Ruben’s an old friend from Amsterdam, a native Aruban who bartended in Amsterdam and London, and whose life was changed by a Diplomatico rum training he attended while working as a flair bartender at London’s famed Roadhouse. (That ...

Brendan's a hell of a cool guy: Australian, learned distilling in parallel with his university medical and science studies back home, got a Phd from NYU, GM of New York's hugely fun Bathtub Gin, and in late 2025 he opened Hello Hello Bar and Si...

It's never dull when I drop round Tony's, even during Dry January, and this session was no exception. After chowing down on sushi and sashimi, fancy fellows that we are, we got down to serious discussions encompassing Fraggle Rock, ...

,Kurt's back! His last appearance on the 'pod was November 2023, so we sat down to catch up on everything that's been going on since then in Africa, South Africa, and further afield, over martinis, delicious SA brandy and a spot of ...

Well, what a year it's been!I added Kazakhstan to my "list of countries I got drunk in", hit all the usual suspects on the global bar show circuit and added the inaugural Gulf Bar Show in Dubai as well, and spent my usual eight ...

Gareth's been a mate and fellow expat-in-New-York for a longish time, but I ran into him again recently when he hosted a mega-fancy private dinner in the already-mega-fancy members' area of private club Casa Tua, a dinner which I gatecrashed in...

Daniyel is, in my opinion, the most naturally gifted brand ambassador I've ever met, but the reason he's been nominated for so many awards and other accolades is that since I met him many years ago, he has always been on a never-ending journey ...

Michael Neff, like so many of us, fell sideways into hospitality and now 27-odd years later, he's still in it, opening bars across the USA, consulting, podcasting and just plain bartending. He's a real bartender's bartender, and you...

Robert's a swashbuckling figure even by liquor biz standards: son of a fighter pilot, he grew up in England, set up a chain of radio stations across Europe in his youth, ran an agency, then slipped sideways into the liquor biz (armed only with ...

Angus is so old a friend that we can't remember exactly where we met but we're 99% sure it was at a bar show or get-together of some kind, probably in London, where he, a bartender from Oxford, was in on the ground floor of what we can now look...

I've been a fan of Ben's since his first book, Schott's Original Miscellany came out in 2002, a collection of quirky facts and insights into subcultures; his 13 (!) subsequent books expanded on the theme and have sold more than 2.5 mil...

The irrepressible Edvinas "Eddie" Rudzinskas is a fixture at just about every bar show and party, and the Instagram he created, @cocktails_for_you, boasts 565, 000 followers. We sat down during BCBerlin to talk about how he went fro...

I've always followed the industry in Australia closely, as in my opinion it is, pound-for-pound, the best mixology nation on Earth; I've visited often, for teaching and consulting, and wrote a column in Australian Bartender magazine for some ye...

I met Andrea in the End Times, even though we didn't know it, then; he made several delicious cocktails with Old Duff Genever for me, in New Zealand, in mid-March 2020, before the world closed down. Andrea is a remarkably cool guy w...

Edmund co-founded Nightjar, a speakeasy cocktail bar with live music, in London with his life and business partner, Roisin Stimpson, in 2010, with its first head bartender being Marian Beke. Nightjar quickly stormed the lists of nom...

I met Steve at Cologne Bar Symposium earlier this year, which also hosted the first-ever launch of Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey outside the USA. We chatted a bit and I attended his seminar; to say Steve's life is fascinating is l...

Our mutual friend (and PR guru) Laura Peet suggested I have liquor biz lifer Ken on, and he was a great guest! We chatted about the liquor industry, recent developments like GLP-1 inhibitors, the effects of phone-based gambling on d...

Sarah Morrissey is a little bundle of joy on the NY bar circuit, but also a skilled mixologist who's had her bar programs reviewed in the likes of the New York Times on multiple occasions, shepherded bar programs to James Beard and Tales of the...

Return guest and one of my favorite people, Robin Robinson is back! He's a sales & marketing guru, a brand sherpa, a truly gifted storyteller and spirits expert - and he's just written another book, so back on The Philip Duff Show he comes....

Miguel became a mainstay of the burgeoning Spanish cocktail scene in the early 2000s, and we met in 2008, when he brought a crew of Spanish bartenders to the Bols Bartender Academy, which I had founded in Amsterdam. We stayed friends and soon a...

Me and Christian met almost twenty years ago; when I was still living in the Netherlands, my friend Robin Weiss asked me to help judge the Havana Club Germany bartender contests, and Christian was involved even back then. In the nex...

This is the last of our Tales-recorded episodes, and our final collab with The Speakeasy!Amir, originally from Tel Aviv, runs the cocktail program at one of Manhattan's hidden gems, the amazing Ophelia Lounge on top of the Beekman Tower,...

Francois escaped growing up in Belgium and, God help us, working in banking, to become a drinks writer, relocating to his beloved Spain and becoming an in-demand consultant to brands and bars, a World's 50 Best Bars Academy Chair, a drinks writ...

Sahil was down in New Orleans to re-launch Australian Bitters Co. in the US, and also because Australian Bitters Co scored both gold and silver medals in the New Orleans Spirits Competition, so me and Greg Benson of The Speakeasy lured...

Jake's one of the OG's of the UK bar scene, first making waves by winning multiple cocktail and bartending contests (including one where he won a £10, 000 diamond) when based out of his native Leeds, working in Leeds' top bars and then opening ...