The Philip Duff Show

I first ran into Scott down in New Orleans at Tales of the Cocktail, but we've since hung out many times, also in Atlanta. His story, about coming up in mixology, especially in Miami in the early years when it wasn't cool, is fascinating.  Like a lot of bartenders back then, he made his own bitters, syrups and liqueurs because the industry then hadn't yet caught up to the Second Gol...

H is an old friend and I'd been meaning to catch up with him anyway, but when I heard he was piloting a ground-breaking new mentorship program for bartenders, in association with the brand he helps spearhead, Fresh Victor, it was time to schedule a session.  From being a line cook to gaining an MBA, creating products for grocery and consulting on liquor brands, then breathing new life into Sa...

Seymour has has a long career in liquor and has been a global CEO multiple times, adding millions of cases and value to every firm he worked at, from the Philippines to Singapore, to Amsterdam, and from Allied-Domecq to Maxxium to Amber Beverage, and many more besides.  Seymour was my client for years, starting at Maxxium, and we developed a friendship that's seen us collaborate on many proje...

Hemant , who is from a small village in the foothills of the Himalayas, became a star overnight after winning Diageo World Class India, followed quickly by winning Bacardi Legacy India, but when he moved to New York he was briefly homeless and just four weeks from returning to India. At the last moment he was connected to restaurateur  Rajesh Bhardwaj, owner of the Michelin-starred Junoon restaura...

Brian is a peripatetic bartender who's slung drinks in his native Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Philadelphia, New York, and, with the recently opened Vieux Carre, back to Pittsburgh. He's also been a fighter, starting with wrestling, then boxing and MMA, and fought the booze too, becoming and staying sober after going to just one too many "celebrations of life" for someone who left...

I met Aarón in Europe when he was visiting, and I've wanted to sit down with him for ages. From a childhood in kitchens to teaching culinary arts around the world and falling sideways into mixology after a stint at Chicago's world-famous Aviary, his career path has been anything but straightforward. He's now moving on from Carnaval, the bar he founded that put Lima on the map for 50...

I bumped into Mike at NY's legendary Irish bar Swift in 2020, when a mutual friend who'd been showing Mike around Manhattan bars introduced us. I'd heard a story or two about this new-to-the-market MGP-sourced bourbon named Penelope from a couple of New Jersey guys, and I took his business card and wished him well; the whiskey had only been available for a year or so at that stage....

I met Rakshay a few years back on one of the legendary Blueblazer press tours of bars in Italy, and he let me taste the agave spirit he produces in India, Maya Pistola Agavepura. Its distilled with traditional tequila methods from an Indian-grown species of agave usually used in Mexico for mezcal, then aged on the tropical Indian island of Goa before bottling. Pistola was born during Covid and aft...

Drew has been a friend for half a decade, and as well as being a lauded bar owner, we created Moonbird Gin (double gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Awards) and GOATz Spiced Rum together  - and he's a hilarious, fascinating guy.  Drew on IG:  https://www.instagram.com/drewbarman/ ( Get in touch with Duff! Podcast business enquiries:  consulting@liquidsolutions.org  (PR friends: we’re on...

I met Eric in Amsterdam in 2019 just before he moved to Mexico City to open his first bar there, and our paths have crossed a good bit since then, most recently at the Maybe Cocktail Festival in Sydney, where we got to hang out for almost a week.  Eric started off in the world of basketball, training and playing in the US, switched to hospitality after returning to the Netherlands, and rapidly lea...

What can you say about the extravagantly-bearded Norwegian Sven Almenning, who at one stage owned the world's largest bar agency, based in Sydney, running best-in-class bartender engagement programs at scale, and has since morphed into a tycoon of the Australian cocktail bar scene, with 8 or so top-notch venues in Sydney, Melbourne and the like? Well, quite a lot it seems! We talked about sav...

God help me, I've known Tobin for thirty years now, having met when we both competed in flair bartending contests, starting with the legendary Quest for the Best in Orlando many moons ago. Tobin went on to co-found the Flair Bartenders Association (FBA) and later moved to Las Vegas, where he still (mostly) hangs his hat.  He went all-in on bar design decades ago, and has completed a book, &qu...

I met Andrew several years ago when he came to hang out at an Old Duff Genever evening I was hosting at Berlin’s marvellous Zyankali Bar, and the good people of Rachel Harrison Communications recently recommended I get him on, which struck me as an excellent idea.  Turns out he’s fourth-generation American liquor royalty, with a mother from the Hiram Walker family, a great-grandfather who bootlegg...

TJ Lynch is one of the most genuinely hilarious people I know, but the success he and business partner Richard Knapp have had with cocktail dive bar Mother's Ruin - four branches, a fifth and sixth on the way, plus separate concepts in Folly Beach and Johns Island South Carolina - is no joke.  And it all started with a little bar on Spring Street in Manhattan that they opened in 2011 for the...

David’s a great guy I met through Jillian Vose, ex-supremo of mixology at Dead Rabbit and all-round bar goddess. Badger Bevs is a gorgeous range of premium mixers, and David IS ALL IN on the on-premise, so I badly wanted to sit down and hear his story, and it did not disappoint - enjoy!  Badger Bevs on IG: https://www.instagram.com/badgerbevs?igsh=cTMzYjlrZndteDg2 ( Get in touch with Duff! Podcast...

The Bitter Truth cocktail bitters launched in 2006, after German bartenders Stephan Berg and Alexander Hauck visited London Bar Show, had a drink in Sketch bar, and decided to go for it.  This year TBT celebrates 20 years, so it was time to sit down with Stephan and Alexander to talk about how a couple of bartenders making extinct bitters in their garage entered a centuries-old category and carved...

Jeff's best-known for being a mainstay of New York's world-famous speakeasy-behind-a-phone-booth Please Don't Tell (PDT), where he was hired by Jim Meehan and has worked since 2010, and which post-pandemic he bought from its founder Brian Shebairo along with the hotdog stand it's housed inside, Crif Dogs.  In a city where bartenders hop around jobs willy-nilly, Jeff credits his...

Marcio is very much Our Man In Brazil, an old friend and (during Bar Convent Brazil) I’ve visited his previous, much-vaunted bar Guilhotina.  Marcio was in NY to do a MasterCard-backed pop-up of his Sao Paolo bar, Eximia, at New York’s Dante, so we carved out a few hours to hang out and catch up.  Enjoy!  ( Get in touch with Duff! Podcast business enquiries:  consulting@liquidsolutions.org  (PR fr...

Tom and Marco are legendary flair competitors, multiple-times world champions, teachers, contest judges - and now, authors of the 501-page (!) “The Flair Bartending Book”. Its unquestionably the most definitive tome ever written on this chapter in bartending, from flair’s origins in the 1600s to Jerry Thomas & co.’s flamboyant 1800s mixology to TGI Friday’s Bartender Olympics in 1984, THAT mov...

Paul's been a a friend for ages; he's former London bartender and bar owner, taught seminars for the WSET and Diageo, has lived all over the world* as a conservation biologist - and founded Everleaf.  *And is currently wrapping up several years living in Iceland! We chatted about his many careers, the bar biz, learning Chinese, being part of Diageo's Distill Ventures brand incubator...

Ruben’s an old friend from Amsterdam, a native Aruban who bartended in Amsterdam and London, and whose life was changed by a Diplomatico rum training he attended while working as a flair bartender at London’s famed Roadhouse.  (That training was given by none other than Declan McGurk, himself a former flair bartender, who went on to become Director of Bars at The Savoy, leading them to a #1 spot o...

Brendan's a hell of a cool guy: Australian, learned distilling in parallel with his university medical and science studies back home, got a Phd from NYU, GM of New York's hugely fun Bathtub Gin, and in late 2025 he opened Hello Hello Bar and Silent Alibi distillery, both of which are in the West 26th Street space in Manhattan  formerly occupied by the New York branch of Pernod-Ricard&apo...

It's never dull when I drop round Tony's, even during Dry January, and this session was no exception.  After chowing down on sushi and sashimi, fancy fellows that we are, we got down to serious discussions encompassing Fraggle Rock, 1980s "wrestling" in the UK, the new American health directives on alcohol, how I happened into a random Miracle Christmas pop-up bar in the wilds...

,Kurt's back!  His last appearance on the 'pod was November 2023, so we sat down to catch up on everything that's been going on since then in Africa, South Africa, and further afield, over martinis, delicious SA brandy and a spot of Brooklyn whiskey - enjoy! Kurt on IG: https://www.instagram.com/kurtschlechter/?hl=en Cause + Effect on IG: https://www.instagram.com/causeeffectcpt/?hl...

Well, what a year it's been! I added Kazakhstan to my "list of countries I got drunk in", hit all the usual suspects on the global bar show circuit and added the inaugural Gulf Bar Show in Dubai as well, and spent my usual eight weeks living in Europe to boot, sucking down €9 (instead of $36) martinis and plate after plate of delicious boquerones .  2025 was also the Year of Tariffs...