Bit by a Fox Podcast

This week’s episode is a fun one, especially if you're a real Italophile, like myself. I spoke with food stylist, cook book author, hostess and spirit guide to all things la dolce vita in Italy, Annette Joseph. She recently wrote Cocktail Italiano- a guide to Apertivo hour on the Italian Riviera. We spoke about Aperol Spritzes, the beach culture in Italy and the art of the Italian Apertivo. This episode will undoubtedly make you want to sip a beachside spritz no matter what the hour!

In honor of the Kentucky Derby tomorrow, I spoke with ELIZABETH MCCALL, the newly named ASSISTANT MASTER DISTILLER at the "Official Bourbon of the Kentucky Derby" - WOODFORD RESERVE. We spoke about her trajectory from psychology student to sensory scientist and Master Taster, to one of the youngest female distillers in the country.

For this week’s episode I spoke with the First Lady of Applejack, Lisa Laird Dunn. Lisa is a ninth-generation family member of America's oldest family-owned distillery, Laird’s Applejack. Few spirits have the rich legacy that Applejack has. It is a part of the fabric of American drinking history - a favorite of George Washington's, served in Abe Lincoln's tavern, and even managed to legally produce spirits through Prohibition. Laird's Applejack is also a key ingredient in the recent cocktail revival. 

For this week’s episode I spoke with Kala Maxym, A professionally-trained opera singer and the Founder and Chief Event Composer of Five Senses Tastings, an LA-based event experience that pairs live music with a wine. Kala and I have recently joined forces to create a similar events company around cocktails and music called Song & Tonic. We discussed her musical beginnings, what drew her to the wine world, and how we eventually came together to form Song & Tonic. 

For this week’s episode I spoke with Bryan Davis, founder of Lost Spirits Distillery in Los Angeles. Recently named one of the best distillery tours in the world, I had to go down the rabbit hole myself. This phantasmagoric distillery is like no other - part theme park, part mad science lab...with booze! Lost Spirits is making award-winning rums and whiskeys using cutting edge distilling techniques .This is where computer technology, molecular mixology and amusement park fantasy converge.

For this week's Bit by a Fox Podcast, I spoke with journalist, award-winning wine blogger, photographer, Masters of Wine candidate, and newly appointed Travel Editor for Wine Enthusiast, Lauren Mowery. Over bubbly, we discussed her exciting new role, she gave us some great travel tips, what regions she's most looking forward to visiting this next year, and which wines should be on our radar. 

This week we dive into Mezcal, the wild and smoky and often misunderstood cousin of tequila. I spoke with Cecilia Rios Murrieta, founder of Oaxacan brand, La Niña del Mezcal. Cecilia established one of the first blogs about Mezcal and the culture that surrounds it. She is a certified Mezcalier, and a proponent of preserving the traditional production processes of artisan Mezcal. 

The Chicago Style Cocktail Conference is not your average booze-fest. The three female founders behind this new cocktail conference coming to Chicago in May, are making it a point to address some much needed issues in the cocktail community such as diversity, sexism and inclusion. They will even touch on substance abuse and sustainability. This week's episode, I spoke with Shelby Allison, an owner of celebrated Chicago tiki bar, Lost Lake, and one of the founders of Chicago Style Cocktail Conference.

Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day, and this week we are talking with Irishman, Irish whiskey expert and Tullamore D.E.W. brand ambassador, Tim Herlihy just for the occasion.  In this week's episode, Tim breaks down what the difference is between Irish whiskey and other whiskey categories, he fills us in on a bit of history and what makes Irish whiskey so special. We also learn exactly how the Irish truly celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Hint - it doesn't involve green beer.

To kick off National Women's Month, I interview Ashley Rose Conway of popular cocktail blog Craft + Cocktails about her new column 'Spirited Women'., a platform from which she can share stories about the badass ladies in the spirits industry.

It's National Moscow Mule Day tomorrow and we dive into the history of this drink with a kick created on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood back in 1941. 

On this week's Bit by a Fox Podcast, we're talking about Shots! Shots! Shots! And the occasional shooter. They're never a good idea....Or are they? Many of us have lots of feelings about shots and shooters and visceral, albeit, patchy memories associated with those little devils. How did the shot even come to be? And how have the trends evolved through the years, and what are people shooting dirty nowadays?

This week we’re talking to food and drinks writer, Jason Horn about his most recent story as drinks contributor for Playboy magazine. The article, titled "Drinking at the Bottom of the World", is about the bars, booze and drinking culture at McMurdo Station, a US-run scientific research station in Antarctica. His article is to be published next month in Playboy.com so this interview is actually an exclusive! In any case, it’s a fun one. I hope you enjoy!

On this week's episode we’re talking about one of the most misunderstood elixirs ever created and consumed - Absinthe! Ted Breaux, scientist, researcher, artisan distiller (the Indiana Jones of absinthe!) tells us how he uncovered the truth about absinthe, created historically accurate versions of it, & then helped to overturn the 95 year old absinthe ban in U.S. Absinthe educator and Green Fairy Party co-host, Kellfire Desmond Bray then joins us to describe how we can properly consume it.

This week we’re talking about The Dark Ages of Cocktails – that ill-fated time period between the late 1960s all the way through the late 1990s. When vodka was king, sour mix was in most everything, and people happily guzzled garbage drinks named after body parts and sexual acts. It was sexy and gross and a lot of fun!