The Speakeasy

In this Boomerang! episode Greg travels to the Second City of Anaheim, where he meets with Strong Water’s “Fleet Commander” Ying Chang. They discuss how the bar was assembled almost entirely from estate sales, how the idea of elevated tropical bar with great rum cocktails came to fruition, their impending high dive concept, and what it’s like running a James Beard Award finalist bar in the “middle...

David Wondrich is one of the few people in the world of spirits and cocktails that truly needs no introduction. The James Beard and Spirited Award-winning author of Imbibe!, Punch, and The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails is back with a new book, The Comic Book History of the Cocktail. He sits down with the band to talk about breaking new ground in the world of cocktail history, picking t...

In this Boomerang! episode Greg sits down with Stephen Julander, Senior Ops Manager at Woody Creek Distillers to talk about his new gig, what it’s like to distill and age whiskey over a mile above sea level, and how needing more space to grow potatoes for vodka brought a movie star into the company. Follow Woody Creek at @woodycreekdistillers LINKS Become a Regular: patreon.com/SpeakeasyRegulars F...

How do you put a barrel inside a barrel? That’s the question Dixon Dedman looked to solve when he founded 2XO, a Kentucky Straight Bourbon brand that uses two times the oak on all of their whiskies. Dixon sits down with Greg and Sother to discuss his innovative solution to this problem (it involves a very fun prop) his long family history in Kentucky Bourbon, and how blenders might finally be gett...

In the second Boomerang episode from Kansas City Greg sits down with Phil Worden and Andrew Loos of Til Death, the famous speakeasy located below a fully operational funeral home. In a surprisingly deep and moving conversation the three of them chat about the relationship between alcohol, grief and celebration, the similarity between the job of a funeral director and a bartender, and the character...

Greg travels to Kansas City to chat with Ryan Maybee, Co-Founder and keeper of history about rediscovering and re-founding KC's famous long-lost distillery. The two of them chat about the historic campus the new distillery sits on, what the Kansas City Whiskey style entails (hint: sherry is involved) and how the cocktail culture of Kansas City reflects its storied past. Follow J. Rieger at @jriege...

Think about some of the world's most iconic dishes: Beef Bourguignon, Coq au Vin, Penne alla Vodka. What do they all share in common? Not only do we love accompanying them with something delicious in the glass, they literally incorporate booze into the dish. That's the premise of “Sauced,” a new podcast that's been teased here on the Speakeasy feed before. Today, Greg and Sother are joined by Tim...

There’s a certain, very specific green liqueur that’s become difficult to find in the past few years… impossible in some places. Jessica Leigh Graves, the founder of Violet Crown Spirits in Austin Texas, set out to make a “twin” (her word) of this bottle, and did pretty damn well for herself. She sits down with Greg and Sother to talk about making absinthe in Texas, what it’s like to try and recre...

Ice Week 2025 is going strong as Chase Haider joins Greg and Sother to discuss Klaris, the company he spearheads that makes crystal clear ice cubes and fits on an a household countertop. Chase digs into how his baby works, how he knew there was a niche in the market he could fill, and why he thinks this struck such a nerve with home bartenders. Follow Klaris on Instagram at @craftklaris and check...

Ice Week continues with Jill Cockson of Kansas City's own Chartreuse Saloon and Swordfish Tom's, both of which use crystal clear ice that Jill makes in her very own back room with her very own Clinebell machines. Jill chats with Greg and Sother about the process of making ice this way as a proprietor, including how it works and why anyone would go through the trouble of doing that in the first pla...

Ice Week 2025 continues with Richard Boccato, an alumni of Milk & Honey and founder of Hundredweight, a bespoke ice vendor operating out of NYC. Richard walks the band through the founding of hundredweight and how he knew there was a market for fine frozen water, how he plys his trade, and how his time running iconic New York watering holes Fresh Kills and Dutch Kills prepared him for the job....

Ice Week 2025 kicks off with Camper English, author of "The Ice Book" and winner of the Spirited Award for Best New Cocktail Book in 2024. Camper and the band dive into the origins of his obsession with making crystal clear ice, the clear ice trend for home bartenders, and how anyone can make clear ice in their very own freezer - spoiler alert, it has nothing to do with boiling the water beforehan...

Hidden just off the casino floor of The Bellagio is a tiny, ornate 50 seat cocktail bar called “The Vault.” Craig Schoettler, Executive Director of Beverage for MGM Resorts International, sits down with the band to discuss what kind of atmosphere they’re going for, where people are drinking in Vegas these days, and whether or not a speakeasy is still cool. PLUS, this iconic New York City bar is on...

What would you do with a long lost Ernest Hemingway story? Print it? Sell it? Or resurrect the 99 year old magazine it originally came in with a host of contemporary authors and artists. Patrick Dooley chose option three, giving the world its first new edition of classic Parisian magazine “The Boulevardier” in almost a century. He sits down with the band to talk about bringing the magazine back to...

No one else in spirits really thinks the way Rob Easter does. His Workhorse Rye brand is based on heirloom grains sourced specifically to make great whiskey, and his Modern Ancient Spirits label is dabbling in all manner of off-the-wall distillations. He sits down with the band to noodle out his ultimate philosophy of distillation, agriculture and environmentalism, how they all intersect, and what...

Being a full-time spirits writer is barely a job that exists anymore, so if you’re gonna be one you gotta stay sharp. Multi-award-winning author Emma Janzen takes a break from all the irons she has in the fire to talk about collaborating with drinks luminaries on her host of cocktail books, her creative process, and how what she wants to report from the world’s barstools has changed over the years...

How is New York City like 19th century Japan? There might be more similarities than you think and Shige Kabashima wants to show them to you. An alumnus of Manhattan’s legendary Angel’s Share, Shige went on to found ROKC, a beloved ramen and oyster spot in Harlem, and NR, it’s spiritual successor on the Upper East Side. He sits down with the band to discuss how food influences his cocktails, drawin...

22 years ago the minds behind Dale’s pioneered good beer in a can. Today they’re taking it one step further and serving those cans with a side of Jorts! Aaron Baker and Evan Butteris from Dale’s sit down with Greg and Damon to talk about educating drinkers that IPAs can in fact come in cans, why denim just felt like the right brand move, and what they’re doing with the US curling team. They also t...

We talk a lot about how whiskey is made, mixed, marketed and just generally talked about. But not how it’s distributed. Fortunately Angela Bosco is here to pull back the curtain on the often murky, sometimes deliberately opaque distribution system for alcohol in this country. She sits down with the band to talk about the three-tier system, building a brand, what a brand needs to do to get acquired...

Why drink a gin that clocks in at only 20% ABV? That’s the question Sharelle Klaus wanted to answer with Second Sip Gin, a gin that isn’t full strength or full NA, but directly in the middle. She sits down with Greg and Damon to talk about designing a gin that still packs a punch at half the strength (with the help of two giants in the industry) the power and the point of freezer door martinis, an...

Greg and Sother sit down with David Page, creator of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives to talk about his new podcast “Culinary Characters Unlocked.” The conversation goes out of our usual wheelhouse and all over the place as they discuss obscure regional dishes, the flattening of American culture, and how cooking is surprisingly like television… in that everyone kind of thinks they can do it. Plus,...

How do you scale a molecular mixology program up from one property to several dozen? The first step is to love being busy and fortunately Mariena Mercer-Boarini fits that bill. The master mixologist for Wynn Resorts North America talks through her thought process for running beverage programs from Boston to Macao, the intense infrastructure she’s built in her hometown of Las Vegas to keep all her...

If people know one thing about Sherry, they usually think they don’t like it. But Daniel Azarkman likes it so much he opened El Lopo, a San Francisco tapas bar dedicated to sherry and its equally underappreciated cousin, vermouth. Daniel sits down with Greg and Sother to talk about introducing guests to unfamiliar ingredients, the guided tours he leads to Spain, and a program he runs for select re...

Is the world ready for a mesquite-smoked Aguardiente? John Campbell sure seems to think so, which is why he’s bringing his Warbringer Aguardiente to a face near you! John sits down with the band to discuss his time as a distiller for Laphroaig, building a mesquite-smoked whiskey for Sespe Creek Distillers, and why they even called it that in the first place. PLUS, Ice Week is coming! This month wh...

Are we loving mezcal to death? That’s just one of the questions Tim McKirdy set out to answer when he began working on a mezcal docuseries for his ongoing podcast  Cocktail College . Airing now after two years in the making, Tim sits down with Greg and Sother to discuss his trip to Oaxaca, what he learned about agave farming and distilling, a possible espadin conspiracy, and the challenges of...