Drinks At Work with Sam Bygrave

Humans seem to be hard-wired to notice change — we put a big emphasis on new things, and we hate to lose things we value. But when everything is fine, and things are just coasting along — well, we don’t tend to notice them. Perhaps we don’t appreciate them as much as we would if we knew that one day they weren’t going to be there.So on this episode I speak to Lee Potter Cavanagh, to find out what it’s like to close a bar — it’s his first — after four years in business. It’s a bittersweet time for Lee, he’s still working through how he feels about it all, and I can’t thank him enough for joining me to talk about it. Because we don’t often get an exit interview like this. People love to champion their successes but, understandably, when these sorts of difficult decisions are made, are usually less forthcoming, particularly to journalists. So a big thank you to Lee for being such an open book.

Today I’m talking to Theo Watt. This episode is one for those who have thought about writing about drinks and bars and bartenders. I’m talking to Theo Watt, who is the founder of DRiNK Magazine in Asia, where they publish out of Hong Kong — you may recall his editor Holy Graham on a previous episode of Drinks At Work — and also pout of Shanghai for the Chinese market. He’s also the founder of Thirsty Work Productions, which publishes the website and is something of a trade marketing and activations agency putting on events for the bar trade throughout China and Asia.

Today I’m talking to Cara Devine. You might know Cara from Melbourne rooftop bar, Bomba, where she is the bar manager; you may also have seen her writing in industry publications like Australian Bartender, or here on Boothby; but it’s more likely you know Cara from her successful and popular YouTube channel, behind the Bar with Cara Devine. That’s where she has amassed over 135,000 subscribers and puts out videos each week, some of which pull in several hundred thousand views.Behind The Bar with Cara Devine is focused on demystifying the world of cocktails and spirits, and shares Cara’s expertise without the bro culture and scream in your face scripts that plague so much of the drinks content on YouTube.In this episode I ask her about how she got started on YouTube, how she goes about making the videos and getting them out to the world, and whether or not it’s possible to make real money talking drinks on YouTube — and how you might go about that.SHOW LINKShttps://www.boothby.com.auhttps://www.instagram.com/boothbydrinks/https://www.behindthebarwithcaradevine.com/abouthttps://www.instagram.com/withcaradevine/https://www.youtube.com/c/BehindtheBar/videos

This episode features Jane Ryan, a writer and content creator working in the world of drinks. She’s someone with some valuable insight into how you might want to go about building a career making content about drinks and getting it seen across the social media platform world we live in today.Jane started out as a drinks journo; she studied journalism at university in the UK before landing a plum role at Difford’s Guide, which quickly saw her traipsing through distilleries in Scotland and France. She’s also worked both behind the bar and on the floor, and has been recognised for her writing at Tales of the Cocktail’s Spirited Awards.After a stint in the consumer media world at Concrete Playground in Sydney, she launched Difford’s Guide Australia in 2019, and in recent years has grown that brand here through her use of social media, creating content for both TikTok and Instagram, and reaping millions of views in the process.I’ve long been a fan of Jane’s work, and in this chat she demystifies a little about what kind of content works on TikTok and Instagram, how she grew that audience, and she talks about how you might break into the drinks media world today.

Bartenders and hospitality types get to see a broad swathe of humanity at their finest and at their worst — and pick up a lot of stories along the way. Hospitality at its best is also often a storytelling experience, and some of the best storytellers work in the industry. But what if you want to take it further, and get into writing about drinks and bars and the stories that come from that well? Well this episode is one for you. My guest is Holly Graham, she’s someone whose writing about the bar world I admire a lot, and she’s become one of Asia’s — if not the world’s — most trusted authorities on all things drinks and bars and booze. She’s the managing editor for DRiNK Magazine, She’s an academy chair for both the World’s 50 Best Bars and Asia’s 50 Best Bars, and just this past week was named at number 7 on Drinks International’s Bar 100 list of the most influential global bar figures. She’s also just written and published her first book, called Cocktails of Asia.So in this episode Holly talks about how she came to be a drinks and bars writer, how she not only came up with the idea for her book, but what’s involved in pulling it together, getting out there, and promoting as well. She’ll also tell us whether or not it’s wise to expect to make any money from writing a book. Holly also shares her advice for anyone wanting to get into writing, and why a passion for your subject is so important. Cocktails of Asia:https://www.manmomedia.com/product/cocktails-of-asia-regional-recipes-and-the-spirited-stories-behind-them/DRiNK Magazine:https://www.drinkmagazine.asia

Today’s podcast is one for anyone in hospitality and bartending who has ever thought about making the leap over to the brand side of the industry. Maybe you’ve wondered whether or not you are someone suited to the brand world, working for a spirits company? Hospitality can arm with you a number of skills to make the move to brands, but they’re also looking for a particular type of person as my guest, Hayley Morison, points out in this interview.Hayley is the national trade advocacy manager for Beam-Suntory, and as the driving force behind their hospitality engagement program The Blend, Hayley has supported hundreds if not thousands of Australian bartenders over the years. In the process they’ve won the Training Program of the Year at the Bartender magazine Bar Awards a record five times. She’s the Asia Pacific co-chair for Tales of the Cocktail’s Spirited Awards, and in 2017 landed at number 9 on the list of Australia’s Most Influential bar figures. On this episode Hayley talks about how the brand side of the business works, what they’re looking for in people who cross over from bartending and hospitality into the brand world, and the most rewarding and creative aspects of her role.

The Drinks At Work podcast is back after a few weeks off — I can recommend a few bottles of beer on a Fijian beach to anyone, by the way. My guest today is a good friend and possibly Australia’s most prolific drinks photographer, Christopher Pearce. We worked together for years when I was the editor at Australian Bartender, and Chris’ work spans the world of food and drink, shooting with bars, bartenders and commercial clients — he did some great work around the release of Morris whisky last year.On this episode Chris talks about he broke into the world of photography, how and why he came to specialise as a food and drink shooter, and why persistence pays off. He shares advice for anyone wanting to get paid to photograph drinks, as well as some sage advice on what the freelancer life is like.He’s as good as they get, which is why this episode runs a little longer than usual — there was a lot I wanted to learn from him, too.

Evan Stroeve is a bartender, the Australian Diageo World Class Bartender of the Year for 2021, a brand owner in Rhubi Mistelle, and a bar consultant, and he’s not yet 30 years old.I first interviewed Evan in 2017 when he was at Shady Pines Saloon in Sydney, and he since went onto a trio of Australia’s best bars: The Baxter Inn, Bulletin Place, where he was the general manager, and now Re, Matt Whiley’s innovative zero waste bar in Sydney.We talk about how he has used cocktail competitions like World Class to further his career, whether these comps are indeed necessary to build a career; we dive into how Evan and his business partner Tim Philips Johansson took a house-made ingredient for Bulletin Place and commercialised it for a wider audience Rhubi Mistelle — and a lot more.

Philip Duff talks about the importance of being an asshole (at least some of the time), shares his advice on what to do if you’re keen to start a spirits brand, and offers some insight into where he thinks the opportunities are in the drinks industry today.

My guest on this episode is James Irvine, he’s the creative director of gin drinks for the Australian craft gin distillery, Four Pillars — it’s a unique role, one that is a brand ambassador role, but which also sees him as the lead for the Four Pillars Lab, the brand’s flagship bar in Surry Hills, where they’re making some very good drinks.The way I see it, bartenders who build a lasting career tend to be of two types: you have those who love the ops side of the business, and you have those who love the creative side. Neither is better than the other, and you can’t have one without the other — of course you’ll find plenty of overlap between those sides of the business. James Irvine, as he talks about in this chat, definitely leads more to the creative side, and has managed to build a rewarding and exciting career that way, and he’s got some great advice.

It’s fair to say that Dr Anne Brock has something of a dream job: she’s the master distiller for Bombay Sapphire, overseeing their Laverstoke distillery and the spirit for all of the Bombay brands. I spoke to Dr Anne while she’s in Melbourne, where she’s launching their latest gin, Bombay Sapphire Premier Cru, and in this conversation we talk about the lessons she learned as a bartender — and how the nature of the day to day work as a distiller is similar to that of a bartender. We talk about how she managed Covid and its potentially career-ending loss of smell, why the human nose still can’t be beaten by science and tech just yet, and what it feels like to see the things you make at work end up in the hands of bartenders around the world.

Nick Miles is a Jameson ambassador and the winner of the 2018 brand ambassador of the year award at the Bartender Magazine Bar Awards, for his work as the Australian Sailor Jerry ambassador. A couple of years as the ambassador for beer brand Estrella followed, but in the midst of lockdowns and covid, Nick suffered an accident, breaking his back, being bedridden for months, and needing to learn to walk again.

Launching a new business is hard, but what is harder is keeping it going and growing.This week on the podcast we hear from Penny Sippe, the founder of Australian Cocktail Month — an initiative you might know as the first sponsor of this podcast — which is happening this May in 12 cities and 145 bars around Australia.It’s back for its second year, and was born from two things: one, Penny’s pandemic-induced redundancy and two, her desire to help the bar industry emerge from the pandemic better than ever.So in this episode, we ask Penny about how she’s built Australian Cocktail Month through the pandemic and its ongoing aftermath; what experiential marketing is when it comes to liquor brands and why she does what she does; and Penny offers some insight into what has allowed her to grow Australian Cocktail Month and expand her offering as she moves into year two and beyond. It's a worthwhile listen if you've ever considered starting a new drink industry business.

Michael Bascetta is a Melbourne-based hospitality pro who is the co-owner of the influential Fitzroy wine bar, Bar Liberty; they’ve also got the Italian-inspired Capitano in Carlton and Falco Bakery in Collingwood. Michael also has Worksmith, a co-working space for hospitality, and we talk about how that has evolved, how they very nearly lost it during the pandemic, and why it’s a break-even proposition at best; Michael is also behind the Melbourne Cocktail Festival which kicks off next week on Monday April 4th — you can learn more about that at melbournecocktailfestival.io.We talk about identifying opportunities and how he makes the decision to go in on them, and why he’s interested more in growing sustainable businesses than in expanding for the sake of creating scale alone.The through-line here seems to be about solving problems for hospitality businesses, and that old fashioned idea of being of service — it’s a good basis for business, and a strategy that sets things up for the long term.

Today’s guest on the podcast is Ross Blainey. He’s the ambassador for The Balvenie and Glenfiddich, and not shy of a real discussion about the whisky world. This is actually a conversation I had with Ross for an online Boothby.Talks event during lockdown in October 2020, called How Whisky Works — you can watch the video here.The idea behind the talk was to get at a broader look at how the whisky world operates. It’s not a chat about how whisky as a liquid is made — there’s no chat about the size of stills here — and nor is it about the brands that Blainey represents. It’s more a talk about how Ross came to be a brand ambassador, what his role entails, and how whisky goes from idea to execution. It’s a wide-ranging discussion with Ross, and he’s a great storyteller — I think there’s a lot to get out of this conversation.

James France has been influential within the Australian drinks industry over the last decade, and is responsible for importing some of the best and most respected craft spirit brands through his company Vanguard Luxury Brands.He also seems to have a knack for recognising and breaking small brands in the Australian market, brands that then go on to get picked up by the big players in the drinks world, brands like Ketel One, St Germain, Hudson Whiskey and Four Pillars among others.Sam Bygrave asks James about what he thinks makes a good brand, what new brands need to succeed in today’s marketplace, what the difficulties are in getting a business like Vanguard going — particularly in Australia — and a whole lot more. He’s a super smart guy, and has built arguably the most respected craft spirits portfolio in the country — one that drinks giant Lion liked so much, they bought him out.

Shay Chamberlain is an accomplished bartender and bar manager. She ran the Melbourne cocktail institution that is Black Pearl, working there for four years. Before that, she honed her conflict resolution skills at the late night hospo bar of choice for many in Sydney, Big Poppa’s; and before there, Shay was a key member of the team at Bulletin Place that saw them win a number of accolades, including Cocktail Bar of the Year and land on The World’s 50 Best Bars list.In this chat we talk about what she’s learned over the years working with some of Australia’s very best bartenders and bars, the challenges involved in being a brand ambassador at this moment in time, and what she thinks are the key factors that the ownership trio behind Never Never Distilling Co have harnessed to make their brand one of the big success stories of the last five years.

Tim Stones is the distiller at Hickson House Distilling Co, where he makes a trio of gins under the Hickson Rd label. He began his career as a bartender, working at a couple of influential London bars in the aughts, before becoming the global brand ambassador for Beefeater gin. In this conversation he talks about what it was like to be a brand ambassador in the days of healthy expense accounts and how that’s changed, we talk about the kind of brain you need to be a distiller, the creative process involved in crafting a new gin recipe, how he got experience in the distillery side of things and how he thinks about gin.

You may know Caroline Ashford as The Gin Queen on Instagram and Facebook or via her website, theginqueen.com, but Caroline is also behind the Australian arm of Junipalooza, which as you might guess is a two day show devoted to all things gin, and during the pandemic she got into the gin pushing game herself with The Ginporium, an online concierge that helps you get the right gin for you. It’s an interesting chat, we talk about how she’s amassed an online following in the many 10s of thousands, her advice on growing your own brand, where gin is at today and how she’s built her career in drinks over the last decade.

Jason Williams is not just a bar owner, nor is he just the creative director for Proof & Company's consultancy agency Proof Creative — he also is one of the few bartenders to have his face and nickname adorn a bottle of gin. Williams talks to Sam Bygrave about how the choices he has made along the way, his openness to opportunity, and his adaptability have led him to a unique and creative career.