Lush Life

99 episodes ago I had a mic and “bottom’s up” to end the show. Now we have reached the 100th episode - I have a mic, bottoms up and 99 episodes of Lush Life Podcast! This is due to the hard work and dedication of everyone involved with a Lush Life Manual and Lush Life podcast, especially my producer Evo Terra who was with me when Lush Life was in the idea stage and who has remained my work partner...

Our guest today always loved the stories, that’s why he went in for a degree in history. Now Pete Garraway, Brand Ambassador of STARWARD whisky, spends his days telling one particular story - of why one should be drinking Australian whisky. It’s not hard to convince them once they have had a sip of STARWARD, the award winning whisky born and bred in Australia. He joins us today to tell us his stor...

My first stop on my first trip to Louisville or so I thought, but I was to be corrected by our guest today. Technically we were in Shively not Louisville even though it’s minutes away from the centre of town. Sylvia Holden, Team Leader for the Bulleit Frontier Whiskey Experience at Stitzel-Weller Distillery, explained why being in Shively was so important for bourbon history. As a native Kentuckia...

Our guest today made his way from Georgetown Kentucky to Tahara Japan and came back with Ganbaru - the Japanese word for never stopping until a goal is achieved. This became crystal clear when I met Daniel Harrison, co-founder of Country Boy Brewery . DH, as he is known, was always a beer lover, but during his stint teaching english in japan it became a passion. Arriving home in Kentucky he and hi...

Our guest didn’t realise he was a lover of rum until he sipping it at his first RumFest. His wife’s comment “wouldn’t it be fun to go to the Rum Fest in London for the weekend” changed everything for him. Now Pete Holland has given his life over to this molasses based spirit and has never regretted it. He is the man behind TheFloatingRumShack.com and one of the UK’s Authorities on Rum. Now he is a...

The region of Savoie Mont Blanc in France is known for a lot of things - mountains, skiing, hiking, Michelin starred restaurants, but not usually its wines. That’s all changing as more and more of them are winning awards. I was invited by Savoie Mont Blanc Tourism to meet the folks who are spreading the word about the wines I’ve been sipping with my tartiflette when shushing the slopes of Chamonix...

Most of the people I interview have been doing their jobs as brand ambassadors for a long, long time - having begun their career as bartenders or in house at a drinks brand. Few have come to it through a special program designed to appeal to graduates from all backgrounds. I thought that hearing that journey would make a change. Our guest today, Scott Lever was one of those lucky grads. Only a yea...

It might seem like a long stretch to go from lawyer to Co-lead Brewer at Truman’s Brewery, one of the most iconic of British brands. but not if you listen to the advice of our guest’s mother. Charlotte Cook wasn’t shy and she grabbed what she could.  It literally took one sip of IPA to get her to change her career from would be lawyer to would be brewer, but let her tell you how. I am forgoin...

Thanks to the hard work of our guest today, Pisco Waqar is a whole lot easier to find on the shelves in London than it was even three years ago. Javiera Lorenzini Raty, Brand Ambassador for Pisco Waqar, fell in love with Pisco and John Donne at about the same time. I don’t usually say that in a sentence that’s for sure. Her passion for English poets may have led her to London, but her studies as a...

I truly believe that today's guests were on a mission to take on the business world as soon as they were born and in this case that would be the same day. Joyce and Raissa de Haas are the twin sisters behind Double Dutch Drinks , the extremely successful mixers that in less than a year were the most sought after in London. These two took the time to sit down with me to tell me their tale of where...

Who applies to Harvard when they know they have no chance of getting in? Today’s guest, that’s who, and, of course, Tom Tuke-Hastings, founder of the non-alcoholic spirit Borrago , wowed them in every way and succeeded in winning a place to one of the most exclusive programs in the world. It’s not a surprise - Tom has succeeded in almost everything from winning the design prize at school to cookin...

La Hechicera Rum is one of those brands I have fallen head over heels in love with. Maybe it was its history recounted so beautifully by owner Miguel Riascos right here on Lush Life in April of this year. Maybe it was my own wonderful adventure to Colombia and tasting La Hechicera in situ or maybe it was because of today’s guest, Stephanie Jordan . I met her when she was Brand Ambassador of La Hec...

This episode is a cocktail whose ingredients include hard work, determination, and a natural ease with guests all mixed with a centuries old Italian spirit reborn. This creation is served up by today’s guest, Luca Missaglia, the Brand Ambassador for probably the chicest spirit to come out of Italy today, Italicus - Rosolio di Beragmotto .  I almost said it was a new spirit which has taken the...

Sometimes I sip something at a drinks do and immediately need to meet the people behind it. This time, that cocktail was Silver Swift’s Ready to Drink Wild Rose Gin at the Spirit Show in London. It as fortuitous that Rose Unwin, the founder of Silver Swift , was the one holding the bottle. A few months later, when I could lure her into London from the wilds of the Southwest, she sat down with me t...

This week I was invited to the inaugural Peter Spanton Cocktail Competition, being held at the Jin Bo Law cocktail bar in Aldgate, London. Before anyone picked up a shaker, William Stern, the Commercial Director of Peter Spanton, sat down with me to explain why and how they conceived the competition in the first place. Four groups of two bartenders prepared and presented one cocktail to the three...

How is it possible for our next guest to do so many things at once and all well? Reinhard Engel, the owner of Nuremberg’s Altstadthof makes Beer, Whiskey, and gin from his distillery in the historic centre of this ancient city - a city that has over 26,000 kilometers of beer cellars below the street. He’s with us today to describe how he managed to revive A nuremberg beer that was almost lost fore...

If you’ve just joined us then you need to go back to the previous episode and start from the very beginning of Tim Etherington-Judge’s journey. Before he established Healthy Hospo - the foundation that provides information, advice, and support on mental & physical health for all hospitality professionals, he’d been all over the world as a bartender and brand ambassador. Now, in this episode, w...

If you are new to the hospitality industry or even an old-timer, you should listen to the next two episodes of Lush Life. The story that unfolds over these two episodes could be your story. Our guest, Tim Etherington-Judge has literally been through it all and come out the other side with all the tools necessary to help his fellow colleagues in the hospitality industry. Thank goodness he had the b...

Providing a great experience for his punters is the driving force behind everything today’s guest does. I can tell you right now Stephan Schulz has achieved his goal because everyone who either lives in Nuremberg, Germany or visits knows to stop into Mata Hari Bar . He wasn’t even supposed to own a bar but it might be the perfect instance of when a dream becomes a reality. Our Cocktail of the Week...

I really want to make this the shortest intro of all. It’s just I don’t want to give away anything about our next guest until you hear it from him. Visit Justus Hoffstaedter at the Hotel Heureka in Venice now and I mean now because you’ll want to say you knew him when. As for his future plans, I’ll let him tell you, but it all began in Baden-Baden! Our Cocktail of the Week is the Lagoon Spritz. In...

Our guest today is not a bartender, distiller, or brand ambassador - but boy, does she make what they do look good. If it weren’t for the kindness of the city’s bar staff, Sara Stode might never had stayed in London, but she did and we are the lucky ones. How did this Swede end up being the London’s most famous Drinks Illustrator, she was here to tell us. Our Cocktail of the Week is the Sgroppino...

Our next guest spent her early years in the woods foraging for tasty treats, leaving her mother in constant fear that she might nibble on a poisonous mushroom. Happily, we can report that Sigi Klein is alive and well and using those same herbs to build her cocktails. Working at Gelbes Haus, the oldest cocktail bar in Nuremberg, Sigi revealed how she ended up as a Chef de Bar in the first place. Ou...

Our guest today is a revolutionary and an innovator in the fIeld of Cognac. Even though her family have been making cognac for four generations before her, Fanny Fougerat came late to the party. She joins us today to tell us how she is making up for lost time. Creating the first of many mind-blowing cognacs which are making bartenders sit back and rethink everything they knew about the spirit. Our...

Our guests today are the guardians of Lady Charlotte Fitzrovia’s daring love story. It was up to Sandy Kaur and Mario Romano to recreate the world of Lady Charlotte and her lover at Vijay’s Lounge in London’s busy centre of town. How did they even start? I’ll let them tell you all the details. Our Cocktail of the Week is the Ananda Brew created by mixologist Topesh Chatterjee who hails from New De...

The family of our guest today views the world by what is edible and what is not edible. It’s not a shock that Valentine Warner would end up as one of the most well known chefs in the UK. Working hand in hand with Mother nature, Valentine’s first foray into the spirit would produced award winning Hepple Gin. Our Cocktail of the Week is the Hepple Martini. Ingredients 10 Parts Hepple Gin 1 Part Dry...