Fans of true crime, improv comedy, and long-form interviews unite! The podcast space has, in just 20 years, arrived at a place where every niche interest imaginable can now be explored with episode after episode of either exhaustively researched dissection or an extemporaneous shooting of the breeze.

Not to be left out, there’s a great show for us cocktail obsessives, too, and it even won Tales of the Cocktail Foundation’s 2023 Spirited Award for Best Broadcast, Podcast, or Online Video Series! The Speakeasy podcast began in 2011 as a series of interviews between host Damon Boelte and esteemed guests from the bar and spirits industries. The show has been chugging along ever since, collecting a pair of cohosts—Sother Teague and Greg Benson—and expanding the mission to offer a 360-degree view of the current state of their business. Everything you want to know about the wheres, hows, and whys of what’s in the glass, these three have most likely covered it.

We’ve been loving the show so much lately that, when it came time to plan our upcoming box, the three voices behind it topped the list! And, considering the show’s title—why not travel back in time to honor the spirit of that era, while we’re at it?! The name of the game back in the early 1900s was low overhead and even lower awareness. The quieter the cocktail sipping—ones mainly made from bootlegged or bathtub-derived spirits—the better. And the speakeasy is a tradition that continues on to this day, albeit due to a desire for aesthetic exclusivity rather than legal necessity. Establishments currently exist around the world where you may need to navigate a repurposed public lavatory, a flower shop refrigerator, or even the scoreboard at an MLB stadium to gain entry. 

To tap into this mindset of hush-hush hideaways, follow the three hosts to The Speakeasy Box, where they’re whipping up gin cocktails that have some conceptual roots in the past, but are packed with a forward-thinking creativity that can only exist in the ’20s of today. No password, no nondescript brick wall to push, just some easygoing and delicious gin fun right to your door! Subscribe now to get yours.

The gin and tonic. Where there’s fresh air, a sliver of a sunset, and an open bar, it’s difficult to ever pass up such a refreshing pick-me-up. Damon Boelte’s G&T relies on gin and an elite style of tonic from Betty Buzz to bring those best-party-ever vibes. But it’s his next clever turn that won’t go unnoticed: swapping out the single lonely citrus wedge for a warming wave of tropical, buttery-sweet pandan and banana. Alert your friends and neighbors, because the Pan-Dana Tonic is ready to switch your next gathering from repetitious to roaring!

Damon is a co-owner of the award-winning Brooklyn cocktail bar Grand Army as well as the experiential specialist for the California Brandy House in Napa. He has been a major fixture in the NYC mixology community for almost two decades, has won multiple awards in broadcast journalism as the creator and host of The Speakeasy, and is a contributing cocktail and spirits writer for Bon Appétit, Condé Nast Traveler, Wired, Eater, and many others.

The days of slapdash spirit-making and furtively flavoring your homemade gin like Kramer mixing up a shower salad on Seinfeld are thankfully over. But as the amazingly aromatic Bathtub Old Fashioned proves, it’s still a tasty exercise to take in mind the bouquet of botanicals in your gin and then pitch in some of your own to match. To honor those maverick mixologists of yore, Greg Benson’s strategy is also firmly more is more—thyme-rooibos syrup, hopped pear bitters, aloe, and a thyme-rosemary aromatic spritz—never intending to wash away the great flavors of our much-improved modern gins but to rub-a-dub-dub in delicious harmony right along with them!

Greg is a Brooklyn-based writer, bartender, and educator. He has run bar programs in Washington, DC, NYC, and Glasgow, Scotland, and his work has appeared in The Knot, the Washington City Paper, and The Washington Post.

There’s famously no citrus on the menu at Sother Teague’s stirring bitters-heavy bar in NYC, Amor y Amargo—which might surprise you after a taste of his Bear Hat, a master stroke of bright fruit flavor served either daintily chilled and up in a Nick & Nora glass or warm in an Irish coffee mug or discreet teacup—which will help throw off any nosey parkers or prying special agents! 

The cocktail—a nod to one of the world’s most beloved bruins who always kept a marmalade sandwich in his hat for emergencies—certainly includes that irresistible orange jam, along with gin, a salted Ceylon citrus syrup, drops of vanilla extract, and grated nutmeg. Top the warm version with a dollop of whipped cream or, as Sother suggests, top the cool one with it, too! Why not? Paddington Brown would surely agree.

Sother is the beverage director at New York’s Amor y Amargo and host of The Speakeasy on Heritage Radio Network. In 2018, he was honored with Wine Enthusiast’s Mixologist of the Year Award, and he has authored two books, I’m Just Here for the Drinks and Let’s Get Blitzen. He’s the creator of Driftwood Bitters and Garden Party Bitters, and his bar and restaurant company, Overthrow Hospitality, is fast becoming a pioneer in the vegan hospitality sector. Catch up on all the Sother favorites in the S&S catalog, including Ash and Elm, Rye-napple Express, The Weekender, Dragon Tears, Without a Country, and Slippery Slopes.

The Speakeasy Box is now, admittedly, the worst-kept secret in the world. But with such a strong love for gin and this podcast and its hosts, how could it not be! Sign up today and join our members-only but quite inclusive club to toast a cocktail (or three!) to these titanic and now-trophied broadcasters.

🍌🛁☕,
The Shaker & Spoon Team

*not vegan: ALO Exposed aloe vera juice drink contains honey
*potential allergens: Nutmeg originally processed in a facility that contains peanuts, tree nuts, soy, milk, wheat, and sesame seeds [according to Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) and HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points)].