If you missed it live, you can watch my old colleague David Othenin-Girard and me talk about New Riff and Cyrus Noble Bourbon on Instagram live. It’s always great catching up with the K&L team!

I’ve spent an ungodly amount of time over the last decade tasting with avaricious upstarts, listening to them wax poetically about heritage, when it’s clear they simply rummaged through a box of Bourbon history and pulled out an old-timey name. While those brands continue to sell inauthenticity in the hope of success, I can’t help but be inspired by a brand with more authentic whiskey history than any of these newcomers could dream of, yet almost no compulsion to talk about it.

In the booze business, the people with honest passion and character have always been the best ambassadors. You can’t help but get swallowed up by their sheer talent and drive. Remove them from the equation and all you’ve got is corporate speak: a soulless and utterly empty proposition that has younger generations looking elsewhere for their buzz.

In order to succeed in the wine and spirits business right now, you need influential early adopters and indefatigable ambassadors. Without them, you’ll most certainly drown in an ever-expanding sea of competition. There are so many new brands entering the market every month that it’s literally impossible for any one consumer to cut through that noise, no matter how dedicated they are.

The appreciation of wine and spirits (and food) today has unfortunately been co-opted by the obsessed, much like a “love” for work has been defined by those willing to sleep by their desks for days on end. But a true love of alcohol is not about how far you’re willing to go.

As you may have ascertained from my bio, this company is named after my grandmother’s bar: the 219 in Sandpoint, Idaho. Almost ten years ago, I published an interview with Helen about gin and what was necessary to craft the perfect gin martini. While Helen passed away many years ago, I’ve re-posted that article here in tribute to her and as a manifesto for Two-Nineteen.

For our fourth partnership of 2023, I’m happy to announce that Two-Nineteen will be teaming up with Found North to bring you loads of Canadian whiskey goodness!

While I’m incredibly excited to work two of the best (if not the best) family-owned American distilleries in 2023, I’d be remiss if there wasn’t a Scottish equivalent on the Two-Nineteen docket as well; a producer that ignited a passion in me about Scotch whisky that I haven’t felt since I started in this business. Hence, I’m excited to announce that I’ll be working with the Clydeside Distillery in Glasgow in the coming year.

I’m very excited to announce that Two-Nineteen will be working with Leopold Bros beginning in January of 2023, which means I’ll be spending more time in Denver, Colorado next year. Todd Leopold is seen as one of the forefathers of modern American craft distillation. Because of that reputation, a large number of spirits enthusiasts pay close attention to what he does.

I’m very excited to announce that Two-Nineteen will be working with New Riff Distillery beginning in January of 2023, which means I’ll be heading to Cincinnati after the New Year. While New Riff is located in Newport, Kentucky, it’s just across the state line (the Ohio River) from downtown Cincinnati: an area I’m looking forward to exploring more.

It’s not just social media influencers who understand the importance of new content these days; just about everyone who’s on Instagram and TikTok is looking for new material, hoping to generate another round of dopamine in the form of likes and comments from their friends and followers.

Without opening too big a can of worms, I would highly recommend reading every word of this morning’s LA Times article about Americans working remotely in Mexico City, and the growing backlash from locals about what is being described as a new colonialism.

In 1934, a gentleman named William Kyne purchased an airfield in San Mateo, CA and turned it into a horse racing course called Bay Meadows. For decades, it was home to some of the most famous thoroughbreds in history, including Seabiscuit, and for about five years I was able to thoroughly enjoy its old school atmosphere.

There are two things you need to know about me in order to understand my addiction to historic Southern California steakhouses: First off, I’m from the Bay Area, where nothing new can be constructed unless something old is torn down.

Andrea Chang published a chilling article in the Los Angeles Times this morning about the addiction issues that have plagued crypto investors since diving head first into the fray during the pandemic.

I’m not sure how many of you watched Bill Maher this past Friday night, but I was absolutely blown away by his guest Batya Ungar-Sargon, the former Newsweek editor who spoke brilliantly and eloquently about the current state of the media in our country.

When I first started working in the wine and spirits industry back in 2007, I had already missed the boat for Bordeaux. Whereas most of my older colleagues had already built cellars around $40 bottles of Pichon Baron and $25 bottles of Haut Bailly, I was facing anywhere between $75 - $150 per bottle for wines of a similar quality. No matter how much I wanted to partake, I was limited by my wallet (similar to first-time home buyers today).

An article in the San Francisco Chronicle this week laid out a very interesting scenario: there are 40,000 empty homes in one of the most concentrated cities in the United States that has been dealing with a housing crisis for more than a decade.

Please excuse the little blogging vacation I’ve taken over the last few weeks! Between a sick cat, Omicron, and the usual workload, I’ve been juggling a few different hats in both my professional and personal lives.

Continuing the conversation about the booze business in the face of the pandemic, I had the chance to sit down this week with my longtime friend Nicolas Palazzi to discuss retail logistics, supply chain woes, and all the other challenges facing importers and distributors with COVID-19 spiking once again.