Back Bar

Manhattan: an island, a drink and a park for the people.

As New York City grew it needed a place. A place for people to walk, to play, to promenade, to relax. A place with green. Meanwhile there was more and more money pouring into bars and the gentlemen barkeepers of the gilded age were experimenting with all kinds of new drinks from all over the world, including this new stuff from Italy called sweet vermouth. Somehow Central Park and the Manhattan stood the test of time and became not just for the few, but for the many. Special guests this week are Robert Simonson author of “A Proper Drink” and Kyle Sallee of Central Park Food Tours.

Please SUBSCRIBE and RATE the show if you can. Join us every two weeks as we talk about history's favorite drinks and how what we drink shapes history. To see what's coming next follow Greg on instagram @100ProofGreg. #drinkinghistory

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A midseason spirit-free episode of Back Bar about questionable morality and the golden age of Hollywood. 

1930s cinema was obsessed with purity and in young Shirley Temple, a blonde, curly-haired eight-year-old they found exactly the avatar of innocence they were looking for. Meanwhile soda fountains were on the rise, but like the movies of Hays code Hollywood there was more under the surface than just innocence and bubble good times. Special guests this week are Jim Kearns of Happiest Hour and Slowly Shirley and David Schwartz, Chief Curator of the Museum of the Moving Image.

Please SUBSCRIBE and RATE the show if you can. Join us every two weeks as we talk about history's favorite drinks and how what we drink shapes history. To see what's coming next follow Greg on instagram @100ProofGreg. #drinkinghistory

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See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Internet memes may have invaded our brains but they brought back the Aviation too.

It was the early 2000s and cocktail bars were taking off along with a crazy little idea called the internet. People from all over the world were making funny gifs, pictures and sayings while in the east village Sasha Petraske opened a tiny little bar with no sign called Milk & Honey. As one grew it fed off the other one to spread ideas, methods, fads, crazes and all sorts of notions until the cocktail bar as we know it today took shape. Special guests this week are Tom Richter of Tomr’s Tonic, Greg Boehm of Cocktail Kingdom and Eileen Fisher of Hotaling & Co.

Please SUBSCRIBE and RATE the show if you can. Join us every two weeks as we talk about history's favorite drinks and how what we drink shapes history. To see what's coming next follow Greg on instagram @100ProofGreg. #drinkinghistory

Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Back Bar by becoming a member!

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See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Bloody Mary and the curiously counter-culture history of brunch. 

Brunch was born over a hundred years ago and since then it’s been a lot of things to a lot of people: a reason to relax, a time for over-indulgence, an excuse to get laid. So what’s happened to it in the last couple decades and what do we do when our counterculture becomes just… culture? We also look at the Bloody Mary, an equally curious drink and brunch’s constant companion. Special guests this week are Sother Teague, beverage director of Amor y Amargo, Chef Kyle Bailey of the Salt Line in Washington, DC and Brian Bartels, author of the book “The Bloody Mary.”

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Please SUBSCRIBE and RATE the show if you can. Join us every two weeks as we talk about history's favorite drinks and how what we drink shapes history. To see what's coming next follow Greg on instagram @100ProofGreg. #drinkinghistory

Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Back Bar by becoming a member!

Back Bar is Powered by Simplecast.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Rum, Sugar, Lime, Water. The daiquiri seems simple, right? 

Europeans came to the Caribbean and rum followed. Shortly after that we get the “holy trinity” of tropical drinks - rum, sugar and lime. It’s such a simple concept but like the history of the Caribbean itself it gets much, much more complicated than that. Special guests this week are Jillian Vose, beverage director of Dead Rabbit in New York City and Professor Fred Smith of the College of William & Mary

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Please SUBSCRIBE and RATE the show if you can. Join us every two weeks as we talk about history's favorite drinks and how what we drink shapes history. To see what's coming next follow Greg on instagram @100ProofGreg. #drinkinghistory

Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Back Bar by becoming a member!

Back Bar is Powered by Simplecast.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The story of American prohibition: temperance, scapegoating, hypocrisy and their unlikely love child the Margarita. 

It’s 1920 and alcohol is now constitutionally illegal in the United States. This week we look at the dark forces that got us there, what happened when Americans couldn’t drink and how the noble experiment eventually collapsed thirteen years later. We also look at the Margarita, a curious creation that was born south of the border that found its way north in the 20th century. Guests this week are Derek Brown from the Columbia Room in Washington, DC and David Suro-Piňera of Siembra Azul.

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Please SUBSCRIBE and RATE the show if you can. Join us every two weeks as we talk about history's favorite drinks and how what we drink shapes history. To see what's coming next follow Greg on instagram @100ProofGreg. #drinkinghistory

Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Back Bar by becoming a member!

Back Bar is Powered by Simplecast.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Martini, the 1960s and how hand-in-hand they went wrong together. 

This week on Back Bar we explore the age of fancy cars, white picket fences, and Mad Men. It was the 1960s and America was changing, becoming more suburban, more wealthy and more of the same - at least on the surface. Over top of this stewing counterculture was the Martini, a classy drink that came roaring into fashion with the end of WWII and fell from grace along with another foreign war only a few years later. Our guests this week are Professor Fred Smith from the College of William & Mary and Scott Harris from Virginia’s Catoctin Creek Distilling.

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Please SUBSCRIBE and RATE the show if you can. Join us every two weeks as we talk about history's favorite drinks and how what we drink shapes history. To see what's coming next follow Greg on instagram @100ProofGreg. #drinkinghistory

Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Back Bar by becoming a member!

Back Bar is Powered by Simplecast.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The story of the Sazerac, how it changed, adapted, evolved and kept pace with the rest of the cocktail world in the pilot episode of Back Bar. 

On the pilot episode of Back Bar host Greg Benson delves into the history of the Sazerac, a cocktail that’s changed over the years to become something uniquely American. Through historical luminaries like “Cocktail Bill” Boothby and “Professor” Jerry Thomas along with modern day giants like Dale DeGroff we see how the Sazerac and drinking as a whole evolved over the past 200 years. Along for the ride are Sother Teague, beverage director of Amor y Amargo, Tales of the Cocktail President Caroline Rosen and Cocktail Kingdom CEO Greg Boehm.

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Please SUBSCRIBE and RATE the show if you can. Join us every two weeks as we talk about history's favorite drinks and how what we drink shapes history. To see what's coming next follow Greg on instagram @100ProofGreg. #drinkinghistory

Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Back Bar by becoming a member!

Back Bar is Powered by Simplecast.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Back Bar is a rollicking deep dive into the events, phenomenon, relationships and human foibles that shaped the world’s most iconic drinks. Hosted by food and beverage writer Greg Benson and featuring guest appearances from industry luminaries like Derek Brown, Robert Simonson and Sother Teague, Back Bar’s vaudevillian approach to storytelling is a refreshing cocktail of history and humor.

Back Bar is Powered by Simplecast.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.