Lush Life

20 years ago, a bar was born in New York City that changed the way we drink today.  Two years after that, it arrived in London. Fast forward those 20 years and Milk & Honey in London is still open and just as cutting edge as it was all those moons ago. Our guest today not only manages that legacy but is creating his own. I’m Susan Schwartz, your drinking companion, and this is Lush Life P...

The idea of sitting in a trendy Parisian bar in the 11th arrondissement, waiting for the author of many of the world’s best selling food books and the first-ever food blogger, could make anyone’s knees slightly tremblant . Then our guest today walked in with a big smile on his face said Bonjour . I’m Susan Schwartz, your drinking companion, and this is the Lush Life Podcast. Every week we are insp...

Wait right there..this is the second episode of two where we meet a bartender at the top of everyone’s game, so if you want to hear the first part of his journey. Stop and go back to the previous episode.  Oh, did I mention Erik Lorincz is that bartender?! I’m Susan Schwartz, your drinking companion, and this is Lush Life Podcast, every week we are inspired to live life one cocktail at a time...

Superlatives were invented to describe our next guest - world’s best, greatest, one and only...there is no list that he isn’t on or has been number one! Today we are in the presence of bartending royalty!  I’m Susan Schwartz, your drinking companion, and this is Lush Life Podcast, every week we are inspired to live life one cocktail at a time by the best in the industry. I truly believe...

Not everyone was born to be in the drinks industry, our guest was, but he just didn’t know how much,  until he just happened to sign up with ancestry.com. I’m Susan Schwartz, your drinking companion, and this is Lush Life Podcast, every week we are inspired to live life one cocktail at a time by the best in the industry. Johnny Neill knew all about his father’s connection to the gin world fro...

Have you been to Chicago lately? I think it might be one of the most exciting cocktail towns in the world and I am thrilled that we’re going back to it this week to meet two more of its mixology maestros!  I’m Susan Schwartz, your drinking companion, and this is Lush Life Podcast, every week we are inspired to live life one cocktail at a time by the best in the industry.  Last week, we h...

When you’ve won Imbibe Cocktail Bar of the year, the Spirited Award for Best American Cocktail Bar at Tales of the Cocktail and been short-listed for the James Beard Foundation Award for best bar program, you might rest on your laurels. Well, not our guest today, she’s working as hard as ever. I’m Susan Schwartz, your drinking companion, and this is Lush Life Podcast, every week we are inspired to...

On the 25th of January every year, Scots and Scotland lovers toast poet extraordinaire Robert Burns “Of Mice and Men” and “My Love is Like a Red Red Rose” fame.  I usually skip the haggis and neaps and tatties and go straight to that golden liquid that Robbie called O thou, my Muse! guid auld Scotch drink! and who better to celebrate with than the man formally known as Dr. Whisky.  I’m S...

It’s no surprise that our guest today still dreams of being the host of the  Radio 1 breakfast show one day. He definitely has the gift of the gab. Right now he is using that gift to introduce Four Pillars Gin to everyone he can! I’m Susan Schwartz, your drinking companion, and this is Lush Life Podcast, every week we are inspired to live life one cocktail at a time by the best in the industr...

Welcome  back to Lush Life! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.  We swing back into action with a guest who was always the guy at the office who doing whisky Tastings. I had no idea that position even existed.  I’m Susan Schwartz, your drinking companion, and this is Lush Life Podcast, every week we are inspired to live life one cocktail at a time by the best in the industry.&n...

If you didn’t listen to last week’s episode, then press stop and go back to that one now!  You’ll meet Geoff Speiran, the Global Whiskey Ambassador for The Dublin Liberties Distillery. Once you know all about Geoff, then you are ready to take on our tour. I’m Susan Schwartz, your drinking companion, and this is Lush Life Podcast, every week we are inspired to live life one cocktail at a time...

Buenos dias! That’s what our guest today would have greeted me with if he had ended up a Spanish teacher. Instead, he greeted me with a dram of Irish Whiskey and I am not complaining. I’m Susan Schwartz, your drinking companion, and this is Lush Life Podcast, every week we are inspired to live life one cocktail at a time by the best in the industry.  Today Geoff Speiran, Global Whiskey A...

Born and bred on the Scottish Island of Islay, one would assume that whisky was in our guest’s blood, but it took a venture off island to bring him straight back. I’m Susan Schwartz, your drinking companion, and this is Lush Life Podcast, every week we are inspired to live life one cocktail at a time by the best in the industry.  Adam Hannett thought he was destined for a life of marine biolo...

Jamaican rum is known for its high esters - those are the compounds that give it the heady aromas it has and makes it taste all banana-y, pineapple-y and fruity.  Some also call it funk, but our guest calls it magic. I’m Susan Schwartz, your drinking companion, and this is Lush Life Podcast, every week we are inspired to live life one cocktail at a time by the best in the industry.  Chri...

If you find yourself shuttling from Cincinnati Airport to Lexington Kentucky down Interstate 75, you’ll see the signs directing you to stop at Boone County Distilling Company.  Only 6 minutes off the interstate and you can take a tour of the only distillery that says its bourbon is “made by ghosts.” Too far to go, well then, you can sit back and listen to today’s episode and I’ll bring the to...

Convincing people to enjoy a glass of sake while tucking into a pepperoni pizza is going to be a tough job. Our guest today is ready to take on that challenge. I’m Susan Schwartz, your drinking companion, and this is Lush Life Podcast, every week we are inspired to live life one cocktail at a time by the best in the industry.  I lured Sake Sommelier Satomi Dosseur away from an event we were b...

Way up in the mountains, you’d expect to be served a hot chocolate or a hot toddy, but a rum sour? You would think that’s more of a beach cocktail. Thanks to our guest today, you would be wrong. It’s home right here in Crested Butte, Colorado. I’m Susan Schwartz, your drinking companion, and this is Lush Life Podcast, every week we are inspired to live life one cocktail at a time by the best in th...

Our guest today is rewriting the English dictionary. No longer will “it’s just small beer” mean something unimportant. From now on, small beer means just that small beer! I’m Susan Schwartz, your drinking companion, and this is Lush Life Podcast, every week we are inspired to live life one cocktail at a time by the best in the industry.  Felix James, cofounder of Small Beer Brew company here...

Like many others who came before him, our guest today fell in love with Venice at first site. Unlike many others, he brought Venice home with him..in a big way.  I’m Susan Schwartz, your drinking companion, and this is Lush Life Podcast, every week we are inspired to live life one cocktail at a time by the best in the industry.  We’re not talking a t-shirt or gondola-shaped ashtray, Russ...

Robert Roy MacGregor, the infamous 17th-century outlaw was Scottish through and through. Most likely, he would have been a little bothered that the classic cocktail named after him was invented in the USA. Well, it doesn't matter really where it was invented. We are still drinking it thanks to our guest today, the National Brand Ambassador of Glenfiddich.  I’m Susan Schwartz, your drinking co...

Jennings Cox is one of the biggest names in cocktails. History has remembered him as the “inventor” of the daiquiri. But as David Wonrich the famous drinks historian says "The daiquiri represents such an obvious marriage between local, as in Cuban,  ingredients—rum, sugar, limes—and American technology—cocktail shaker, ice—that it would take the chowder -headedest duffer who ever buttoned a t...

A Negroni is one of the great cocktail classics. In fact, it’s celebrating its 100th birthday this year, when, as legend would have it, Count Camillo Negroni asked his bartender to add a drop of gin to his Americano.   Folks are changing up ingredients all the time and the negroni has been tinkered with by creative bartenders trying their hand at redefining the basic recipe of vermouth,...

Hello everyone and welcome back for Season 4 of Lush Life - The classic Collection. We’ll be exploring classic cocktails  - who drank them, who makes them and a few modern twist on the genre.  Things would get so boring if we didn’t change it up a little, so saying that I wanted to let you know the format has been “jujjed” slightly.  Don’t be scared -  none of the good stuff is...

September has come ‘round and I am bursting with enthusiasm.  So in that state of mind, Season 4 of Lush Life - The Classic Collection will commence next Tuesday .  I’m Susan Schwartz, your drinking companion, and this is Lush Life Podcast, every week we are inspired to live life one cocktail at a time by the best in the industry.   The Classic Collection...hmm what’s that I hear you asking yourse...

Trentino, nestled in the Alps, welcomes each and every guest with a glass of Bollincine Da Montagna translated as Mountain Bubbles but officially known as Trentodoc - their splendid sparkling wine. But what else is there to drink in this gorgeous northern region of Italy. I’m Susan Schwartz, your drinking companion, and this is Lush Life Podcast, every week we are inspired to live life one cocktai...