Introducing the Radio Imbibe Podcast

In a typical year at Imbibe, our schedules are filled with events and conferences, our writers and editors traveling in every direction to explore bars, breweries, distilleries, and cafés, and to connect with the people who make the drinks world so interesting. With the COVID-19 shutdowns starting in March, we were at home like everyone else, and we realized that creating a podcast would be a perfect way to keep in touch with many of these same creative people around the world, while also bringing their stories to Imbibe readers in a new and engaging way. This is a time of tremendous challenge for our friends and colleagues in the hospitality industry, and it’s also a time for many of us to try and find things in our day-to-day lives that bring us joy, and that make these times a little easier to bear. The Radio Imbibe podcast is a new way to tell these stories, while still offering great recipes and discoveries along the way.

For the pilot episode of Radio Imbibe, executive editor Paul Clarke talks with Alba Huerta of Julep in Houston and Ivy Mix of Leyenda in Brooklyn about the challenges of owning a bar during the COVID-19 crisis. We also chat with Matty Newton, the illustrator who tackled our July/August 2020 issue, about how he took on such a challenging project; ask Abigail Gullo from Ben Paris in Seattle to mix a favorite summer cocktail, the Old Cuban; and hear from Brooklyn bar owner St. John Frizell about his experiences with Fort Defiance and Gage & Tollner in the era of COVID-19, in an essay he wrote for our July/August 2020 issue.

Tune into the inaugural episode above, and be sure to bookmark the podcast on your preferred podcasting platform to keep up with the conversation moving forward.