The Curious Bartender Podcast

Julio Bermejo is the owner of Tommy's Mexican Restaurant in San Francisco, which is the bar credited by the Wall Street Journal as "the epicentre of tequila in the United States" and the place where the Tommy's Margarita was created in the 90's. In this episode we trace his journey from the family's Yucatecan roots and the early days of a restaurant that didn't even hold a liquor licence until 1972, through his decision in the mid-1980s to go exclusively 100% agave on the well — years before the mainstream caught up — and into the creation of the Blue Agave Club, now with over 7,000 members worldwide. We get into the philosophy behind the Tommy's Margarita itself: why agave syrup replaced triple sec, and how Dre Masso, Henry Besant and others carried the drink into bars globally before it became the first venue-specific cocktail ever added to the IBA Official list. Julio also shares what his early distillery trips taught him, from meetings with Guillermo Romo de la Peña at Herradura, Don Felipe Camarena at Tapatio and Fernando Gonzales at Siete Leguas, to the lesson about never putting your opinions in a tequila menu — as well as his principled stance on regulation and safety, the Highland versus Valley divide, what agave boom-and-bust cycles reveal about the industry, and the persistent problem of contracted tequilas and shifting NOM numbers. We also talk about Tommy's post-pandemic reality, what his mother Elmy — now 92 — still brings to the place, and the 60 pop-ups in 20-plus countries he did to mark the restaurant's 60th anniversary.🍋‍🟩 Fever-Tree - For the very best mixers that taste pretty damn good even by themselves☕ Algebra Drinks - The world's best coffee liqueur (partly because it's low in sugar - get 15% off at http://www.algebradrinks.com with the code CURIOUS15🌾 Belvedere Vodka - Organic vodka, with substance, made from Polish rye and absolutely no additives.🍷 Denver & Liely - The best glassware on the planet - get 15% off at http://www.denverandliely.com with the code CURIOUS15

Yumi Yoshikawa is the global brand ambassador for Chichibu Distillery, the small operation in Saitama Prefecture, Japan, which has become the most celebrated whisky producer in the world.
We map out the full picture: two malt distilleries in Chichibu and a brand-new grain distillery that started production in Hokkaido in January 2026, before going deep into what actually happens at Distillery I — the multi-origin barley programme, the floor malting Ichiro Akuto spent years visiting England to learn, the Mizunara oak washbacks and the lactic bacteria they bring to every fermentation, and the switch to direct fire at Distillery II that Ichiro always wanted but waited a decade to attempt.
We discuss cask management and work through an extraordinary range of wood: bourbon, sherry, wine, cognac, rum, Madeira, port, IPA beer, tequila and the occasional grappa cask. We taste three whiskies together, including the first UK pour of the Distillery II single malt, an unreleased Double Distilleries blend, and a cask sample straight from the warehouse — seven years old, local Japanese barley, 59.4%, 100% Mizunara Oak — that has no right to taste as good as it does.
We also cover Ichiro's story: 21 generations of brewing, the loss of Hanyu, the rescue of 400 casks and the two years he spent visiting 2,000 bars across Japan to build support for a distillery he hadn't yet opened.
Yumi's own journey closes things out: a bartender who cycled around Scotland with her CV, worked at The Highlander Inn in Craigellachie alongside a young Tatsuya Minagawa, negotiated simultaneous seasons at both The Highlander and Bruichladdich, and joined Chichibu in 2013

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Freddy Andreasson is a 6'4" Swede from the small town of Falkenburg who grew up working a conveyor belt at the Falcon Brewery, spent his late teens dealing weed, and bought a one-way ticket to Melbourne with the proceeds.He arrived in Melbourne with nowhere to stay and a litre of Jim Beam in his bag. That journey through Australian kitchens and coffee machines, via a period of real personal darkness in Guadalajara, eventually led him to co-found El Gallo Altanero in 2017: a bar dedicated entirely to independent agave spirits from Jalisco, with a menu that changed every week. Eight years in, the bar the bar has been featured on global 50 Best list, and Freddy has just been named the 2026 Altos Bartenders' Bartender Award winner for North America — the only peer-voted accolade in the programme. On the episode we talk about what it actually takes to earn the trust of Mexican tequila producers as an outsider, why terroir means more in agave than almost anywhere else in the spirits world, and what happened when the 50 Best spotlight hit a bar that was never designed to be a destination. We also get into the new bar — Fandango, a classics-only concept two years in the making, built around a simple question: what do you actually want to drink? — plus the politics of mezcal DOCs, raicilla, why the most romantic bars in the world are often the most stubborn, and a dream distillery project coming soon.
With thanks to our sponsors:
🍋‍🟩 Fever-Tree - For the very best mixers that taste pretty damn good even by themselves
🌾 Belvedere Vodka - Organic vodka, with substance, made from Polish rye and absolutely no additives.
🍷 Denver & Liely - The best glassware on the planet - get 15% off at http://www.denverandliely.com with the code CURIOUS15

📷 Follow me on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tristanstephenson/📚 I've written quite a few books on spirits and cocktails - https://www.thecuriousbartender.com/

Liam Davy is Director of Bars at Hawksmoor, the British steakhouse group that's grown from a single Spitalfields opening in 2006 to fourteen sites across the UK, Ireland and the US, with Boston due in September. We sat down after a night at Hawksmoor's new St Pancras Martini Bar, which has sold over twenty thousand martinis since November.On the episode we dig into what it's like running a bar programme across cities and countries: what travels, what doesn't, and why a steakhouse group has bet so hard on the martini. We talk about the gin boom and its bust, why the Hawksmoor cocktail list is deliberately unfussy and built around the steakhouse experience, and what genuine training looks like inside a fast-growing group. We also get into his time outside Hawksmoor — running the Bad Sports taco place on Hackney Road and co-creating the War in Terroir Instagram account, the wine influencer parody that started during a stretch of unemployment and ended up shaping how a lot of the trade now talks about natural wine. Along the way we cover the cost of going out, what Gen Z actually want from bars, hospitality in the age of top-50 lists and content creators, the operators he genuinely rates — Dukes, the Connaught, Attaboy, Three Sheets, Bar Snack — the institutions that never miss, the elegant decline of bars that fall off lists, the state of British pubs, the resurgence of mezcal, and of course Shaky Pete's Ginger Brew.

🍷 War on Terroir - https://www.instagram.com/waronterroir/A shout out to our sponsors:🍋‍🟩 Fever-Tree - For the very best mixers that taste pretty damn good even by themselves☕ Algebra Drinks - The world's best coffee liqueur (partly because it's low in sugar - get 15% off at https://www.algebradrinks.com with the code CURIOUS15🌾 Belvedere Vodka - Organic vodka, with substance, made from Polish rye with absolutely no additives🍷 Denver & Liely - The best glassware on the planet - get 15% off at https://www.denverandliely.com with the code CURIOUS15

00:00:00 Hawksmoor's new Martini Bar at St Pancras00:02:34 14 restaurants and Boston coming next00:03:19 Why a martini bar00:05:08 The martini's cultural moment00:08:13 Gin's boom, bubble and aftermath00:09:52 Running a bar programme across cities and countries00:13:37 Lessons from the great American steakhouses00:17:03 How a British steakhouse plays in America00:21:39 Recruitment and training inside a growing group00:27:07 Liam's Hawksmoor history00:28:45 Bad Sports, hot dogs and Surfside Cornwall00:43:06 Lessons for anyone opening their own place00:47:38 The state of pubs and independents00:52:28 Who's doing it right00:55:33 The cost of going out01:00:19 Gen Z, phones and the truth about drinking habits01:09:59 War on Terroir: the wine parody Instagram01:14:51 Tribal drinking, natural wine, mezcal01:21:15 We are not normal: rethinking who bars are for01:25:26 Hospitality as entertainment and top 50 culture01:32:26 Dukes, Connaught, attaboy: institutions that don't miss01:39:52 Awards, recognition and elegant decline01:43:50 Shaky Pete's Ginger Brew01:46:45 20,000 martinis since November01:47:42 The Sour Cherry Negroni's lockdown roots01:48:36 Boston Hawksmoor01:55:05 Bringing UK bars on tour01:59:07 Mezcal, education and final thoughts📷 Follow me on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tristanstephenson/📚 I've written quite a few books on spirits and cocktails - https://www.thecuriousbartender.com/

Thibaut Hontanx is only the seventh master blender in Courvoisier's nearly 200-year history, but that might not be the most interesting thing about his incredibly eclectic career.
From growing up around his grandfather's sawmill in France, to arriving in South Africa at 21 with a brief and a blank piece of paper to build the country's first agave spirits distillery from scratch, to seven years at Hennessy deepening his understanding of cognac ageing — all while completing an oenology degree in Bordeaux mid-career. Thibaut has accumulated a breadth of experience that very few people in this industry can match. We follow him to Martinique, where he oversaw production at Rhum Clément, and explore the surprising parallels between rhum agricole and cognac — two AOC-protected, terroir-driven spirits that share a philosophy but feel like completely different worlds.
Back in Cognac, we get into the technical craft behind Courvoisier's house style, the challenges of recent vintages in a changing climate, new grape varieties being trialled within the AOC, and what it means to hold a role where the decisions you make today will be drunk by someone thirty years from now. And why growing up around a sawmill turns out to be surprisingly useful preparation for a life spent thinking about oak.
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