Hugging the Bar

About Hugging the Bar

Welcome to the new and improved Hugging the Bar podcast! Mix up your favorite cocktail or mocktail, pour your favorite beer, and pull up a stool. We're getting into the ins and outs of the beverage alcohol and hospitality industries. Each month, we'll sit down with a different expert—bar owners, beverage directors, mixologists, brewers, distillers, taproom managers, marketers, journalists, social media consultants, educators, and more—to tackle topics from PR, employee education, consumer education, and drink and ingredient trends, to consumer behavior, DEI efforts, production techniques, and more. These conversations are a fascinating peek behind the curtain for enthusiasts, and for the pros, they're helpful dives into some of the most important, challenging issues for businesses in this industry today. I promise valuable takeaways from these trusted sources, with the aim of helping you survive—and even thrive—in the current climate.

Publisher

Courtney Iseman

Category

arts · business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

6 Aug 2025

Latest episode

18 Dec 2025

Latest episodes

5 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   18 Dec 2025

   5. Say "Hello Hello" to the High-Dive Concept and Serious Cocktails Made Fun with Luis Hernandez

   If you read about drinks at all, you may know the relatively new NYC bar Hello Hello for its famed, elevated riff on a vodka Red Bull. But there's so much more to unpack about this intriguing concept: Its day-to-night model as a café and bar, its three-pronged business approach as a coffee shop, bar, and distillery and how those prongs complement each other and are balanced to run smoothly; its overall high-dive design and atmosphere; and, of course, its creative cocktails. I chatted with Hello Hello's director of food and beverage Luis Hernandez about all of these factors and why they work especially well today.

2. 

   10 Oct 2025

   4. Reaching Final Gravity, Reaching Readers: The Craft of Beer Zines with David Nilsen

   David Nilsen is a writer, educator, consultant, event host, and podcaster focusing on beer and artisanal chocolate. There's more than enough to dig into with his prolific, insightful work for outlets including Wine Enthusiast, Pellicle Magazine, VinePair, Eater, Craft Beer & Brewing, and more, and with his engaging classes, tastings, and pairings he leads in Ohio and beyond, but just in time for its latest issue to hit preorder, we're really diving into the zine David created with his wife Melinda Guerra, Final Gravity. Final Gravity harnesses the community-building, DIY spirit of zines to bring poignant, fascinating, narrative-driven stories centering around beer to life, from some of the world's brightest writers. In this episode, we talk about why now is a perfect time for zines, what goes into bringing Final Gravity to life, and why these stories are so vital. Check out David's work and event schedule at davidnilsenbeer.com (https://davidnilsenbeer.com/). Preorder the latest Final Gravity as well as past issues and other zines (including my Beer Tarot zine!) under Bean to Barstool's publishing umbrella at BeanToBarstool.com (https://www.beantobarstool.com/shop). Enjoy!

3. 

   11 Sept 2025

   3. How Brands Can More Effectively Engage Their Audiences with Stephanie Grant

   Stephanie Grant is an experienced, accomplished writer and consultant in the food and beverage space with razor-focused insight to offer brands and businesses on how to craft their own unique stories that will engage new audiences, keep those audiences compelled with more dynamic social media presences, and overall brand and market themselves effectively even in today's challenging industry. She also has some hard truths for brands, and we both have some strong opinions on brewery websites and beer descriptions on menus, cans, and websites—we get into all of it in this fun, educational...dare I say spicy? chat. You can find Stephanie's writing as well as her consulting portfolio and services at SheLovesCraft.com (https://www.shelovescraft.com/). And don't miss out on following her excellent Instagram account, @shelovescraft (https://www.shelovescraft.com/), full of guidance-packed videos.

4. 

   6 Aug 2025

   2. Bier Omakase: Exploring a New Kind of Beer Tasting with Jenny Pfäfflin and Shana Solarte

   Imbibers are engaging with beer in a more personal way than ever before. More than category loyalty or education-driven geekery, people seek meaningful connections, stories from the personal to the cultural to the historical, and ways that they can relate to a particular beer, brewery, or style. Enter beer industry veterans Jenny Pfäfflin and Shana Solarte—with experience working for the Cicerone Certification Program, Omega Yeast, John I. Haas, and Dovetail Brewery between them. They've teamed up to present Bier Omakase, a tasting event series and Substack that frames beers in fascinating contexts like Korean fermented beverages, baseball, the year 1988, and Belgian brown cafés. This framing of beer feels more relevant now than ever, and if anyone is going to deliver this, it's Jenny and Shana. We get into all things Bier Omakase in this episode—check it out and join in on the fun yourself! Subscribe to Bier Omakase on Substack: https://bieromakase.substack.com/ (https://bieromakase.substack.com/) Follow Bier Omakase on Instagram to catch an event: https://www.instagram.com/bieromakase/ (https://www.instagram.com/bieromakase/) Image credit: Steph Byce (https://www.stephbyce.com/)

5. 

   6 Aug 2025

   1. Bar Education and Cocktails on Draft with Anton Kinloch

   Welcome to the new and improved Hugging the Bar podcast! We're kicking things off with Anton Kinloch, who owns cocktail bar Lone Wolf in Kingston, New York with his wife Lisa Dy. Anton is a fount of knowledge as a seasoned owner, bartender, bar program leader, sommelier, and consultant—it's knowledge he passes on with his monthly Class to Glass mentorship program at Lone Wolf, which tackles all different areas of education in the bar business for those who want to enter the industry or just learn new things. Education like this is vital in the hospitality industry, but it's not easy to take on a program like this while already running a busy bar. Anton shares on his motivation behind this series, its impact, and how it all comes together—plus, we get into another hot topic: cocktails on draft. Listen to Anton's take on how to do them well and maximize their efficiency, and why the results of a well-run draft cocktail program can convert even the most stubborn guest who thinks they need to see their drink made in front of them. Cheers! Check out Lone Wolf: https://www.lonewolfkingston.com/ (https://www.lonewolfkingston.com/) Follow Lone Wolf on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lonewolfkingston/ (https://www.instagram.com/lonewolfkingston/) And check out Anton's column Something to Drink About for the Kingston Wire (https://kingstonwire.com/)!

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.6 / 5

9 ratings

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Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.