The Philip Duff Show

I was introduced to Amir a few years back by our mutual friend Oron Lerner, of Imperial Group in Tel Aviv. Amir came to New York decades ago to try his hand at acting, and began working in hospitality as a side hustle. Along the way he also worked as a special-education teacher, but he's now, in my opinion, one of the best mixologists in Manhattan, running the beverage program at Ophelia Lounge on top of the art deco Beekman T...

I sat down yesterday with Philip Duff Show stalwart and drinks writer Tony Sachs to catch up, drink some of the colossal amount of booze he has in his apartment, and pre-game an event yesterday evening which saw New York bartending legend Brian Miller step back behind the bar. There's a celebrity rum-off, some tobala mezcal in a plastic water bottle, a mystery vodka that won't come out until September, and an old bottle o...

Jillian's an old friend from her acclaimed days heading up storied New York cocktail bars such as Dead Rabbit, Death & Co, and Maison Premiere, to name but a few.
She relocated to Charleston, South Carolina a while back to open her next project with Sean Muldoon, Hazel and Apple, so it was great to make time to meet up when we were both judging a bartending contest in Folly Beach, which is just outside Charleston. 

Well, I couldn't pass up this opportunity!

I was at the third and largest edition of the Paradiso Sustainability Summit in Barcelona recently, organised by #1 W50BB 2022 bar Paradiso, which brought together speakers and bars from around the planet to share best practises on sustainability for bars, and have a bit of fun into the bargain.

Margarita Sader, co-founder of Paradiso and Summit, was there of course...

(In my voiceover I say this is episode 2 of 3 for the Agave Series, but we swapped it with last week's episode, to coordinate with the release of The Tequila Ambassador V.O. book, so this - episode 2 - is now coming out 3rd in the series.)

Sophie Decobecq is a force of nature: from Lille,  France, she moved to South Africa to work on agave research after a university background playing rugby and studying biological e...

I first met Tomas Estes, a  West Coast American (who opened Europe’s first-ever Mexican restaurants starting in Amsterdam in 1976, and  co-founded Tequila Ocho in 2008) almost twenty years ago.
We last had dinner and drinks in Athens in December 2020.
The Tequila Ambassador V.O.(link to preorder below) is the "director's cut" of Tomas' book The Tequila Ambassador, first published in 2012. 
Five yea...

This is the first in a mini-series of three about agave spirits and the people who make them.
(The WiFi wasn’t great, so sound quality is a little echoey at times and there’s the occasional pause in dialogue when Zoom froze, but that’s how it goes when you’re a 4-hour drive from Oaxaca!)

It was great to catch up with Dani, who I first met when she was bartending in Vancouver, part of the first wave of mixology in Canad...

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 Meats in Brooklyn, learn the orig...

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 about OTHER things than their prepared speaking points or their new thing, whatever that is,...

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 do a little crystal-ball gazin...

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 possibly the oldest person on...

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 Championships (WCC), where he won...

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 Francisco's Bay Area and his desir...

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 kidnapped, adjusting your sleep ...

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 Beefeater Gin, and the likeabili...

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 events around the world with his n...

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 throughout France. We caught up over a cock...

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 HARDER, not less!&qu...

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 was a joy to shoot the shit for sev...