The Philip Duff Show

I sat down with the extravagantly-hatted Damon Boelte himself, founder of the longest-running bars & cocktails podcast The Speakeasy as well as owner of Grand Army bar in Brooklyn, musician, and bartender of decades standing. We talked about him going from never having worked in hospitality to being the bar manager in four weeks, did a Where Are They Now for the OG bartending crew of Prime Mea...

Well, we did it all.  Awards? 50 Best? Alternative agave? We got it all, and this was fun - plus discounts for awesome gin and the world's best spiced rum! ( Get in touch with Duff! Podcast business enquiries:  consulting@liquidsolutions.org  (PR friends: we’re only interested in having your client on if they can talk for a couple of hours about OTHER things besides their prepared speaking po...

Sid's a fascinating chap; coming from a family background of East Coast (USA) liquor stores, he created Beverage Trade Network to operate spirits, wine and beer contests just about everywhere, as well as advise brands, all with the goal of helping brands market themselves and succeed in the marketplace. There's a lot of cold hard truth truth in this episode about building brands, and we...

Greg's a top chap and I first met him years ago when he had a brief stint as GM at one of my local bars here in NY.  A hospitality refugee, Greg dove deep into the beer world before coming to the dark side of spirits and cocktails, and is now the third leg of the sturdy stool that is the award-winning The Speakeasy podcast, together with its founder Damon Boelte and Sother Teague.  Greg is po...

The champ is here! Dutchman Nick Vrielink is definitely on a roll: Fitz's Bar, which he set up in Amsterdam's Pillows Hotel, won Best New Cocktail Bar at the Entree (Dutch hospitality) Awards last year, and the day after the Awards Nick boarded a plane to Rome to compete on behalf of the Netherlands Bartender Club (NBC) in the International Bartenders Association (IBA) World Cocktail Cha...

Chris and www.abarabove.com which he founded with his wife Julia, is a bit of a legend. They've been cranking out top-notch online education centered around spirits, cocktails and mixology since 2013, with 661 (!) videos on YouTube and over 200 podcast episodes (including one with me, about gin & genever - link below!), all building on Chris' decade-plus career bartending in San Fran...

Tim's company Healthy Hospo is at the forefront of bartender health, both mental and physical, but it took a crisis in his career to put him on that path. After bartending in the UK and New Zealand, he became a liquor brand ambassador, first regionally in India and Africa, then globally for Bulleit whiskey, before one day hitting a wall - almost literally. We talk about avoiding being kidnapp...

Always fun to sit down with Philip Duff Show stalwart Tony Sachs and go over all the happenings of the year!  We covered AI, ChatGPT's cocktail skillz, Skrewball whiskey, gonzo "collabs" like Absolut's vodka sauce made with Heinz and Empirical's Doritos flavour, and discussed the deafening silence around Jason Momoa's Meili vodka, the dastardly abv-lowering deeds of B...

Colin is a legend, an English native who doggedly pursued his dream of being head bartender at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, a position he achieved and dominated for thirty years, creating the Hemingway Bar along the way, serving & befriending celebrities, heads of states, and run-of-the-mill billionaires as well. Now retired from the Ritz, he's busier than ever, running incredible drinks even...

Forest is the O.G. cocktail blogger in France, since she moved there from the US in 2001 and started the 52 Martinis blog, adding a podcast a decade ago. She's also the author of several books including the new "Drink Like A Local In Paris", Academy Chair for France for World's 50 Best Bars, creator of the 52 Martini iPhone app, and a constant champion of all good bars througho...

I fucking love Rachel Harrison. We caught up over drinks and went for three hours straight! Her firm Rachel Harrison Communications is a serious mover and shaker for dozens of hotels, resorts, liquor brands and bars across the US and around the world, with offices in the UK, Mexico and elsewhere. There's a lot of PR wisdom in here (my favorite: "Hiring a PR agency means you have to work...

Derek is a hospitality lifer who, after decades of being a bartender, sommelier and founding groundbreaking cocktail bars like The Colombia Room in Washington DC, transitioned in 2018 to being an advocate for no- and low-alcohol cocktails and wellness in general, training as an NASM coach, founding Positive Damage, Inc., and co-founding the Mindful Drinking Fest. Derek's an old friend and it...

It was great to finally catch up with Kevin; I’ve been chasing him to come on the podcast since earlier this year, when I read “Roundbuilding” a book he co-wrote with Daniel Waddy on the technique of making rounds of cocktails as quickly and efficiently as possible, so they can all be served at the same time and to the same quality (link to buy below). Kevin opened London bartender’s bar Satan’s W...

Great chat with my old friend Kurt Schlechter, who has trained bartenders in every country on his continent from Cape Town to Cairo, and splits his time between the three branches of his award-winning cocktail bar Cause + Effect, and training bartenders throughout Africa. Kurt on IG: https://www.instagram.com/kurtschlechter/ Cause + Effect on IG: https://www.instagram.com/causeeffectbar/ ( Get in...

Well, this was a pure delight! Jeff is an old friend and we sat down to talk about Sippin' Santa's Surf Shack, rum ,tiki cocktails, bar ownership and a whole bunch more - give it a listen! All Jeff’s links: https://beachbumberry.com/ Jeff on IG: https://instagram.com/official_beachbumberry?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA== Jeff on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therealbeachbumberry ( Get in to...

I've been bumping into the glamourous Kimberly Fisher at cocktail events here in New York for years now so it was high time we sat down together. An Alaskan native and resident of NY for over a decade, she's been an actress and spokesmodel, is a widely published journalist, qualified yoga teacher, licensed real estate agent, on-camera host and bonafide travel fiend, having clocked up 67...

Robert might just be the best-known drinks writer in our whole industry; his articles on spirits, bars and cocktails appear frequently in grown-up newspapers like The New York Times as well as trade publications like PUNCH, Imbibe and Vinepair. He's written more than half a dozen books on bars, spirits and cocktails, co-authored two cocktail apps and has his own signature Old Fashioned kit fr...

No way this wasn't going to be unusual, but I wanted to talk with Oron, a friend, and see how he was doing. It's a good talk - not as light-hearted as the first time Oron was on the podcast, understandably. We'd normally have done it face-to-face, like we did the first time he was on, and in fact I had flights and a Tel Aviv apartment all booked, planning to arrive on 14 October and...

Well, it's been a minute! This is a solo Duff ep, where I catch up on  a whole bunch of stuff, including:  - Launching Old Duff Genever in Riga, Latvia  - Working Bar Convent Berlin, the world's largest bar show  - Maison Villevert's charity auction memorial to Gaz Regan  - Why I didn't continue my planned trip to Tel Aviv  - The informed genius of the Coca-Cola company partner...

Guy and some friends started Procera gin after discovering  Juniperus procera trees  in Kenya, where he lives. Native to Africa, these trees tower 80 feet high, bearing very large, juicy juniper berries that differ greatly from juniperus communis, the usual juniper type used in gin that grows on a 30-foot shrub around the Adriatic and Eastern Europe. We sat downstairs in the Ivory Peacock, a great...

Kimi's one of the best salespeople in the city, and has been since she kicked off her careerin liquor back in 2011. She's been an educator, a portfolio manager, an on-premise specialist and a state manager, working for brands as diverse as Stoli, Jagermeister, Novo Fogo cachaca and Copalli rum, and Pinhook whiskey, where she just started as the new New York state market manager. What&apo...

Mark's the best!  He walked into Union Square Cafe more than 30 years ago and only left what became the Danny Meyer-founded Union Square Hospitality Group group recently, having scaled the dizzy heights of a restaurant group that was as iconic and successful as it was disruptive, creating a whole new perspective on how to serve guests and manage the staff that do so, all of which Mark played...

I caught up with the magnificent Kirsten Holm, who I've known for decades, in Amsterdam recently, when we were both in town for the Perfect Serve Barshow. We sat down in the stunning Luminair rooftop bar on top of the Doubletree hotel next to the central train station, and whoa, did we talk about a lot in just 90 minutes or so - powered only by coffee! Everything from what the Copenhagen cock...

Chris LeBeau is a St. Louis-based mixologist whose workshops are primarily aimed at cocktail-curious home bartenders and corporate events. He also runs the immaculately slick "Decoding Cocktails" podcast, and just launched a second one,  "So this one shift" which he describes as "Storycorps meets the beverage industry". He's had me on his podcast before, and we d...

I've known Ivan since 2013, when, still a fulltime photojournalist, he moonlighted bartending at the seminal O'Clock bar in Madrid (90 gins & 7 tonic waters - in 2013!) and became a finalist in the G'Vine Gin Connoisseur Program contest which I organised, so we got to hang out for a week at the world finals in Cognac, France. Ivan then moved to London to be a full-time bartender...