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Serves You Right
Serves You Right episodes
- #116 Glenmodan: Even Whiskey Experts Fear This Test
Most whiskey training gets the order backwards. Bartenders and servers get handed tasting notes, distillery trivia, region maps, and cask-finish jargon and then get sent out to sell scotch to guests who are quietly terrified of mispronouncing the bottle. GlenmoDan, Glenmorangie's whisky educator and a Master Scotch holder through the Council of Whisky Masters, argues that every one of those details is worthless until you deal with the thing underneath: anxiety. Mispronunciation, unfamiliar categories, self-identification ("I'm not a whiskey person"): these are anxiety drivers, and anxiety is inversely tied to perceived value. Kill the anxiety and the guest will follow you anywhere. Lead with the annoying detail and you've built the wall yourself.
Expect to Learn:
- The organizing principle that makes 160 Scottish single malt distilleries stop feeling like noise
- Why a guest saying "I don't do gin" is an invitation, not a rejection, and the move that works
- The certification that specifically trains you to taste around your own confirmation bias
- Why Glenmodan almost walked out of his whiskey tasting
- Why finishing fourth in your category can be more creatively valuable than finishing first
Links:
- GlenmoDan on Instagram — @glenmodan
- MH Whisky Central / MH Whisky School
- YouTube: nine types of water, one whisky
- Council of Whisky Masters
- WSET (Wine & Spirit Education Trust)
- Edinburgh Whisky Academy
- Tequila Wars by Ted Genoways
- Dave Elitch
Service starts now.
Follow the show: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube
I talk to people in and around the service industry space. I'm looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in bars. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess that can be a life working in bars, and help others that are feeling similarly confused and/or lost. Check out the Podcast Website Here and get in touch with me!
Classic Episodes You May Like:
- Doug Frost MW MS
- Jeffrey Morgenthaler
- ET: Entrepreneur (and creator of Surfer on Acid)
- Edward Slingerland's Masterful work on Intoxication
- Andrew Hurley of Vegas.Wine
- Chris Tunstall of A Bar Above
- Tony Abou-Ganim
- Bobby "G" Gleason
As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
1 hr 19 min - #115 Andrew Roy: Guest on Restaurant Rockstars
Restaurant labor costs, prime cost control, staff accountability, guest recovery, and menu pricing all break in the same place: no one wrote the standard down, so no one can be held to it. If your turnover feels random, your margins feel thinner every period, and your negative reviews sit unanswered, the problem is not the market. It is that your expectations, your discipline track, your pre shift, and your recovery protocol live in your head instead of on paper.
Expect to learn:
- The two hour onboarding conversation that decides whether a new hire finishes training, and the twelve to fifteen non negotiables I cover every time
- Why cutting an hour of service made money, and the one number that told me it was safe to do it
- The exact reason I refuse to let staff handle guest complaints, and what I hear underneath almost every angry table
- And so much more
Service starts now.
Follow the show: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube
I talk to people in and around the service industry space. I'm looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in bars. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess that can be a life working in bars, and help others that are feeling similarly confused and/or lost. Check out the Podcast Website Here and get in touch with me!
Classic Episodes You May Like:
- Doug Frost MW MS
- Jeffrey Morgenthaler
- ET: Entrepreneur (and creator of Surfer on Acid)
- Edward Slingerland's Masterful work on Intoxication
- Andrew Hurley of Vegas.Wine
- Chris Tunstall of A Bar Above
- Tony Abou-Ganim
- Bobby "G" Gleason
As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
31 min - #114 Andrew Neather: What's My Wine Carbon Footprint?
If you think buying "sustainable" wine means grabbing the bottle with a leaf on the label, you might want to listen to this episode. Most drinkers (and plenty of pros) obsess over what's in the glass while ignoring the glass itself, the shipping, the labor, and the recycling stream that quietly decides a bottle's real footprint. This conversation with wine writer and Rooted in Change author Andrew Neather is the missing context: climate change, bottle weight, organic vs. biodynamic, regenerative agriculture, migrant labor in Champagne, bulk shipping, and glass recycling…the full supply chain most sustainability talk skips. If you buy, sell, pour, or just drink wine, this is the framework that makes your choices actually count.
Expect to Learn:
- Why roughly 40% of a bottle's carbon footprint has nothing to do with the wine
- The single bottle trait to avoid on any shelf, and why it's pure marketing
- Where your buying power actually lives
- What "sustainable" really means for the farmer, not just the planet
- The low-risk experiment turning skeptical winemakers into believers
- Why recycling your wine bottles may not do what you think it does
Links:
- Rooted in Change by Andy Neather & Jane Masters (Amazon / Académie du Vin Library)
- Andy Neather's Substack — A View From My Table
- Alice Feiring’s Episode on Serves You Right
Service starts now.
Follow the show: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube
I talk to people in and around the service industry space. I'm looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in bars. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess that can be a life working in bars, and help others that are feeling similarly confused and/or lost. Check out the Podcast Website Here and get in touch with me!
Classic Episodes You May Like:
- Doug Frost MW MS
- Jeffrey Morgenthaler
- ET: Entrepreneur (and creator of Surfer on Acid)
- Edward Slingerland's Masterful work on Intoxication
- Andrew Hurley of Vegas.Wine
- Chris Tunstall of A Bar Above
- Tony Abou-Ganim
- Bobby "G" Gleason
As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
52 min - #113 Ken MacKenzie: You Didn't Know Your Mixer Makes the Drink
EXCLUSIVE:
Listeners of the show get a 20% off:Code: SERVESU20
- For General Consumers EXCLUDING Wholesalers
- For Online Store
- 20% off entire order
- No minimum purchase requirement
- One use per customer
- Can’t combine with other discounts
- Active until Jun 24, 2027
If you're still treating your mixer as an afterthought, reaching for shelf-stable syrup, high-fructose sour mix, or that cloudy neon bottle that's outlasted three summers…you're quietly capping how great your cocktails and mocktails can ever get. No amount of premium tequila, mezcal, or additive-free spirit rescues a bad mixer when it makes up two-thirds of the glass. This episode with Fresh Victor founder Ken MacKenzie is the answer: a deep dish on cold-pressed citrus, clean-label sourcing, gentle pasteurization, shelf life, denomination-of-origin tequila, the quality-versus-convenience battle, and what it actually takes to build a first-to-category product from scratch.
Expect to Learn:
- Why two-thirds of your margarita decides whether it's memorable or forgettable, and what most bars get wrong
- The counterintuitive lesson Ken's wife taught him about spice that saved an entire product line
- What eighteen months of failed production runs revealed about a "simple" four-ingredient recipe
- How Mexico tracks every single agave plant from planting to bottle and why it changes what's in your glass
- The one word on the Fresh Victor label that lawyers fought over, and why it matters more than you'd think
Links:
- Fresh Victor
Service starts now.
Follow the show: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube
I talk to people in and around the service industry space. I'm looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in bars. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess that can be a life working in bars, and help others that are feeling similarly confused and/or lost. Check out the Podcast Website Here and get in touch with me!
Classic Episodes You May Like:
- Doug Frost MW MS
- Jeffrey Morgenthaler
- ET: Entrepreneur (and creator of Surfer on Acid)
- Edward Slingerland's Masterful work on Intoxication
- Andrew Hurley of Vegas.Wine
- Chris Tunstall of A Bar Above
- Tony Abou-Ganim
- Bobby "G" Gleason
As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
45 min - #112 John deBary: Non-Alcoholic Drinks That Beat the Real Thing
Building drinks is pretty straightforward…until you try to build one without alcohol and watch it collapse. Non-alcoholic cocktails, zero-proof drinks, mocktails, spirit-free builds: whatever you call them, they expose the gap between memorizing recipes and actually understanding balance, acidity, sugar, and structure. In this episode John deBary, the former bar director of PDT and Momofuku, founder of Proteau, co-founder of the Restaurant Workers' Community Foundation, and author of The Nonalcoholic Bar and Drink What You Want, argues that if you can't make a great drink without booze, you don't really know what makes the drink great in the first place. He breaks down why alcohol is a preservative first and a flavor second and why the real money in the category isn't behind the bar at all.
Expect to Learn:
- Why removing the alcohol exposes the one element every weak cocktail is secretly leaning on
- Why non-alcoholic cocktails are a loss leader and the smarter play for actually making money in the category
- The naming distinction between "mocktail," "non-alcoholic," and "zero proof" that will help a non-drinker feel seen
- Which "bad" drink John swears is secretly great…and what your reaction to it reveals about your own palate
Links:
- The Nonalcoholic Bar: Classic and Creative Cocktails for Everyone
- Drink What You Want
- Saved by the Bellini
- John deBary on Instagram (@jnd3001)
- John's Website
- Lyre’s (Non-alcoholic drink maker mentioned in the book and Andrew’s restaurant)
Service starts now.
Follow the show: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube
I talk to people in and around the service industry space. I'm looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in bars. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess that can be a life working in bars, and help others that are feeling similarly confused and/or lost. Check out the Podcast Website Here and get in touch with me!
Classic Episodes You May Like:
- Doug Frost MW MS
- Jeffrey Morgenthaler
- ET: Entrepreneur (and creator of Surfer on Acid)
- Edward Slingerland's Masterful work on Intoxication
- Andrew Hurley of Vegas.Wine
- Chris Tunstall of A Bar Above
- Tony Abou-Ganim
- Bobby "G" Gleason
As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
44 min - #111 Fred Provenza: What If Your Cravings Were Never the Problem?
You've been told to count macros, read labels, and white-knuckle every craving into submission…and it's quietly failing you. This episode argues the problem was never your discipline. It's that you've been severed from nutritional wisdom: the body's built-in system for sensing what it actually needs and steering you toward it through flavor and feedback. Fred Provenza, who studied this at Utah State for 35 years and shaped the science behind Mark Schatzker's The Dorito Effect and Steak, walks through how animals self-medicate, why "it just tastes good" is the most misunderstood phrase in nutrition, and why food that looks perfect can carry almost no nourishment at all. If you make a living serving food or just eat three times a day on autopilot, then this episode is for you.
Expect to Learn:
- Why a deficient goat will eat something genuinely disgusting to fix itself, and what that says about your own "weird" cravings
- The three "legs of the stool" that all have to be intact before your body can guide your diet (break one and the whole thing collapses)
- Why "it just tastes good" is hiding a far more interesting answer than you think
- How farming for yield stripped both the flavor and the nourishment out of food that looks flawless
- The single grocery-store change Fred and his wife made that removed the willpower battle entirely
Links:
- Nourishment — Fred Provenza (book)
- Nourishment — audiobook adaptation
- "Cosmic Dreamings"
- Mark Schatzker on Serves You Right Podcast
Service starts now.
Follow the show: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube
I talk to people in and around the service industry space. I'm looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in bars. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess that can be a life working in bars, and help others that are feeling similarly confused and/or lost. Check out the Podcast Website Here and get in touch with me!
Classic Episodes You May Like:
- Doug Frost MW MS
- Jeffrey Morgenthaler
- ET: Entrepreneur (and creator of Surfer on Acid)
- Edward Slingerland's Masterful work on Intoxication
- Andrew Hurley of Vegas.Wine
- Chris Tunstall of A Bar Above
- Tony Abou-Ganim
- Bobby "G" Gleason
As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
53 min - #110 Frankie Francis: The Gaming Mixologist
If you think going viral is about showcasing your best work, you may have it backward! Most bartenders, creators, and brand-builders chase polish, perfect recipes, and craft credibility, then wonder why the algorithm ignores them. Frankie Francis, the Gaming Mixologist, learned the uncomfortable truth across four-plus years, hundreds of thousands of followers, and a video that neared 17 million views: what you're proud of and what actually are sometimes different things! This conversation breaks down the real mechanics of building a cocktail content brand from a basement: viral video game cocktails, landing liquor-brand partnerships, surviving online negativity, and the discipline to keep posting when your best ideas flop.
Expect to Learn:
- The exact move Frankie pulls on a stubborn "I like everything" guest to find the one drink they'll actually love
- The advice a massive creator gave him about handling hate that he still struggles to follow
- How a cold DM to a creator with millions of followers turned into a 12-hour day and a real friendship
- The legal wall standing between Frankie and the book he's wanted to publish since day one
Links:
- Gaming Mixologist: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube
Service starts now.
Follow the show: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube
I talk to people in and around the service industry space. I'm looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in bars. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess that can be a life working in bars, and help others that are feeling similarly confused and/or lost. Check out the Podcast Website Here and get in touch with me!
Classic Episodes You May Like:
- Doug Frost MW MS
- Jeffrey Morgenthaler
- ET: Entrepreneur (and creator of Surfer on Acid)
- Edward Slingerland's Masterful work on Intoxication
- Andrew Hurley of Vegas.Wine
- Chris Tunstall of A Bar Above
- Tony Abou-Ganim
- Bobby "G" Gleason
As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
50 min - #109 Jim Fullmer: How Farming Can Get Its Soul Back
You think you know what's in your glass. You read "organic," you nod, you sell it, you drink it. But "organic wine" legally only means no added sulfites…the grapes underneath can be acidified, sugared, watered, and yeast-engineered into a product that tastes like a winemaker's signature instead of a place. This episode addresses that mismatch. Jim Fullmer, lifelong Oregon farmer, blackberry vinegar producer, and former Executive Director of the Demeter Association, walks through biodynamic agriculture, terroir, Rudolf Steiner's 1924 origins, the difference between conventional input-dependent farming and a self-generating living system, and why authenticity, not marketing, is the only thing that survives a bad vintage. If you work in the beverage industry and you've been confused over the organic-vs-biodynamic conversation, this is the missing framework.
Expect to Learn:
- Why "organic wine" might mean far less than you've been telling guests
- The two Demeter wine categories…and why one of them sparked a twenty-year argument
- How the moon measurably changes what happens inside a grape
- What "regenerative" actually meant before corporations started redefining it
- The reason critics mock biodynamics, then quietly convert their own vineyards
Links:
- Hoskins Berry Farm
- Demeter Association (biodynamic certification)
- Biodynamic-Farm-Standard-2025
- Alice Feiring on Serves You Right
Service starts now.
Follow the show: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube
I talk to people in and around the service industry space. I'm looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in bars. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess that can be a life working in bars, and help others that are feeling similarly confused and/or lost. Check out the Podcast Website Here and get in touch with me!
Classic Episodes You May Like:
- Doug Frost MW MS
- Jeffrey Morgenthaler
- ET: Entrepreneur (and creator of Surfer on Acid)
- Edward Slingerland's Masterful work on Intoxication
- Andrew Hurley of Vegas.Wine
- Chris Tunstall of A Bar Above
- Tony Abou-Ganim
- Bobby "G" Gleason
As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
48 min - #108 Jordan Hughes: The High Proof Preacher
You may be treating content like a second job you don't have time for, and that’d be exactly why you're stuck. Most bartenders, chefs, and hospitality pros assume going online means quitting the floor to become a "creator," buying expensive cameras, and chasing trends. Jordan Hughes, AKA The High Proof Preacher, built an entire career, a book, a cocktail-photography education platform, and a thriving community on the opposite bet: document what you already do, master light instead of gear, and treat classic templates like the old fashioned as endlessly remixable. This episode is the missing reframe for anyone who feels invisible behind the bar but suspects there's a bigger game to play.
Expect to Learn:
- The one-word shift that turns "I don't have time for content" into a habit you can actually keep
- Why your camera isn't the problem…and the cheap, pocket-sized fix that changes every cocktail photo
- How a youth pastor's burnout became the unlikely origin of a full-time drinks career
- The old fashioned experiment so far out it looked like bog water, and why it actually workedThe bet Jordan's making on community over reach as AI floods every feed with slop
Links:
- The High Proof Preacher (Instagram)
- Cocktail Camera Insta
- Cocktail Camera Youtube
- Jordan's online cocktail community
- Nanlite Pavo Tube (recommended light)
- Twist: Your Guide to Creating Inspired Craft Cocktails (Jordan's Book)
Service starts now.
Follow the show: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube
I talk to people in and around the service industry space. I'm looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in bars. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess that can be a life working in bars, and help others that are feeling similarly confused and/or lost. Check out the Podcast Website Here and get in touch with me!
Classic Episodes You May Like:
- Doug Frost MW MS
- Jeffrey Morgenthaler
- ET: Entrepreneur (and creator of Surfer on Acid)
- Edward Slingerland's Masterful work on Intoxication
- Andrew Hurley of Vegas.Wine
- Chris Tunstall of A Bar Above
- Tony Abou-Ganim
- Bobby "G" Gleason
As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
50 min - #107 Connor Treacy: You Didn't Know Nightclubs Have an Expiration Date
Most people trying to launch a venue, a brand, or a career do the exact opposite of what works. They announce loudly, chase the grand opening, and expect to sustain that hype week after week…then wonder why the buzz dies inside a month. Connor Treacy spent over a decade in nightlife, music management, and event production learning that attention is engineered, not announced. From renting out mansions at nineteen to building the celebrity speakeasy Off Sunset, signing acts at Interscope, and now producing political events for tens of thousands, he's run the entire risk spectrum: fronting his own cash, taking equity, eating brutal losses, and stacking Grammys.
Expect to Learn:
- Why keeping Off Sunset off Google Maps made it harder to get into…and why that worked
- The string of "sure thing" events that nearly ended his career before it started
- How to structure a deal so you keep the upside without carrying the liability
- The hidden expiration date built into almost every nightclub in America
- Why shedding the "nightclub guy" label opened doors that money couldn't
Links:
- Connor Treacy — connortreacy.com
- Instagram @theconnortreacy
- LinkedIn — Connor Treacy
Service starts now.
Follow the show: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube
I talk to people in and around the service industry space. I'm looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in bars. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess that can be a life working in bars, and help others that are feeling similarly confused and/or lost. Check out the Podcast Website Here and get in touch with me!
Classic Episodes You May Like:
- Doug Frost MW MS
- Jeffrey Morgenthaler
- ET: Entrepreneur (and creator of Surfer on Acid)
- Edward Slingerland's Masterful work on Intoxication
- Andrew Hurley of Vegas.Wine
- Chris Tunstall of A Bar Above
- Tony Abou-Ganim
- Bobby "G" Gleason
As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
43 min
About Serves You Right
From the publisher's feed
Most bartenders are great at their jobs and have no idea what to do with that...
Nobody tells you that the skills behind the bar: reading people, building experiences, thinking fast under pressure, are actually worth something. They just hand you a shaker and hope you figure it out.
Serves You Right is for bartenders who are done drifting and ready to do something. Every episode, host Andrew Roy talks with the people who are currently doing something inspiring, and pulls out exactly how they did it.
Your career behind the bar is the starting point. Not the ceiling. Let's make some drinks!