No. 113: January/February 2025

Every year, as January 1 rolls around, I can’t help but feel a big case of the Sunday Scaries.

Which is understandable. Starting a new year is like starting a new week, albeit on a much grander scale. The warm comfort of the holiday season is like a pronounced weekend in its way—but now, it’s time to get back to normal life. Peering forward at the calendar, it’s easy to feel a bit of uncertainty. The year ahead is going to be—well, who knows? Like every year, 2025 promises to be filled with mysteries big and small. While some of those surprises may be challenging, we also have the certainty of good times, and good places with good people, to keep spirits lifted as we pave our way through the year.

For more than a decade now, our team of writers and editors has worked hard to produce the Imbibe 75, our annual list of inspiring people and places that we think will help shape the way we drink. So despite any uncertainty, allow us to make a few predictions. First: We’ll need to discover (or rediscover) places filled with joy. We’ve got a slew of recommendations on this year’s list, from the familiar neighborhood-bar trappings of Gilly’s House of Cocktails in San Diego and Johnny’s in Los Angeles, to comfortable cocktail dens like Press Club in Washington, D.C. and Nightbloom in New Orleans, to warming daytime destinations like Bardo teahouse in Portland, Oregon and Yafa coffeehouse in Brooklyn, to Bar Grale in Louisville, Kentucky, which is making itself into an indispensable wine destination, and Lost Lantern Whiskey, a Vermont haven for whiskey lovers.

Other predictions? We’ll want to hear from engaged, enlightening people who are doing their best to make each day better than the one before. And this Imbibe 75 is filled with them, like bartender Mari Howe, who is helping her Maui community recover following devastating fires; brewer Wesley Keegan, who’s betting big on beer and on his brewing team; and distiller Howard Conyers, who’s sharing the culinary history of Black families in the rural South, one bottle of moonshine at a time.

There’s also Kyo Dominick, who overcame a career-ending dance injury and became an up-and-coming wine pro, and Natasha Bahrami, who’s doing her best to help everyone discover gin’s inherent beauty.

This is just a taste of the people and places you’ll find in the pages ahead—all sure to inspire your future exploration of the drinkscape. An epic case of Sunday Scaries aside, there’s a lot to look forward to in the days ahead.

Cheers,