a cocktail a cocktail when you take the alcohol out? In Episode 7, Blake and Tim explore the rise of non-alcoholic cocktails, not as an afterthought or a “kids...

In Episode 6 of Into The Barchive, Dr. Blake Jones and Tim Wright close out their inaugural cocktail family series with the richest, most decadent template of them all: the Flip. If sours and daisies are about balancing sweet and sour, flips are about balancing alcohol, sweetness, and richness to create a cocktail that drinks like dessert. That richness comes from a key ingredient many people stil...

In Episode 5 of Into The Barchive, Dr. Blake Jones and Tim Wright tackle the cocktail template most people overlook because it seems too easy: the Highball. At first glance, it is just “spirit plus mixer.” A Jack and Coke. A rum and soda. A gin and tonic. But this episode makes the case that the highball is one of the most culturally important drinks in the world, and when it is done with intentio...

In Episode 4 of Into The Barchive , Dr. Blake Jones and Tim Wright keep the cocktail template journey rolling with one of the most important building blocks in the canon: the Daisy . If the Sour is spirit, citrus, and sweetener, the Daisy takes that familiar balance and adds a new layer of complexity with a modifier , usually a liqueur. That extra ingredient can bring orange, floral, spice, fruit,...

In Episode 3 of Into The Barchive, Dr. Blake Jones and Tim Wright continue their exploration of classic cocktail families by diving into two of the most iconic and influential drinks of all time: the Manhattan and the Martini. This episode proves that simplicity can be the ultimate form of sophistication. With just a handful of ingredients, these cocktails showcase balance, restraint, and the powe...

In Episode 2 of Into The Barchive, hosts Dr. Blake Jones and Tim Wright dive into one of the most refreshing and foundational cocktail families: the Sour. Building on the cocktail framework introduced in Episode 1, this episode explores how the Sour strips things down to three essential elements: spirit, citrus, and sweetener. Simple on paper, mastering the Sour is all about balance, precision, an...

Welcome to the very first episode of Into The Barchive, the podcast where history, culture, and great drinks come together. Hosted by historian and certified spirits specialist Dr. Blake Jones alongside with cocktail enthusiast Tim Wright, this new series brings the classroom and the bar to you. In this debut episode, Blake and Tim tackle a deceptively simple question: What is a cocktail? From an...